#CyberJobs #JobSearch #CyberSecurityJobs #ITCareers
Hey there 🧐, I totally feel your frustration. It can be incredibly disheartening to apply for so many jobs and feel like you’re getting nowhere. But don’t lose hope just yet! With your background in cyber security and your impressive list of certifications, there’s definitely a place for you in the industry. Let’s break down a few things that might be holding you back and some strategies for moving forward.
## The Catch-22 of Security Clearance
It’s a common issue in the cyber security field – you need experience to get a job, but you need a job to gain experience. It’s a bit of a catch-22, but there are strategies for breaking out of this cycle.
### Networking is Key
– Leverage your existing network – reach out to former colleagues, professors, or industry connections and let them know you’re in the market for a position.
– Attend industry events and networking mixers – making connections in person can be incredibly valuable.
– Join professional organizations – groups like (ISC)² or ISACA offer networking opportunities and resources for job seekers.
### Look for Entry-Level Positions
– Consider applying for internships or entry-level positions to get your foot in the door.
– Don’t be discouraged by job postings that list higher pay scales – sometimes those numbers are negotiable, and the right candidate can be worth it to an employer.
## Overcoming Job Search Fatigue
It’s easy to feel burnt out after months of job hunting, but don’t let it get the best of you. Here are a few tips for maintaining motivation:
### Set Realistic Expectations
– Remember that rejection letters are part of the process – it doesn’t necessarily reflect on you as a candidate.
– Try not to let the repetition of application denials get you down – keep your focus on moving forward.
### Take Breaks
– It’s okay to step away from job searching for some self-care. Take a day or a weekend off to recharge and come back to it with fresh eyes.
### Explore Other Options
– Considering switching gears to pursue your CCNA and explore opportunities in networking isn’t a bad idea. It can open up a whole new set of doors for you in the IT field.
## Playing to Your Strengths
Your extensive background in IT and training experience is a valuable asset. When crafting your resume and cover letters, be sure to highlight these skills and experiences. Even though you haven’t had a formal cyber security role, your technical expertise and problem-solving abilities are incredibly relevant.
## Don’t Give Up
It’s a tough road, but don’t lose faith in your abilities. Keep learning and expanding your knowledge – it’s an investment in your future. As difficult as it may be, stay positive and persistent. The right opportunity is out there; it’s just a matter of finding it.
Sending positive vibes your way. Hang in there, and don’t hesitate to reach out for support or advice along the way. You’ve got this! 😊
Well, apply to helpdesk jobs.
It’s rough out there my dude, hang in there, keep your chin up. I applied to 500+ jobs for entry position.
Get a job in IT that will sponsor your clearance. Then once you have your clearance apply for cyber roles with the clearance. When asked about why you want to do IT just say you love tech and not mention you are only getting into IT to leave for a cyber role.
Am I reading your post right saying you have no experience? Thats it right there. You need to climb from the bottom at help desk. It’s not what you want to hear but it’s where you build your foundations. Everyone does their time and moves up. Build experience.
Like the other posters have said here cybersecurity is *not* an entry level position. It is mid to senior level. My hiring manager refuses to higher fresh graduates for any security positions because they are just not experienced enough for it. They really just don’t know anything.
You don’t have experience. The time to get some was an internship during college. Cyber is probably the toughest field to break into in IT, and you need realistically 5-10 YOE to do it. Why are you applying for clearance roles when you don’t have one?
