Anika Guenov doesn't think she would have landed a job in cybersecurity if it wasn't for her mentors.
She signed up for the public service Women in Security mentoring program in 2023.
"At that stage, I literally had no proper cyber experience," she said.
"I am just a very eager person, I found quite a lot of very interesting people that are mentors that I wanted to connect with.
"It was just such a nice way to not feel terrified and completely overwhelmed."
Security a 'male-dominated field'
One of Ms Guenov's first mentors, Jessamy Perkins, is a lead cybersecurity adviser for the Department of Defence and other government agencies.
Ms Perkins said she would have loved to have had a mentoring program when she started in the public service security space.
"Security in government is historically a very male-dominated field," she said.
"It's really great to be able to help the security community within government to be more diverse, more inclusive and more capable overall."
The Women in Security mentoring program pairs experienced security experts with early and mid careers mentees.
The partnership between the Australian Signals Directorate, the Australian Women in Security Network and OK RDY matches participants on an app using AI, similar to a dating app.
Almost 20 per cent of users self-identified as currently working in the public service, according to the program's management.
The mentors and mentees include graduates, emerging leaders, workers transitioning from other industries, and chief information security officers of the Commonwealth's largest departments and agencies.
The program won the 2024 national prize for diversity at the iAwards in August, and was named the best diversity and inclusion initiative by government at the 2024 Tech Diversity Awards in May.
Women supporting women
Executive director of the program, Jacqui Loustau, said the program was started to address the gender disparity in security.
Women make up just 17 per cent of the cyber security workforce in Australia, according to statistics from the Australian Women in Security Network.
"What we realised was one of the things that needed to happen was to ... assist the women that are currently in security, and finding mentors and role models was really important," Ms Loustau said.
"For those that are mentees in the public sector, I think that it's been really valuable for them to understand the whole APS system and the navigation between the different types of roles and different departments.
"We compared it to a bit of a dating app kind of setup ... it's a great way for [the women] to connect to others and different departments they wouldn't be able to potentially speak to before."
According to the program's stats, 97 per cent of users rated their overall mentoring experience as positive and very positive, and 88 per cent experienced an increase in their self-confidence, their communication skills, their motivation and the clarity in terms of their career goals.
