Cybersecurity Career Path Questions

One of the questions I’ve often heard is, “Once I get my X certification, what should my salary expectations be?”

As someone who works a full-time job at Microsoft, teaches part-time, and is also working on obtaining multiple certifications through the SANS Institute, I understand the importance of balancing work, education, and personal life. To help manage my time and stay organized, I’ve adopted the time blocking technique.

We all know that having a routine and sticking to it can be a challenge, but the benefits of doing so are undeniable. Whether it’s for physical, mental, or spiritual growth, keeping daily habits can greatly improve our lives.

When it comes to setting goals for ourselves, we often think in terms of years or decades. We set a goal to retire by a certain age, or to achieve a certain level of success by the time we’re a certain age. But what if we thought about our lives in a different way? What if, instead of thinking about our lives in terms of years, we thought about them in terms of hours?

Introduction

As a writer and content creator, I am always on the lookout for tools that can help me streamline my workflow and improve the quality of my work. Recently, I discovered ChatGPT and I have to say, I am extremely excited about the possibilities this technology presents.

I often get asked for some links that would would help supplement learning and add in a bit of gamification to cyber. Here are my top 10 links:

I have a sneaking suspicion that Infrastructure as Code will become increasingly important as time goes on. So, while I have some downtime, I figured I’d start on my journey.

Another tech tutorial!

I’ve been asked different variations of the question: Do I need to know how to code before going into cyber? If so, then when should I start? Also, how much do I need to go? Does everyone else know how to do it?

Alright! This was a little lab that I did to connect an Azure vNet to an AWS VPC. I’ll walk you through doing a complete from scratch deployment. At the bottom of the article, I included a list of all of the individual resources that I used and the relevant links so you could learn more about that cloud technology. Due to how the VPNs deploy, we’ll need to jump between the Azure Portal and the AWS console.

I’ve had a tough time answering the question - “How do I get into Cybersecurity?”

I’m the type of person that enjoys taking aptitude tests. I remember a career aptitude test that once classified me as a “Change-focused” individual. The test said that I crave new places, new things, and new ideas. In retrospect, a career in sales and a career in IT were both fitting to those findings. In both professions, I found myself in the training spaces. For me, the best part of teaching has always been seeing students learn. Specifically, it has been watching them “get it.”

I’ve worked in the training space my entire career. With more training programs moving online, I’m often asked at the beginning of a cohort:

I’m fortunate enough to find myself speaking to a lot of job-seekers and career changers. I love talking about professional development and career ambitions. Over the past few weeks, I’ve noticed two questions being asked more than others:

Learning a new trade can be extremely challenging. When I made the transition from Sales to Tech, I had to relearn how to learn. If you couple that with the fact that learning self-paced content online is now at a premium, I was entering a whole new world.

There are two types of people—those who find problems and those who bring solutions.

You’re supposed to check the alignment on your tires at least once a year. So on top of ensuring a smooth ride, you get benefits like gas mileage and proper road contact. That got me thinking. Shouldn’t we also check our personal alignment to our goals?

Go from ‘Goal-Changer’ to ‘Goal-Doer’.

Changing careers is a daunting task.

Has anyone else heard the advice of “just ignore the experience requirement and apply anyway?” I agree (mainly because I’m a believer in you miss 100% of shots you don’t take). But I do feel like it’s a bit lazy. Don’t just blindly apply places, do something about it!

Tagline

According to Jim Rohn: “You’re the average of the five people you spend the most time with.” Meaning, the people you spend the most time with are the same ones that shape you in-to you. You are their average. This same relationship applies when you’re referring to mentors.

Imagine walking into a sales presentation and right as you finish shaking hands with your prospect, they turn to you and say, “you know what? Forget the slides. I’m ready to sign”. Are you prepared to respond? How many of us aren’t ready for that moment? The answer might surprise you. We’ve been told “no” so often in the sales world that it almost becomes expected. That mindset is what we will focus on today. I’m going to go over how to Plan for Success and how this strategy can directly increase your closing ratio. After reading this – you’ll not only be prepared for the “yes”; you’ll anticipate it..

It’s not what you know. It’s who you know. So if your career changes or the world gets flipped on its head, and you’re not allowed to meet people in person - how the heck do you go on meeting anyone?