Hello, I’m rearing near the end of my bachelors in cybersecurity and although I love networking and security, I find myself lost for where to go. I know I have valuable skills but my job market is full of grime. I’d rather work of geek squad turning off and on computers than find myself working for some crypto bro or god forbid the government. Half my courses were just putting me in the chair watching my teacher sloppy toppy AWS, Open AI or Cisco and I fear my education is railroading me into working for the institutions I’m opposed to. I want to use my degree justly. I still have time before I graduate and am looking for direction that wont seppuku my morals. Any and all advice is helpful.
I’d recommend finding a junior security role at a Cloud-focused MSP to gain exposure and skills required at the larger firms.
Having the degree isn’t everything but it shows you’re motivated towards mastering the topic. We can teach you, you just gotta show up and want to do the job. There are plenty of non-scummy companies out there you can work for that’ll be a great resume builder, you just need to invest the effort into finding out which companies didn’t scrap the DEI rules and apply there ha.
Thanks for the comment! My family has a lot of history in medicine and I like the idea of working to keep peoples medical data secure. Is my only option to work in that sector working for someone like Permera or a EMR company like Epic?
I mean you can also work for your local hospital system, too, but sure those are all options, though you may find getting hired by them to be a bit difficult at first because your resume won’t have tons of experience on it yet.
Keeping data secure, especially in the medical field overall, is paramount, so the IT-medical field does have a certain level of job security to it but I’d personally find it boring. I get why it’s appealing on the surface however I’d recommended the MSP (managed service provider) space as a good career starting point because you’d get exposed to a fairly wide variety of industries and my logic was that you’d refine what you like about INFOSEC in the first year or 2 of working at the MSP while serving a wider audience’s security needs and once you know what sub-specialty you’re really into then go chase the bigger companies with a bit of experience “on paper”.
That’s just my $.02. :)
Old person opinion. Honestly find someone within the multiple fields, your degree can be used within, as a mentor. People within technology/cyber security love networking. If you have to go within a corpartion don’t fret, alot of people started there. Also be thinking about yourself as a brand because you want your own company, brand, influencer side hustle. Keep up to date with the Ai shifting landscape as well because human careers are shifting as companies try to find what Ai is going to become long-term VS the human work force. We can’t not embrace Ai at this stage if technology advancement, we just have to weave around it.
Thanks for responding, I would love to find someone to shadow and may have to start within a bigger corporation but will still work to find a corp I respect before having to resign to the oligarch
You’re welcome. Good luck out there!
or god forbid the government
Current situation notwithstanding, government work is generally pretty great. You don’t have to work for a three-letter intelligence org to do work in cyber security. I’m at a research lab that does nature shit, but cyber security is still important and we have a whole branch dedicated to just that. All I’m saying is don’t limit yourself.
