Transitioning to a Cybersecurity Job with No Experience: Setting Yourself Up for Success

CyberBrewTom

Dec 1, 20246 min read

Cybersecurity is an extremely hot job field at the moment. Governments and organizations of all sizes have been affected by Cybersecurity that's made its way to major news outlets within this past year as we all have seen. This has had to a major shift towards this field for a few reasons. A) Companies are increasing their funding for Cybersecurity to hopefully not end up like one of those organizations put on blast for a Cyber Security failure and B) Cybersecurity products continue to emerge nearly every day and often find themselves in advertisements that everyone sees, so and so forth. Regardless - this has led to increased focus on Cybersecurity in the public media, leading to a large influx of people aiming to take advantage of this and transition into these lucrative positions regardless of their experience in the niche. Stick around to get more insight on transitioning to a cybersecurity job with no experience.

The Electrician’s Journey

Interestingly enough - regardless of what your job position is at the moment, you likely have overlaps to Cybersecurity that you do during your day-to-day responsibilities even if you may not be fighting against hackers. To give a better example I'll give a recent example of an electrician we had worked with in terms of crafting their resume for an entry-level Cybersecurity job.

To give a brief background - our client had become very interested in making the job to Cybersecurity, as we highlighted previously many find themselves in these shoes. However - they truthfully had no experience that fell into traditional "Cybersecurity" experience, or so they had thought. Our client was extremely determined and hopped on several zoom calls so that we really start to hammer out building out their profile in this brand-new niche. They had applied to several positions already that were both general IT and Cybersecurity focused positions but had not even heard such as a callback. Once we heard this - we jumped right to the meat and bones, there resume, which is usually where success is made or broken for finding that first foot-in-the door job.

Identifying Transferable Skills

Before we dive in - if you truly are green to Cybersecurity I would in most cases reach out to either a professional service or potentially a friend that currently works in the IT / Cybersecurity field for what we discuss here. At the end of the day - it will be a bit difficult to truly map experience, job responsibilities, day to day work, to Cybersecurity related bullet points on your resume unless you have a working knowledge of the responsibilities you may see on job descriptions.

The most important, but most difficult part, is finding out where your experience can be mapped to Cyber Security. To keep working with the electrician real-life example, we'll highlight how we are able to legitimately and successfully translate their current experience into a transformed cyber security profile. As you could imagine given their experience had been electrician work for around 5 years - there skillsets weren't black and white in line with Cybersecurity but surprisingly there was a ton of overlap that could be shaped to translate to both potential IT and Cybersecurity entry-level roles.

Electrician Example

The client was responsible for making sure installations and repairs adhered to standards, compliance and work safety protocols. We highlighted there experience ensuring that these compliance standards were met - which is an essential part of the policy side of cyber security (GRC)

The client also was responsible for troubleshooting electrical systems and their maintenance to ensure that equipment experienced as little downtime as possible. This is a huge component of the CIA triad (A for Availability) which is focused on making sure information systems experience minimal downtime.

The client also worked on many projects that worked with network / data wiring installation specifically with Cat5 and Cat6 wiring. This is very applicable to what junior network analysts may do or what system administrators may find themselves working with in Server Room.

They were responsible for ongoing asset management and tracking of electrical tools, equipment, and materials for both auditing purposes and maintaining an inventory of assets. Another very applicable duty when it comes to doing so with Information System equipment.

The list goes on, but the most important takeaway is that there ways that your current job duties - no matter how unrelated to Cybersecurity or IT they may be - likely have much more transferable skills that you would expect.

Building Your Foundation

Regardless of how much overlap you may be able to find, it is crucial to begin building out your foundation of Cybersecurity and fundamentals. There are many different routes you could potentially take to build your foundation and there is no right answer, but the most important part is that you go ALL in doing so.

A few potential routes you could take, each with their own pros and cons (check out subreddits like r/cybersecurity for example to do some research yourself).

Certifications - there many entry-level focused IT certifications that can demonstrate to your employer both your determination and also your foundational knowledge backed up by a legitimate certification. For example, the CompTIA Security+, Network+. The Blue Team Level I certification. The CCNA networking certifications all come to mind. Also the many Microsoft and AWS certifications as well. Either way there is a lot of potential to obtain these certifications through self-study regardless of background and there are tons of material to aid your studies out there regardless of knowledge level!

College Degrees

Don't panic. This is not a requirement but it definitely helps. It's well worth it to at least look at potential Associate or part-time degrees that are typically the lower end of prices. For example - Western Governor University is a common and extremely affordable degree that many of those transitioning look into.

Join Online Forums:

Immerse yourself. Find subreddits, find discords, find LinkedIn groups, Twitter (Or I guess X) cybersecurity focused creators and immerse yourself. Often times these groups or individual creators have a ton of advice those looking into the field. Not to mention the networking that could potentially fall your way for just being active in these online communities.

No One-Size Fits All Approach

Although you may be hell-bent on jumping right into Cybersecurity, it is important to be humble, patient and persistent. A good bunch of our clients actually have found themselves getting offers from IT focused roles as opposed to Cybersecurity roles. This trend usually ends up being a critical factor into their eventual transfer into pure Cybersecurity roles. IT/Help/Desk support roles are nothing to dismiss as they will give you legitimate hands-on experience with technology and information systems that you won't be able to gain anyplace else. Taking a job in one of these roles - even if it's temporary will have a massive boost on your odds of making that switch into Cybersecurity. Companies will potentially sponsor certifications, tuition assistance, etc. while you are also building legitimate hands-on experience that is more transferable than any other positions out there. If you have issues getting a pure Cybersecurity role do not balk at potentially starting off in a general, IT role.

Full transparency - I actually began my career as IT Service Technician. My company sponsored certifications in which I took full advantage of. Obtaining those certifications also signaled to my employer that I was determined to break into the field which allowed me to start to get my hands in Cybersecurity focused work with the Security Administrator there. Eventually I got transferred to work directly under him as a junior cyber security analyst which propelled my career. I would never have had the opportunity to afford all those certifications, gain legitimate hands-on experience with information systems and eventually working with the Security Administrator if I had thought that an IT role would only be setting me backwards!