Hey , you get a job . No , seriously , get a job . Cyberworks Hacks wants you to find the job of your dreams , and your guide to learning how to search for cybersecurity jobs is Professor Robert McMillan , one of InfoSec Skills authors .
Robert knows that there is a disconnect between the skills gap that guests espouse and the commenters who are still looking for their first job , but Robert has some actionable advice for you , and you absolutely do not want to miss this episode . No matter what level of job you're looking for , please take copious notes and please enjoy this week's Cyber Work Hack .
Hello and welcome to a new episode of Cyber Work Hacks . The purpose of this spinoff of our popular Cyber Work podcast is to take a single fundamental question and give you a quick , clear and actionable solution . So for today's hack , I am happy to welcome back Professor Robert McMillan .
Robert's done a couple of hacks with us and he was a past guest on the CyberWorks podcast and he's an instructor and he's one of the creators of our InfoSec skills learning modules , and we'll talk about that a little bit more with him in just a little while here . But right now , our hack is going to concern getting your cybersecurity job hunt started .
So , whether it's , you're right out of college , you're still in college or maybe you're pivoting from another career entirely and you're getting into cybersecurity . It's the number one question we get on this podcast is how do I get that job ? How do I start looking for the job ? So hoping we can help some people out today . So thanks for your time , robert .
It's always great to talk to you . Thanks , chris , great to be here , and I have some actionable items for you today .
Yes , All right , we love actionable items around here . So , robert , one of the big challenges I've discovered in hosting this podcast for six years now is that there can be a big disconnect between the things that guests say on the show and the replies we get from listeners in the comment section .
So our guests in this industry will tell listeners that there's this massive skills gap , that there are hundreds of thousands of cybersecurity jobs left unfilled because of a lack of qualified candidates , and we talk about how security is recession proof and has a very low unemployment rate and excellent career mobility , which is all true .
But we also have listeners in the comments who will say I have three certifications and I've set my resume everywhere and I can't get an interview . So , robert , can you talk about this a bit ? What's happening here if there's all these jobs and no one to fill them , combined with thousands of candidates who can't get their foot in the door ?
Why is there a low unemployment when no one can find a job ? Question for the ages ? Yeah , I hear you . I hear you . Well , I'm going to give you some tips .
Get ready , get your notepad up , get your pencil and paper if you're into that old-fashioned stuff and be ready to write down some of these steps , because they could change your life , and I hope that they change your life for the better . Love it . So here's my step-by-step guide for getting a job .
Now I'm going to talk specifically about job and cybersecurity , but even if you're just any IT career , that's fine , or any other career as well , all these different types of steps will work generically . Different types of steps will work generically .
Now just recall for a second I've been an employee and I've been an employer , and I have hired a lot of people in a multimillion dollar company . Now I'm an educator , so I'm going to use what I learned to help you out . All right . So step one you're going to think this is a little bit backwards , but hear me out .
One you're going to think this is a little bit backwards , but hear me out . Go to either LinkedIncom or Indeedcom and start searching for your dream job . By now you know you've been around long enough where you've got an idea of the kind of job you want . Now you may have a couple of different , maybe two or three different ways you could go .
You're not 100% sure , that's okay , it doesn't matter . Start out at LinkedIncom , indeedcom I know there's a lot of other ones out there . There's Dice and there's Monster and things like that , and you can certainly use those if you get better success .
But what you want to do is type in the location where you want to work whether it's work from home or work in a city or you know whatever it is and the job title that you want , and then start going through all the different employers and looking at all those postings and find out what they require you to have in order to get this job .
Now you can discount it . If they say it's an entry level job and you need five years experience , don't even worry about that . That's just HR . That's HR fault . Yeah , yeah , exactly . People don't really understand . You know the way the world works , but the person who interviews you , who is technical , they're going to understand what it is .
So they're going to tell you the types of certifications . They're going to tell you whether or not they prefer people with a degree , and whether it's a two , four or six year type of a degree . Do they expect you all the way to a master's , or is a two year degree enough ? And then that gives you that roadmap you're looking for . It's all right there .