Hi I’m pretty high up in cybersecurity and only have an associate’s with no actual cyber certs but mostly IT or networking certs but not many. I was a IT Support Specialist then Systems Engineer, Senior Systems Engineer, and IT Manager before taking a position where I lead a international cybersecurity help desk team and their escalations as well. I’m 28 so it’s not like I’ve 15 years of experience but I’ll tell you the big mistakes people make getting into the cybersecuirty field from what I understand. The first that makes interviewers upset is when they ask you about your interest in the field. A lot of people will answer generic cybersecurity answers, but if it doesn’t sound like you know what you’re talking about for some employers that’s an immediate no. The next is people skills and do you vibe with the interviewers? This one is actually huge, during interviews I’ve conducted we’ve actually turned down really highly skilled people because they couldn’t talk to us or they clearly had no people skills. And then there’s the standing out. I got hired because the company was on boarding a huge new cybersecurity tool and nobody knew how to use it and it was just unconfigured and unused, but I just happen to interview and they just happened to bring it up when I asked what their biggest challenge was and lucky me I was in charge of that for 2 years previously! And boom I was hired because the interviewers loved how I could just talk naturally, the interview actually lasted 2 hours because we just ended up chatting. I got hired for rare skills and the ability to communicate well. I can tell you my director doesn’t care at all if you’ve got 20 certs, if you can’t demonstrate knowledge or answer related questions when asked they consider them worthless. They would rather higher based on demonstrated skill rather than a piece of paper that says they have it. Some people are great with tests but can’t demonstrate it in real life. Due to my adhd I’m the complete opposite I can’t take tests worth shit but very good at demonstrating the skills. Feel free to send me a message if you need advise. To be blunt given your job experience previously you maybe applying for too high of cybersecurity jobs too, you may have to go cybersecurity help desk first and work your way up even if it means pay cut. Or work your way through higher tier IT jobs first like I did. I have an associates in cybersecurity and cybercrimes so I did have that, but they didn’t ask me about my degree at all during the interview so again they don’t care about that as much as your actual skills.
Working “Advanced technical support tickets” doesn’t cut it to be in security. Have you built a server? Have you built a vpn tunnel? Do you know how to read wireshark?
I’ll be completely transparent with you. I live in Arizona, I work for one of the top 50 largest companies in Arizona doing desktop support. I made friends with a guy doing cybersecurity here because he inspired me as he’s only 24. I dropped out of the University of Arizona. During my time there I made two mutual friends who now do cybersecurity for Raytheon post grad.
I also am acquainted with a SOC analyst and Identify and Access management analyst at Tucson Electric Power. My sister graduated with an electrical engineering degree and is a cyber analyst in North Carolina after working in retail.
Everyone I just spoke about works in cybersecurity and did not work a help desk job. Obviously this is anecdotal and I don’t know what work they did behind the scenes but it’s getting weird and coming off as being elitist/gatekeeping or a cope that everyone is saying “pay your dues start at help desk”.
Let’s be serious for a second, every year thousands of university graduates become engineers, scientists, financial and data analysts, but to monitor a SIEM or provision access, *requires* years of high level experience? Obviously nothing is guaranteed but saying OP can’t get a cyber job without years of experience and expertise is just as honest as saying anyone can get hired in cybersecurity with only a CompTIA security+ …it lacks nuance.
It is all a social media lie.
One word. You need “EXPERIENCE”. Technically Degrees or Associate/Professional level Certifications are useless if you have no experience. Both Cloud and Cyber Security roles fit this. Really the only true entry level Cyber Security role that exists is a SOC Analyst which is essentially a Help Desk role equivalent to a NOC Technician but in the Security Domain.
If you have no I.T experience or no internships you have to start at the bottom on Help Desk. I became a RHEL admin without a degree and no certs. It’s about having practical hands on experience. I had a homelab, built shit and did freelance consulting on the side. Experience is what gets you the job.
I see a lot of people that would study for AWS Solutions Architect exams and expect them to land a six figure job with no experience working in I.T or Cloud roles. It makes no sense. Thats why they aren’t landing jobs. They are doing shit wrong and backwards. AWS certs alone with no experience is a complete waste of time and a lot of these people lack the required foundational skill sets to perform the job. People should focus on practical hands on experience by building projects and stop chasing certs. This is why must Cloud Ops roles are often hired by people that were Sysadmins prior due to alot of overlap in Fondational skill sets. Those exams were ment for people already working as a Cloud Engineer or DevOps Engineer that obtains them after they had at least one year of experience working with those technologies in their role.
“cybersecurity is not an entry level position”
Cyber security is a field not a position. There are positions that are entry level. There are currently lot of college students graduating with cybersecurity degrees or comp sci degrees or the similar so the market is a little competitive right now. I will say it is possible. You might not get the first job you apply to or the 100th but it is possible. It’s rough in every field right now in and outside of stem. Keep trying and good luck.
>The pay scales are usually listed higher then my ask price yet, nobody seems to be hiring
Sounds like you’re underqualified for the roles you’re applying to.
