Impact of Skills on Security Job Changes During Pandemic

This report delves into the significant impact of hard and soft skills on career trajectories and job role transformations within the security industry, particularly in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. The introduction establishes the distinction between hard and soft skills, emphasizing their combined importance for professional success. The report aims to analyze the influence of these skills on changing job profiles in the security industry. A literature review explores the definitions and types of hard and soft skills, highlighting crucial hard skills like security analysis, penetration testing, application development, and cloud security, alongside essential soft skills such as adaptability, productivity, leadership, and communication. The review also examines the impact of these skills on an individual's career, including increased productivity, teamwork, and confidence. Finally, the report suggests methods for enhancing both hard and soft skills through certification courses and practical experience.

Impact of hard skills and soft
skills on career and job role
change during pandemic on
security industry

TABLE OF CONTENTS
TOPIC: “Impact of Hard skills and Soft skills on career and job role change during pandemic in
the security industry.”......................................................................................................................3
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION....................................................................................................3
Background..................................................................................................................................3
Aim..............................................................................................................................................4
Objective......................................................................................................................................4
Rationale......................................................................................................................................4
CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW.........................................................................................4
REASERCH METHADOLOGY....................................................................................................8
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................11
Books and Journals....................................................................................................................11

TOPIC: “Impact of Hard skills and Soft skills on career and job role change
during pandemic in the security industry.”
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION
By definition, soft skills are the ability of a individual which are not unique to any
particular job. These skills are required for what so ever the job profile be. Soft skills relate to
how an employee works. These include interpersonal skills, communication, listening skills and
time management and so on which showcase the personal attributes which are required for
success on the job (Hendarman, and Cantner, 2018). Managers are always looking for a
candidate with soft skills as they can contribute into making workplace more successful. Hard
skills on the other hand are acquired with the help of formal education, seminar and some other
development programs such as training an individual. It is very job specific. These include the
expertise essential for a person in order to be successful at what they are doing. These skills are
posted prior in the job description by the company. Both hard and soft skills are required in an
individual to be better than others and more suited for the job.
Background
In the job description it if often mentioned that the company is looking for an individual
having the combination of hard and soft skills. Hard skills are more technical and related to some
specific knowledge and training whereas, soft skills are more into and about personality traits for
example leadership, communication and many such. Both the skill set are required in an
employee to perform efficiently, be successful and a level up in most of the jobs. Pandemic has
disrupted career of many young people (Putra, and et.al., 2020). Living and working through this
pandemic period of time has made everyone learn one thing or two. Many people started gaining
their knowledge through online means. The way of working is changed a far bit more forcing
employees to follow different work routines and finding new ways to connect with colleagues by
fetching soft skills and advancing in the hard skills. Mitie total security management is from
Mitie group working for public in facility management and security industry. This organisation is
headquartered in London, United Kingdom and is an outsourcing and energy serving company.
The impact of both hard and soft skills on an individual’s career and the changes in the functions

of a job is shown below. Pandemic has resulted in many changes in the working sector and has
lead to obligate in demanding some specific set of skills when hiring an employee.
Aim
“To analyse the influence of hard skills and soft skills in the changing roles of a job
profile in the security industry during the time of pandemic.”
Objective
 To understand the meaning and types of hard skills and soft skills.
 To find out the impact of hard skills and soft skills on an individual’s career.
 To recommend ways in which hard and soft skills can be improved.
Rationale
Many candidates make mistakes in showcasing their hard and soft skills in their resumes.
Some people do not put spotlight on their soft skills and fill their resumes with all their technical
knowledge. These small mistakes can result in rejection of a candidate but putting them well can
lead in highlighting their candidacy (Hadiyanto, and et.al., 2017). Having both hard and soft
skills can help in portraying a unique picture of oneself into the eyes of company’s manager.
These skills give an individual a competitive advantage and make them easy to scan and digest.
Having these skills can make an employee retain by the company and also develop their power to
flexible according to the changes in the market.
CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW
Theme 1: To understand the meaning and types of hard skills and soft skills.
According to Florea, and Stray, 2019, Hard skills are abilities which are specific to the
job. These are attained by education, gaining knowledge and having a hands o experience in that
specific field. These include some technical skills which help in performing the job and even
some general set of skills expertise in for example as project management. These skills are
mentioned in the ‘required’ section of a job description. Book keeping, data analysis, hands on
computer, familiarity with employment laws are some of the basic types of hard skills that each
company is looking for. In today’s job market is more competitive and tech driven than it was