They tell you exactly what they want . All right , step two you now know . You now know your dream job or dream . You know dream jobs that you're going to go for and you now know what it is you need to attain to get those jobs . Now it's time to gain the education and the certifications that they want .
What I suggest is , if you really need to work right away , is gain the minimal amount of certifications that a lot of these jobs are looking for so that way , while you're working , you can continue going to school if that's possible for you .
I realize that some people you know it's not always possible , but you know you can gain those additional certifications and it's possible . Your job might even pay for it . A lot , of a lot of employers , I mean .
They may require that you stick around for a while , but a lot of employers will say , hey , I'll pay for that degree , I'll pay for those certifications . I did that all the time I didn't have a big enough business to pay for people you know , $80,000 bill for college . But I did pay for certifications and I gave them a raise every time they attained one .
You know , so that's fantastic and slowly work your way into the type of position you want . All right , step three while getting educated , this is one of the most important things that you can do . Network , network , network , and I'm not talking about Ethernet , I'm not talking about Wi-Fi . I'm talking about networking with people at school .
If you're still in high school , start it here . Join a computer club , start it there . Start a school local conferences . There's lots of conferences that are going on around you all the time Type in cybersecurity conferences in my area or whatever type of conference you're looking for . No-transcript .
Now step four pay someone to help you create your resume , because you're not going to necessarily know how to . Yeah , maybe you can create a resume with Microsoft Word , the resume template . That's not good for every type of job . You know that's good for a certain type of job . I remember the first time I applied for a job to teach at a college .
They called me back and they said you know , we really like your experience , everything and all that kind of stuff , even though your resume was horrible .
I'm like resume is horrible . Oh no , I'm an employer .
I don't know where resumes are supposed to be written . And they said you know that might have been fine , for you know the type of job people that you hire , but for for a school , we expect a resume to be created a certain way . I was at a disadvantage and I was like , wow , I had no idea .
So you want to find someone who knows how to apply for the job , you know for the type of a job and knows how to create the resume for you and get a resume education from that person . Help you create the resume . You're going to need to edit that a little bit every time you need to . You know , apply for a different job . So it's .
You're going to be looking for certain keywords in that posting and you're going to want to put some of those keywords into your resume in a way where it doesn't look like they were wedged in . You know it looks like it was . It was natural , you know . So get an education from that professional resume writer . I realize it might cost a few hundred dollars .
If you're going to school , they usually do that for free . So you know , see , you know , go talk to somebody at your school , your advisor , and see if they've got a resume . You know department that will help you create it , that's there you go Four steps to getting a job .
No , that's , that's great , and I think that that's uh the . The networking part is extremely crucial . And I think , yeah , more than anything , I think , yeah , outsource uh the the creation of your resume . Cause , boy , that can be , it's so stressful anyway .
And then , as soon as it doesn't get a reply , you immediately start getting in your own head about like well , it's obviously my fault , I clearly don't have the skills , but it might just be that you don't know how to sing the song correctly .
You're right . Yeah , that's exactly right .
So you know not to get negative here , but can you talk about some of the common mistakes you've seen with young professionals ?
how they search for and apply for security jobs that might keep them out of the eligibility pool . Or , you know , if that's too strong a word . What are some tips to you know ? Sort of turn things around if it's not going the way you want it to . Yeah , besides , lack of networking , you know that's a big problem right there . Resumes are filtered using bots .
So if you look at , you know Indeed is a great way to see this and LinkedIn has this too when you go to apply for jobs , you'll see how many other people have applied for those jobs and what level of education they have . They may even say you know what , what you know , your area and your areas X amount of people have have applied .
So what you're going to find is about 90% of all applications are coming from out of the country . They're coming from far away hoping to get relocated , and employers know that . And if they're not interested in doing that , then you're really down . You're really in the top 10 percent . You know already .
