Passed CC Exam

[Fjean28]

I passed my CC exam a few months ago but it hasn't helped my in my job search. Are there specific roles that you would suggest based on the CC certification? 

Thanks! 

[cgoyard]

If you're really into cybersecurity and you are just starting your career, you can try getting a position as an junior analyst in a SOC.

However, you can be whatever you like doing. CC helped you gather knowledge and insights on a broad scope of cybersecurity topics. But that's just a start ! I think the next step is to question yourself about which jobs you want to work on. Being able to take security into account at work will give you an edge at some point, but that's hardly a selling point in IT outside of pure information security positions.

If you like system administration, then you will be a security-conscious system administrator and that's really great. Same for developer. If you like project management, do that, your security knowledge will help you taking sensible decisions. If you work at a SMB (like in the Java sip videos), you can help secure your company and up the game.

Good luck !

[Theo_cert]

I take the CC on the 30th. But I have BS in Network Security and a few other certs.  When I pass the CC I'm going to renew my lapsed Sec+. My suggestion is to look at Splunk's website and the training resources there. They have a good number of classes at no cost. For others to offer focused advice you might want to describe your background. Do you have a degree, do you have interest in getting one? Do you have any certifications other than the CC. Do you have work experience in a technical job like IT Service Desk or network operations? Farther along in your career what role would you like to be in? Like Security Consultant, Network Engineer, Cloud Architect, software developer, ...

[Big-Andre]

Thanks for your response and advice.

[Big-Andre]

I had some network training and was certified as CCENT but the certification has long expired. I completed Google Professional Cybersecurity certificate last year. I'm presently enrolled in IBM and ISC2 cybersecurity online training at Coursera. I'm very interested in Cloud security. I'll be very grateful if you advise more on how go about it. Thanks.

[jamensah2]

Congrats!

[Theo_cert]

I 'provisionally' passed today. I did it in a bit over an hour and made myself slow down a few times. I think I did about as well on the exam as I did on the practice exams. I only 'guessed' two questions. I never scored below 90% practicing. 

The free class is enough. But you have to know all the quiz questions and the practice exam questions. So go back and find the answers to questions you miss. If you can go through all the 'flash cards' explaining correctly before flipping, you ought to pass. 

[Theo_cert]

I think you are on a good path. The amount of free training from vendors is surprising. But you have to dig for it. Cover the basics then choose a path. Like security, dev-ops, architecture, …

'Multicloud' is a trend that was introduced to me in training*. So being able to configure or monitor resources on one vendor's cloud is not enough. Diverse provisioning across cloud providers offers advantages. If one provider is having trouble you can ramp up resources on another provider's cloud. If one provider offers storage at the best price or with lower latency you can access that storage with compute resources from the cloud provider who has the best compute for your requirements. Google and IBM were on my shortlist but I need to renew lapsed certs for a job I verbally accepted. There are cloud-orientated tools to help migrate from one cloud to another(Terraform). And there are cloud provider-neutral technologies like 'containers' you need to at know about (Kubernetes, Docker). Understanding virtualization is now foundational. A company might buy IaaS and manage their virtual machines off of bare-metal servers. VMware has some free classes and you can run a trial VMware product for up to a year.

Once you get the basic knowledge. Set up a lab, It could be all virtual and open source. Document it all and be able to share it online. Hopefully, before this takes up your whole life you will get the job you want. Then you can flex your skills on the clock.

A friend used to say life came down to two things: time and money. If you spend too much time on free or low-cost basics you may not get where you need to. But basic cloud certs from two of the major cloud providers seem a good compromise (AWS, Google, Oracle, IBM, Microsoft ???). From there you could focus on higher certs that are what you are good at or want to be good at. Like choosing between a security or architect.

*I took a free course that was a promotion for a training/mentoring company. I love this guy's approach but hesitate to promote here and I do not know how good the full-length classes are for the money they cost.

Treat LinkedIn like a portfolio that is a virtual companion to your resume. Be careful what you post, like you are talking to the CEO of Google or AWS. But put your accomplishments there and how they lead to your goals. Don't be in a rush to fill up your feed with posts. I post the LinkedIn learning classes I take. I message back any recruiter who messages me and join networks as seems prudent. My LinkedIn metrics show people viewing my profile since I started developing it. My job offer was from a Glassdoor lead. But after my interview, I had like 5 or 6 views. So they checked, Be careful with your personal social media content too.