before. Employers now are looking to hire an employee having wide range of skills from before
applying into the job and appearing for the interview. This all does not work on paper basis but
employers also test and verify these skills by contacting to their multiple references. In order to
stay in business, an individual must keep working on these skills and sharpen them. Jones,
Leonard, and Lang, 2018 believes that Hard skills easer to quantify and are important in field
related to analytics, engineering, programming and many more. Demand for hard skilled
employee is increasing day by day. Highlighting adeptness in software and tools is really
important for someone who wishes to work in security industry. Some of the hard skills which
are in demand in security industry are:
Security analysis: In the wide range of skills, security analysis is the most important one
which is required to understand the business related to security and others and must therefore, to
find out if there are any unique problems related to its working. Using security tools is part of
enclosing security analysis for monitoring different types of systems and situation, locate gaps
and counsel ways to minimise any attack or defects. Security analysis is the most wanted skills in
retaining security talent and thus, the most commonly used skill.
Penetration testing: Hackers are there to make use of the vulnerabilities in order to
infiltrate network systems continuing to break the records and detecting any intrusion is the area
which company tries to focus on. Company like Mitie group is looking to hire penetration testers
or ethical hackers to explore these vulnerabilities for their information technology systems which
can be easily accessed to the attackers.
Application development: Security companies are moving forward with growing trends
like security into devOps or security development. They integrate the development of software
and software related operations. This is important for large enterprise like Mitie total security
management for rapid development of their applications.
Cloud security: Having cloud skill is among the top skill areas in the security industry
which has shortage of people. Cloud computing has a lot of challenges in security which comes
with lot of work load.
Incident response: When a security incident is recognized it might take the teams or
department working in an organisation to mitigate the same. Company have incident response
plan which helps in managing security teams and creating and executing the plan at the correct

time. This skill draws knowledge from different areas related to information technology and
needs solid understanding of both IT systems and specific business sectors.
According to Van Deursen, and Mossberger, 2018, soft skills deal with personal
attributes, emotions and temper traits. These are also called as people skills or interpersonal
skills. Soft skills relate more to the ethical working and about the other’s point of view with
respect to themselves. Some jobs expect more soft skills such as a manger, director and may such
like these. Some examples of soft skills are:
Adaptability: Every individual has to come out of their comfort zone to work in an
organisation. Only constant today is change. Employee who can work well in dynamic
environment and can overcome the challenges can survive this modern market. Adaptability in
simple words is just adjusting to new tools. The employee should be updated with the
technological advancements with being able to adapt to these digital trackers.
Productive: During the working from home conditions the whole situation is being kind
of challenging for the employees but the employee productivity never went to negative marks as
said by Succi, and Canovi, 2020. Employee must be ready to be flexible and read to follow the
associated hours. This skill helps an individual to have a better work and life balance and always
be energised in the work environment.
Leadership skills: This skill includes decision making and problem solving. Have
leadership skills helps in mentoring other employees working within the organisation. These
skills are mandatory for people in the higher levels of the company like CEO or director and in
the way they become more self reliant and influential for other people. Being proactive helps the
information following towards right people.
Communication: Communication is the key to main way leading to success. Everyone
needs communication to show how adaptable they are or how much they favour working in this
job. Both verbal and non verbal communication skills can help an individual be the best out of
every other person. Non verbal communication is showing the body positivity or facial
expressions. Active listening is also considered to be a part of communication soft skill. This
helps in listening and understanding perspective of other people sitting in front of table while
putting own points respectfully.

