Many of you saw my previous video on cybersecurity careers. And if you haven’t, please check that out.
Well, it generated considerable interest,
and I can tell that from all the comments that I got on YouTube and on LinkedIn. Yes, I really do view those comments and I try to respond.
Well, it made me think that there are a lot of questions that I keep getting over and over again.
So why not put out a follow up video where we go through the frequently asked questions?
And therefore, if you had the question, probably other people do as well.
So we'll get a chance to take a look at a cybersecurity career “Frequently Asked Questions” video.
Now, these are some of the things that came up. These are the top seven that I keep seeing. This is number one: Do I need a degree?
Do I need a four year degree, a college degree or whatever to get into cybersecurity?
What certifications-- Industry professional certifications --do I need in order to be qualified and hirable
into a cybersecurity job? How about coding skills? Do I need to be able to write code?
Training. How can I get additional training, maybe even above and beyond what the degree would call for.
And mentoring. A lot of people ask, “Will you be my mentor?” And I don't know them.
They're just asking. And also, a lot of people come to me and say, “Well, will you get me a job?” And
then finally, well, should I even bother with all of this or is AI going to replace us?
Well, I thought it would be even more interesting if I bring in a former student of mine, Wes Pretsch,
who also did a video on his first year in the cybersecurity field and how he got a job.
And we'll discuss all of these things and come up with answers.
Okay, Wes, what's our first question? First question, do I need a degree? Well, that's a good question.
And I'm going to give you kind of an equivocal answer: Yes, no, maybe. It kind of all depends.
It depends on the kind of job you want to do and what you want to do with that job.
But there's different fields that someone could study. What would those be?
Well, me personally, I went down the computer science route. However, now being in the field and meeting other people in the field,
you can really also go in information systems or data science as well. And all of these fields tie in to cybersecurity.
Yeah, exactly. So you could come in from this from a lot of different areas, but in the end,
you have a lot of different choices in terms of the level of training that you want to do.
You could start with a bootcamp, which might be only a few weeks. You could do a two year degree, a four year bachelor's degree,
a master's, a Ph.D. If you want to be a cybersecurity analyst,
some of these things up here at the top would be perfectly sufficient. If you want to be a researcher,
obviously, you want to do something like this. So that's why I say it kind of depends. All right. Our next question.
Next question is what kind of certifications do I need? And this one's really important.
A lot of people ask about this. What the certifications prove, that you've got the bona fides,
that you have, in fact, got the knowledge and the experience to do this kind of stuff.
And according to a good resource called cyberseek.org, these are the top five certificates that are in demand,
by order of demand. So kind of the gold standard in the cybersecurity space is this one called the CISSP.
It's the Certified Information Systems Security Professional.
That's the certification that I have. Wes, how about you? What have you got in this space? Well, right now, nothing, because
I've only been in the space for really about a year. However, I am working on the Security+.
Yeah, and that's a good one for entry-level because it doesn't require as much experience
and it asks you questions so that you can show that you have the knowledge.
Other things the GIAC is really good for analysts. It's the Global Information Assurance Certification,
it comes from the SANS Institute. And then if you're an auditor, there's a certification for that.
If you want to be a manager, there's a certification for that.
So lots of different possibilities here depending on the kind of job that you want to do.
Okay. Our next question Wes, do I need to be able to write code to be a cybersecurity professional?
Well, the yes or no answer is really no.
But it's extremely important to understand how computers work and how information systems process information.
And so the day-to-day work I'm doing, I'm really not writing any code.
And there's plenty of other positions that don't write code. For example, my manager does not write any code,
but we're still in a cybersecurity space looking at cybersecurity problems.
And so yes or no answer? No, but it's extremely important to know what you're looking at.
Sure. A cybersecurity analyst is probably not writing code either, but they're working in security all day long.
But if they have that additional knowledge, then they can go a little deeper
and understand what's happening under the covers.
So that was our first three questions. Next question number four, what kind of training is available?
Well, there's a lot of things available, thankfully, and it runs from absolutely free to very expensive, depending on where you want to be on this spectrum.
And this spectrum runs like this. So you can think of something
--in the first video that I did on cybersecurity careers, I mentioned this thing called Coursera, which is a really great program.
You can go and and get a certificate once you pass this online class. And it costs a little bit, you can take the course for free.
But if you want the certificate, you have to have paid for it.
But there's something if you want absolute free skillsbuild.org
is a really good website that IBM runs, and it’s for different levels
all the way from high school up to a professional who's wanting to advance their skills as well. And then, as I mentioned previously, there's bootcamps.
These are usually a couple of weeks, maybe a month or so. That will be very intense in one particular area.
They're going to be more expensive than these options I talked about.
And then there's the option that, in fact, you and I both did and it's where we met was at the university.
So that's going to be the most expensive of the options. But you're going to get a lot broader training and a lot deeper
So you kind of get what you pay for. But, Wes, how would someone decide which one of these things is the right thing for them to do?
Well, that answer is really going to vary based on what you need. And some three basic criteria is the budget needs and goals
starting out with budget. So budget--how much are you willing to spend on an education?
And this is going to vary for everyone. And also to narrow that down, what are your needs?
Are there certain certifications or experiences that you need for a specific position? And then lastly, goals.
