After the COVID pandemic affected my company, I was left out of job, and coming out of the gate to look for a new career, I was drawn to cybersecurity seeing how our society continues to rely on technology. Little did I know just how cavernous the rabbit hole would be when I started falling into it. As I may have mentioned in another post, I started learning about cybersecurity through some classes online from University of Washington via EdX and kept learning through YouTube, and more formally, Coursera eventually earning the Google IT Support and IBM Cybersecurity Analyst Professional Certificate. As I keep learning, I realized, this is just the very beginning…

Unfortunately for me, those certificates aren’t as accredited as the CompTIA A+ certificate that for which I’m now studying. I mean, I knew I would need the Network+, Security+ and Linux+ (perhaps CISSP) for the type of jobs I really want, but thought with the Google IT Support certificate I would be more interesting to hiring managers, but I must admit, I’m still just starting to look for a job, and if I’m being honest there’s kids with computer science degrees from a 4-year college who are likely more familiar with the subject matter – but, I stay hopeful.

Though even now, I am feeling that “catch-22” feeling that most people looking for a job in a new industry face – you need to have job experience in that job to be qualified for that kind of job. As such, I’ve currently changed my tactics, while I will continue to look for IT Helpdesk roles (since I do have actual job experience talking to customers and helping them with issues), ideally remote to save time and money on commute. I’m thinking, just for now, I may have to go back to my old kind of roles, the project coordinating and data entry types to save up and go back for a Master’s in Cybersecurity.

However, even with this current hurdle, I don’t regret taking the time I did to earn the Google IT Support and IBM Cybersecurity Analyst certificates, during that time I was also trying to expand my own knowledge on programming by taking Harvard’s CS50 (as well as a couple of passion projects on the side). While it took me a little longer than it normally would, I’m glad I stuck with programming enough to be a solid beginner, semi-intermediate – the way it changed my thinking process to be more logical is something for which I can’t be grateful enough.

For anyone who was looking for a tip from this post:

Take the CompTIA certifications more seriously, honestly I avoided them because I was hoping to stay more remote in my studies and work, but it does seem as if I’ve hit an impasse and will need another level of credibility to break into the cybersecurity industry, but this will not deter me. As such, I suppose the main takeaway here is: don’t give up – even it takes longer than you expect, keep at it – the time is going to pass anyway (and honestly, once we get some IT experience, we’ll be pretty close to “essential” workers in the near future).

Also, as like actual advice, here are some links to job sites I’ve found so far, I’ve only tested out wellfound and weworkremotely on this list, the others I’ve linked and will find the time to sign up soon.

weworkremotely.com / justremote.co / himalayas.app / wellfound.com / workingnomads.com/jobs / jobboardsearch.com / jsremotely.com

more traditional websites:

Indeed.com / ziprecruiter.com / linkedin.com / monster.com

On the more traditional websites, I’ve created and essentially replicated my LinkedIn account as it occurred to me that having all of my work experience when applying to other jobs – as opposed to just the work experience I’ve put on my resume – may be the key difference in deciding whether or not I should be apart of a team.

Good luck, and Godspeed.