Onboarding velocity is a force multiplier: a spotlight on Huntress
Huntress reduced SOC onboarding time by 50%, cutting ramp-up from 90 days to 45 while saving nearly $70,000 in training costs. By shifting to structured, hands-on training with greater manager visibility, they accelerated speed to competency without compromising rigor.
In cyber security, speed to competency is a make-or-break metric.
And it’s about so much more than speed.
How quickly and efficiently a team onboards affects cost, scalability, morale, readiness, and capability.
Cyber Security hiring comes with high stakes and urgency. Skills need to be built, validated, and anchored to job readiness quickly to move team members from orientation into real work.
When onboarding is a priority, engaging training content stops being a nice to have and becomes a key driver of completion, comprehension and knowledge retention. It minimizes risk.
We recently spoke to Tyler Benson, SOC Support Manager at Huntress, about why fast and effective onboarding is critical to the SOC Support team he leads, and how engaging content and manager visibility transformed their training approach.
📥 Want the full breakdown?
Access the complete case study to see the solution implemented, rollout structure, and measurable outcomes.
Here are the key takeaways:
Manually building training isn’t time effective.
Managers should not be taking time from their core responsibilities to create learning curricula. Spending 20 to 30 hours a week not only took Tyler’s time, it also limited speed to competency for new hires.
Team confidence has measurable impact
Though it’s sometimes dismissed as subjective and difficult to quantify, a lack of team confidence shows up in performance. Alongside inconsistent training, this was visible in slower incident resolution, increased escalations, and longer first response and resolution times.
When training is the whole team’s job, no one scales
Shadowing and custom in-house labs were not sustainable and created an additional burden on senior team members.
When implemented correctly, training drives culture change
Things changed when Huntress partnered with TryHackMe to implement a collaborative, iterative, and phased onboarding strategy for the SOC Support team, which later expanded to Detection Engineering.
This meant creating a training plan aligned to the team’s real work and breaking content into smaller modules that made sense for learners. Learner feedback drove continuous optimization, while leadership visibility ensured progress was tracked in real time and tied to measurable outcomes.
Culture change improves measurable outcomes
The impact was measurable and significant.
⚡ Onboarding duration reduced by 50%, from about 90 days to about 45 days, accelerating speed to competency.
💰 Onboarding costs reduced by nearly $70,000.
These metrics were bolstered by high engagement and adoption for TryHackMe training content, and greater confidence with a stronger customer experience as well as reduced reliance on senior team members.
As Tyler put it:
TryHackMe has completely transformed how we onboard and train our SOC Support team. What used to take three months now takes six weeks, thanks to a streamlined and engaging training process. The platform is fun, hands-on, and has given my team the confidence and skills they need t o protect our customers. From day one, new hires are building foundational knowledge, and as a manager, the ability to assign and track progress is invaluable.
If onboarding speed is directly tied to your team’s readiness, it may be worth reassessing how training is structured, measured, and validated across your SOC. Learn more about how TryHackMe for Business supports teams building measurable readiness.