So , as I mentioned before , keywords are important because of those artificial intelligence bots that are looking for specific keywords . So if they say , hey , I'm looking for , you know , someone who has a CCNA , or I'm looking for an OSCP or you know whatever it is you know , and if you have that , make sure that that you know , that is prominently displayed .
But look for some of the soft words that are in there . Looking for a team player , you know , looking for someone who you know is positive all the time , and you know .
Those kinds of soft skills you can also add into your resume and without them your resume seems fairly cold , you know , and first off , the bots will kick it , and if it gets past the bots , the HR people are going to kick it as well . One thing I found out that was interesting recently is that some people are putting their pictures on their resumes .
Now , if you're doing just a blind submission , you know , to a post , leave the pictures off , because bots can't see it and they'll automatically reject it . If there's a picture on there because they're like there's a big black square on here I don't know what that means yeah , so don't put pictures on your resume , that's , that's , that's a problem .
However , if you are , if you get an email address with a direct HR manager , that's okay , you can leave the picture on there , that's fine . So customize that , you know , that resume for each one . And , as I mentioned , you know you can , you know , hire someone as well .
Yeah , no , that's . That's also really really good advice and I think it's . It's real easy to get get frustrated in those cases and and yeah , I think simpler is better .
When it comes to resumes , you , you know the gone are the days where a flowery you know where , you know when , when you know my illustrator , you know , or just or just like graphic design is my passion style , you know with colored paper and lots of you know multiple font faces . unless you're applying for a graphic design job , don't do that .
You know , like you're , you're going to be , you're , you're , you're playing the robot , so make sure that you're giving them the information that that they need . So yeah , that's all great advice .
So yeah , one last thing , robert McMillan , we are talking here because you have several skills learning paths on our InfoSec skills site , so can you tell our listeners a bit of what they can learn from you ?
Yeah , and if I could back up just for a moment , a couple of other things I just want to mention is employers also promote the zero trust principle of cybersecurity . Even though they don't realize it , they don't trust you because they don't know you , you know . So trust takes time and effort .
It's much easier to find a position if you have that , those networking skills . You may also want to start out by looking at a recruiting agency . There are local recruiting agencies , it recruiting agencies in every major you know city in the country . So you may not have as good of experience as you know , as if you got hired directly .
But hey , you'll get health benefits , you'll get a salary and you'll get experience in the industry , and then you can move on , you know , later on . But as far as my learning paths go , we have multiple learning paths , starting with Windows Server 2019 , windows 10 , and then also Windows 11 and Windows Server 2022 .
And guess what I'm starting to play with Windows Server 2025 . It's in Canary right now , which I think is really funny . You've got alpha beta and then you've got Canary , canary yeah , okay , so I'm using the canary version .
You're living in the future over there ?
Yeah , it's one or two versions before the release to manufacturing , but it won't be long before we have Windows Server 2025 , and , I'm assuming , windows 12 as well . But for now , those learning paths are available and they're really designed for corporate security , which is the area that you're probably going to be most interested in .
Yeah , that's all great stuff . I've looked at it myself . I hope you all will check it out as well . So until next time , professor Art McMillan , thank you so much . This has been some really , really top quality career advice . I appreciate it . Oh happy to help , chris , and thank you all for watching this episode .
If you enjoyed this video and felt that it helped you , I hope you'll share it with your colleagues and on any forums that you're on and on your social media accounts . And don't forget to like and subscribe the CyberWorks InfoSec YouTube page .
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So we've got a couple more coming up with Professor McMillan here and we've got lots of hacks for people at all different levels of learning and job acumen . And if you have any topics you want us to cover whether it's digital forensics or pen testing or management or CISOs just drop them in the comments .
We'll answer them all and we'll try to get to them all someday , hopefully very soon . But until then , this is Chris Sanko signing off , saying see you next time and happy learning . Hey , if you're worried about choosing the right cybersecurity career , click here to see the 12 most in-demand cybersecurity roles .
I asked experts working in the field how to get hired and how to do the work of these security roles .