Both hard and soft skills can be refined over working in a job and formal setting. Anyone
can be naturally talented having both the types of skill set and some might need training and
learning for the same. These create development opportunities for an individual.
Theme 2: To find out the impact of hard and soft skills on an individual’s career.
Hard skills make to show off an individual’s experience and understand some particular
sections and measure their ability. Whereas, soft skills helps in building relations and solving any
conflicts that may arise. Soft skills are important in the workplace as they demonstrate the
understanding if an individual which will at end help them succeed in the organisation. The
detailed points of impact of soft skills are that they indicate longevity which means that when
hiring a person, manager looks into the fact that candidate is committed to the company or not.
Soft skills are like conflict resolution and motivation into the individual making them a long term
asset towards the company. A soft skill increases the level of team work within the organisation.
A whole team when works together can achieve any goal in less amount of time than a
single individual and thus hiring some who can bond with people and work well with the team is
an important factor for the mangers. Ibrahim, Boerhannoeddin, and Bakare, 2017 on the other
hand says that a soft skill helps in gaining confidence. It helps in solving issues in the workplace
with confidence. With a strong confidence any person can convince an employer to hire them
over other candidate. Soft skills also help in establishing a good reputation for the company as
well as for an employee. Hard skills are important because it helps in increasing an employee’s
productivity. It helps the employee to have a better understanding of the business and the work
the company do while being happy and involved to do it. Hard skills give an individual working
in an organisation a work satisfaction.
Theme 3: To recommend ways in which hard and soft skills can be improvised.
Vogler, and et.al., 2018, has sad that improving hard skills and soft skills is a great way to
refresh one’s resume and increase their value in the firm. This improvement process has become
much easier than how it was before. There are very different ways in which one can improve his
hard skills. These include doing certification courses. There are many certifications available
both online and offline for improving a learning hard skills. Online courses are very famous
among the people as this approach is very convenient. Practicing makes anyone perfect. It is the
real key to better the skills and master them eventually. Similarly to improve and develop soft

skills some steps can be followed starting for forming a learning mindset. Having the willpower
and open mind to learn is the most basic step towards improvement. Before developing the soft
skills it is important to find out which soft skill is required in an employee. Encouraging
employee to reflect on the soft skill and being honest about it can help the process. When the aim
is known then the individual must move its steps towards expanding their knowledge and
building understanding. If a person knows they working of computer and software then they can
leverage them into gaining soft skill training courses which is an accessible approach. Feedbacks
help an individual to be better in the field they are lacking and explore the field in which they are
excelling.
REASERCH METHADOLOGY
Research type:
Research studies can be carried out including wide range of data which can eventually be
classified into qualitative and quantitative. Qualitative data in the research studies deals with the
discovering different options giving a behavioural approach rather than forming statistics.
Whereas, quantitative type of research is based on the analysis, statistics are formed and on this
entire basis a decision is made. Quantitative data is considered to be more precise than predicting
behaviour. Quantitative research has an advantage because of having larger sample size and
giving more accurate assumptions (Alhawsawi, 2020). But when the research is conducted in a
different environment where follow up survey cannot be done then it becomes impossible to
trace them in such type of research. If the sample is very large it can be very expensive way
while taking a lot of time. Qualitative studies are more based on qualities and human instincts.
This research is a qualitative research study which is done to find the impact of hard skills and
soft skills on an individual’s career working in a security industry during the pandemic time
period. This way of studying the research is helpful as it provides a wide open platform to
discussions and for applying new concepts in the process.
Research philosophy :

