The Information Security sector is a special place filled with special snowflakes. For a special snowflake, interviewing for a job can sometimes be a daunting or awkward task. There is a thin line when talking to humans between looking cocky and potato. On the other side, the interviewer must understand that there's a limited pool of special snowflakes. There's a sweet spot between auto-hiring someone and telling them you'll need three months to make a decision. Each snowflake must be nurtured into a beautiful snowerfly, or whatever their final form may be. For this talk I plan to start a conversation about how to interview and be interviewed in the information security space. Good interviews combine a mix of targeted questions, appropriate information sharing, and a goal of what you'd like to learn from a person and vice versa. Bad interviews... don't. This leads to bad hires, good snowflakes being pushed aside, stupid questions being asked, people being sad pandas, poor team cohesion, and a general overwhelming feeling of meh. Do not despair, this is a solvable situation. Come join me on the journey to being less meh at hiring!
Wartortell works as a reverse engineer and malware researcher for Palo Alto Networks. Previously he worked in Threat Intel, Binary Rewriting and Binary Transparency. He also casts a mean Ice Punch, and this is not even his final form.
Aaron Bayles (@alxrogan) has been doing the Infosec song and dance since '95. He has seen a million endpoints and rocked them all. He lives outside Houston and currently dabbles with all things Infosec and ICS/SCADA security.