Wow I should probably just look for another career, you have all of this and still can’t get a job? I’m 22 and don’t have any of that I’m barely working on A+, definitely too old for even a degree maybe I’ll look for something less saturated
You need solid IT experience
Like networking, security is a wide field. If i were you, i would focus on a specific topic, firewalls for instance. Choose a vendor, most of them offers images that can be install in EVE-NG or GNS3 for testing/study. Start the journey by reading TCP/IP Illustrated book, and use Wireshark to see the the protocols in action.
Bro, just join the Army Reserves, Air National Guard, or normie National Guard. Joining the Reserves or Guard is the easy-mode button for getting jobs that require a clearance. It’s 2 days a month (for most non-infantry jobs), they’ll give you a free Secret Security Clearance (or Top Secret if you pick a job like Intel or Cyber), super cheap awesome health insurance (Tricare Select Reserve is great), and you’ll get education benefits to pay for a master’s in the future (if you want one). Having any type of military experience on your resume (and the associated federal hiring preference for veterans) will make it much easier to get a job in cyber (particularly the government space).
Also, it’s fun. I was an infantryman in the Maryland NG. Basically get paid a few hundred bucks to go camping with the boys and shoot guns one weekend a month lmao. I’m a software engineering team lead at a Fortune 15 company now and my military experience absolutely helped me get the job (hiring manager was also a veteran). If sleeping outside and shooting isn’t really your speed, there are *a lot* of other office jobs — many of them directly related to cyber (signals, IT, intel, sigint, etc).
The National Guard in my state (Maryland) actually has a very large contingent of actual cyber jobs you can pick from if you qualify and it’s available (be forewarned that it’s highly competitive though, it’s not like other normal IT jobs in the Army). It should go without saying that doing cyber for the military will help you get other government cyber jobs as a civilian.
I would never hire you unless you spent some time in the field
30-40 applications in a month is super low imo. I applied to over 600 jobs before I got hired. And that entire process took about a month. I only had 6mo of SOC experience from an internship and no prior IT experience before that. You just have to keep trying man
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edit – I also have no certs, but am pursuing a BS at the moment
>How can I have EITHER of these two things if never given the opportunity.
Hard truth, enlist for a single contract stint in any armed services branch for a role that comes with a SC. TS would be even better. Look at Navy – CTN. It’d set you far and above anyone else in cyber security, if youve got the chops.
Im in a cybersecurity role (physical security sector) now and it took me about 2 years of IT work and now im in security. So get that IT experience and then use those transferable security skills to get in. I’m just now working on certs, so certs are usually for gaining higher roles once you get in the sector you desire. They are “enhancements”. They don’t secure the job just boost chances.
1. Security isn’t an entry level job, you rarely jump straight into it (even with helpdesk experience). Typically you move internally into some type of security related role and gain some experience and then you can jump into true security roles elsewhere.
2. 30-40 jobs in a month is nowhere near enough applications if you want a job. I apply for close to that many while being employed full time and just keeping options open. If you don’t have a job, applying for jobs is your full time job. You should be aiming for at least 10 applications a day going out, minimum.
Recently I relocated to the UK, I have 8+ years of experience/exposure in cyber security. I have been applying for the interviews and the feedback sucks like Didnt disclose the escalation process, too much explanation provided, communication issues..etc. Wondering how is the market in the UK for cyber security, if it continues planning to relocate to Australia…Seriously its killing me too.
However, please don’t lose hope, surely you will get it. If possible, work on some other job in parallel for safe mode/survival.
Absolutely get a job, any job, in IT.
I just lost my lead to NSA. The job doesn’t have cybersecurity in the title, but he worked on a lot of things in the cybersecurity arena. Hell, he probably doesn’t have a lot of what you have in terms of formal education, but he was able to talk about doing those things you studied.
Clearance investigations are expensive. You have to be a helluva candidate to justify the process. Probably cheaper to train up a military veteran with an active clearance than pay the FBI for an investigation of someone who will require a bit less training due to schooling. Also vets will have some experience in whatever role they were assigned.
Source: Worked in a NOC while in the Marines, then the government NOC for Viasat after I separated from the military. At one point half our team at Viasat had originally worked in the same USMC NOC I had (but not all at the same time).
If you went Networking or Systems administration, your certs aren’t wasted, and you might be more valuable if you can provide added security to their network with what you know. Every business, school, organization you can imagine needs someone running their network. Or maybe get with a company that does managed services for clients.
Military is sponsoring and you’ll get paid in the mean time.