Research philosophy is mainly divided into two parts Interpretivism and Positivism.
Interpretivism is that research of philosophy which consists of various social consideration which
is used for interpretation of observation. Therefore, with the help of this study social issues can
be very accurately found and understood. This research is said to be very suitable for very
qualitative research. Positivism is that research philosophy which has a very quantitative method
for observation of wide range, which helps in discovery of the social trends and concepts except
for focusing on some specified individuals (Qodirov and et.al., 2020). The philosophy of
positivism helps in providing a very reliable quantitative data of the study. For the study of
affects skills and pandemic on the career of individual Interpretivism research for philosophy
was utilized. This is because this study required qualitative research as it helps in understanding
the social issues very well.
Research approach :
The research methodology is the analysation of theoretical orientation with the help of
data provided. There are two types of research approaches, inductive and deductive. Inductive
approach is that type of approach which generates new theories for the emerging data for and
individual. This approach is based on the instances of the individual. Deductive approach does
not support divergent thinking and therefore in this approach the creativity is very limited. This
types of research are said to be associated with the scientific investigation of a study. This type
of study includes going through existing theories and phenomenon for giving a conclusive result
of the study. The study to impacts of skills and pandemic on the career of individual has used the
inductive approach. This study has used this approach for focusing on the generation of new
theories from the collected data of an individual. This approach helped the study as it is based on
the instances of an individual.
Data collection :
Access to accurate and reliable data collection is one of the most important step in
conducting a capable and successful research. These methods are of two types, primary and
secondary. Primary data, primary data is the collection of original without any reference to any
existing or secondary source. Therefore, it becomes a very reliable and authentic for addressing
any sort of issues in the research (Blumenberg and Barros, 2018). The collection of these types
of data is made by conducting research of the market with the help of proper surveys, interviews
and questionnaires. The benefit of utilization of primary data is that it is said to be more accurate

and precise meeting the needs of the collector. However, this type of data takes significant
amount of time and finance to be collected. Secondary data is the data which is publicly
available and can be easily available. Mostly this type of data has been seen to fail the
expectations and objectives of the research. For this study of impacts on career secondary data
has been utilized. This is because this data is easily available.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Alhawsawi, M., 2020. Soft Accounting Skills between Employers’ Expectations and Students’
Reality after COVID-19 Pandemic. Australian Academy of Accounting and Finance
Review. 5(2). pp.69-76.
Blumenberg, C. and Barros, A.J., 2018. Response rate differences between web and alternative
data collection methods for public health research: a systematic review of the
literature. International journal of public health. 63(6). pp.765-773.
Florea, R. and Stray, V., 2019, May. A global view on the hard skills and testing tools in
software testing. In 2019 ACM/IEEE 14th International Conference on Global Software
Engineering (ICGSE) (pp. 143-151). IEEE.
Hadiyanto, H., and et.al., 2017. Assessing students and graduates soft skills, hard skills and
competitiveness. People: International Journal of Social Sciences. 3(2). pp.1885-1906.
Hendarman, A.F. and Cantner, U., 2018. Soft skills, hard skills, and individual
innovativeness. Eurasian Business Review. 8(2). pp.139-169.
Ibrahim, R., Boerhannoeddin, A. and Bakare, K.K., 2017. The effect of soft skills and training
methodology on employee performance. European Journal of Training and
Development.
Jones, K., Leonard, L.N. and Lang, G., 2018. Desired skills for entry level IS positions:
Identification and assessment. Journal of Computer Information Systems. 58(3).
pp.214-220.
Putra, A.Sand et.al., 2020. Examine Relationship of Soft Skills, Hard Skills, Innovation and
Performance: the Mediation Effect of Organizational Learning. International Journal of
Science and Management Studies (IJSMS). 3(3). pp.27-43.
Qodirov, M., and et.al., 2020. Some Characteristics of Modern Indian Philosophy. International
Journal of Multidisciplinary Research and Publications. 2(11). pp.47-49.
Succi, C. and Canovi, M., 2020. Soft skills to enhance graduate employability: comparing
students and employers’ perceptions. Studies in Higher Education. 45(9). pp.1834-
1847.
Van Deursen, A.J. and Mossberger, K., 2018. Any thing for anyone? A new digital divide in
internet‐of‐things skills. Policy & internet. 10(2). pp.122-140.
Vogler, J.S and et.al., 2018. The hard work of soft skills: augmenting the project-based learning
experience with interdisciplinary teamwork. Instructional Science. 46(3). pp.457-488.