Chapter 7: How to Land a Jay-Oh-Bee!

In the previous chapters with Jax, Jon, and Gerald, you learned how to prepare your technical knowledge, as well as brand yourself. In this chapter, we'll land you your first cybersecurity jay-oh-bee!

I, Kim, am excited to join the ride with you again in this chapter. I will be providing tips and tools to help you find your first job or your next career pivot. I will provide guidance to help you set realistic expectations by using metrics within the job market. Résumé and interviewing tips to assist with getting past the gatekeeper will be provided in this chapter as well.

In this chapter, we will be covering the following main topics:

• When and why to pivot
• Understanding the cybersecurity job market
• Preparing your résumé – tips and tricks
• Landing an interview (and acing it)
• Extra resources
• Entry-level myth busting

Remember that list of dream jobs you created in Chapter 2, Which...

When and why to pivot

Whether you are new to cybersecurity or currently in this field and looking for a change in career, there are questions to consider before making a career pivot. In this section, we'll look at some career pivoting aspects to help you decide when and why to pivot in the cybersecurity field. First, let's look at some whys:

• Need a career change or improvement: If you are already working in the cybersecurity field and not satisfied with your current position, consider a change in position, focus, level, or even company. Sometimes, it is the nature of the job that's not challenging or interesting enough for you, or you are ready to move up to managing positions, or the culture of the current company does not fit you. Whatever the situation might be, analyze it carefully to find the root cause of your wish to career pivot so that you can make the right decisions.

  If you are from other fields, trying to transition into cybersecurity, expose yourself...

Understanding the cybersecurity job market

In this section, I will show you how to use open source intelligence (OSINT) to find the right cybersecurity jobs, companies, and other aspects that require research when you're looking for a job. To get started with this, let's take a look at the different employment platforms you can use to search for jobs. Then, we'll look at what information to search for when job hunting.

Employment platforms

First things first, to land a job, we need to find one. There are many online and free job search platforms out there, such as Glassdoor, LinkedIn Jobs, Indeed, Google, ZipRecruiter, CareerBuilder, and so on. These platforms are a good start for you to get familiar with what job search engines look like. At the same time, check out other platforms that are cybersecurity job focused, such as infosec-job.com or cybersecjob.com, and so on.

In the beginning, expect to spend some time registering for accounts with those platforms...

Preparing your résumé – tips and tricks

To land a job, there are many gates you must go through, including preparing, applying, interviewing, and so on. A résumé is a ticket to get you through the first gate. Each day, companies receive hundreds of applications, and if viewed, each résumé only gets a couple of seconds viewing time. So, your résumé should be concise, crisp, and attractive to catch the employer's attention at first glance. We'll look at how this goal can be achieved in this section.

Keep the résumé short

Unless you have years of experience in the field, your résumé should be no more than a page, especially if you are a new graduate. Always keep in mind that the hiring person only has around 6-7 seconds to look at your résumé. Therefore, if you are applying for an entry level and submitting a three-page résumé, chances are the second and third pages will not be viewed...

Landing an interview (and acing it)

Previously in this chapter, guidance on job hunting and résumé preparing was provided. In this section, we will move on to the next step: getting ready for an interview!

Generally, there are several routes that are included in the whole process of landing a job, as shown in the following diagram:

Figure 7.15 – Hiring process

As there are many steps involved, and the pressure can be overwhelming, you should start applying for jobs as early as possible, to get familiar with the whole process and master it over time. This is where groups D and E in the list of dream companies we created in the Ranking the searches section come to good use. Start by applying for the companies in groups D and E and try to gain as much interviewing experience as possible with those companies. Then, slowly try with companies in group C. This can be great practice for the future, when you are ready to apply for your group...

Extra resources

In the previous sections, many guides and resources were introduced. However, there are still many available resources out there you can utilize. In this section, some other open source and paid resources will be brought to your attention. It is impractical to list all the available services in the market, so keep researching and looking for others, even if they are not mentioned in this book.

Employment platform

If you wish to work for the US government, usajobs.gov is the place to go. This is where federal jobs can be found. Besides, usajobs.com also provides different hiring paths for individuals from different backgrounds. The following screenshot shows various hiring paths on usajobs.gov:

Figure 7.16 – usajobs.com hiring paths

Résumé preparation

The following services can help you with preparing your résumé:

• LinkedIn résumé builder: If you have LinkedIn Premium, or have signed up for...

Entry-level myth busting

So far, many aspects of the cybersecurity job market have been analyzed to give you a holistic and just view of its current trends. However, if you are a newbie to this field and still have some doubts, don't worry – let's bust some cybersecurity entry-level myths:

• You must be technical to enter the cybersecurity field: This is one of the common misunderstandings in this field. In fact, cybersecurity contains lots of individuals who transitioned from different fields, many of which were non-technical. Like I mentioned in Chapter 2, Which Career Field Is Best for You?, and in this chapter, employers look for people with an eager to learn and positive attitude to work with, which in many situations outweighs years of experience. Skills can be learned over time, so if you are new to the field, just keep learning and improving your knowledge, and opportunities will come along. Cybersecurity welcomes people with different backgrounds, skill...

Summary

Landing a job is not an easy process – it requires many steps, preparation, and strategies. All the resources and guidance that was provided in this chapter can help you set up your portfolio and prepare for the hiring process ahead. In this chapter, we learned the following:

• When and why to pivot to a new cybersecurity career
• How to determine the right job and company for you
• How and what to look for when researching the job market
• How to prepare for your résumé
• Interview types, processes, and what to expect during each of them
• How to land and ace each interview route
• Different platforms for job searching, interview preparation, résumé building, referrals, and salary guides
• Several myths about entry-level cybersecurity and newcomers

As mentioned previously, not every resource can be listed in one book, so keep researching and do not limit yourself to the ones that were introduced in this book only.

Lastly...