This is more of your wants. Where do you want to take your career?
What kind of direction do you want to go in and how do you want to advance your knowledge about cybersecurity?
Absolutely. Okay. All right. And then our next question. This is one that I get a lot--
people come on LinkedIn and they'll say--just a random person I don’t know-- will you be my mentor?
And I'm thinking, okay, there's probably better ways to do this. Like how you and I got to know each other.
So why don't you talk about that?
Yeah. So how we got to know each other was I was a former student with him at university for a cybersecurity topics course.
So we already had this relationship and it was organic and natural because it was teacher and student. And then I really enjoyed his class.
I loved asking about cybersecurity questions and he loved talking about them. So it worked out for us.
We had a lot of common interests. Then we eventually kept meeting with each other and talking about career goals
and directions to take, and different paths with how to navigate the cybersecurity space.
Some of the conversation we had also inspired me to create a cybersecurity-centered club at University,
and so he helped me along with that and being one of our first keynote speakers for that.
Yeah. So that was common experiences in addition to our common interests. And then another common experience.
You're looking at it right now. We're doing these lightboards and we're doing our first one together. So we continue this again in the relationship that starts.
It's not coerced, it's not forced. It's something that happens naturally and we continue to grow it from there.
And compatibility is a big part. If you think about in any relationship, compatibility is important.
You don't get along with everybody, right? And some people you get along with better than others
and some people you have a natural affinity for. And if you're picking a mentor,
you really want someone that you have that kind of natural affinity for, that you have that connection with.
And you don't get that by just picking a random person.
You might think you know them, but you really kind of get to know them better.
And then another thing I think a lot of people overlook you don't need just a single mentor.
I always recommend having multiple mentors because every mentor I've ever had in my career has given me something different, something additional.
They all have different perspectives because they all have different stories and different experiences.
So why wouldn't you learn from all of those things and then build together your own mental model of where you want your career to go?
So don't limit yourself to a single mentor, but when you do pick mentors, do it in a natural, organic way and develop it like you would any other relationship.
Okay, so here are a last two frequently asked questions. Can you get me a job? Well, yes.
I'm really glad that when you were my student, you just didn't come to me and ask the question that way.
Because one thing that does not work is random resumes and approaching strangers
and just approaching someone and saying, “get me a job.”
You had some experience with the random resume thing, right? Yeah, actually, I mentioned in a previous video my sophomore year,
I applied to over 80 different positions by just sending in my resume and I got zero of them.
And then my junior year is when I actually leverage my network and I only applied to six positions.
So see, you're learning. That's the idea behind university. So what you want to do is leverage, first of all, your network. What did your network look like originally?
So originally I really only knew six positions or six people to contact. And so my network was really fairly pretty small.
Yeah. So the good news though is you were able to leverage your mentor's network. You get to know me and now
all of a sudden your network is just one degree of separation from all of these that I know.
So now, you don't have to know everyone I know, you know me and I know those people.
And if you have a question that can that these people could help with, then I can put you in touch with the right folks.
So that helps a lot, I think. And then one other resource that's really important is looking at job sites and for instance, ibm.com/jobs.
If you want to get a job at IBM, that's where they're posted. There are other websites as well, but that's a question I get a lot is, you know,
is this position or whatever available at IBM--there's where you go to find out.
Okay. So our last question was artificial intelligence. It's all the rage these days.
And a lot of people have expressed concerns AI is going to replace all of our jobs. What's the point in even learning any of this?
Because the AI is just going to do it anyway.
What's your take on that? So my take is that AI may not take over all of our jobs, but they're definitely going to change them.
And so our skill sets that we need to do our jobs are also going to change.
Exactly. In fact, I think it means we need to learn more about AI so that we can work with it
and know what its capabilities and limitations are. But whenever I get this question, one of the first things I try to point to is
--you can go to a website like cyberseek.org and it will tell you that there are on the order of 700,000 available cybersecurity positions in the US alone right now.
In fact, it may be even more than that by the time you view this. So first of all, there is a lot of demand
and we're not going to meet all of that with just an AI chatbot, some suddenly coming and doing all of that. So there's a lot of demand in the first place.
Second thing is our AI as it exists today has a lot of limitations. It can do amazing stuff, but it can't do everything.
It's basically really good at this kind of stuff.--knowledge producing, knowledge, presenting that when you need it.
But knowledge is not the same thing as wisdom.And sometimes when we make decisions,
knowledge alone isn't enough. We need experience. We need to consider trade offs.
We need the analysis that looks and says, okay, I could do this, but that's not really the best thing.
What's the best of these alternatives? And that kind of knowledge and trade offs are the things that right now,
humans are still the best at, at least some people are. So that's the kind of stuff that we still need humans for. So embrace AI, find a way to work with it.
That would be my advice on this.
And that wraps up our seven frequently asked questions. If you disagree with any of our answers
or have different ways that you came into the field, let us know down below.
Yeah. And in fact, if you have more questions, if they're really good ones, then who knows?
Put those in and maybe we'll do another video and you'll get to see us back here on the screen again.
Thanks for watching. If you found this video interesting and would like to learn more about cybersecurity, please remember to hit like and subscribe to this channel.