Any career help or advice out there? It's brutal

[Leandave]

I've resisted posting a woes me post until I've built up more Cyber Security credentials.  But then I thought, why not get a head start.

Current state.  I've been looking for a new job after leaving a toxic/hostile environment 16 months ago.  Seems the employment market for my skillset is not there.  A summation of my credentials include:
MSET, IMBA, HCCP, ASQ: CSSGB, PMI:PMP/RMP, ISC2:CC.  This is obviously not including all the minor classes and certs I've accumulated.  Experience: 15 years IT, 2 years QE (med device), 8 year production leadership (med device).

Future State:  I have a 12 month plan that includes ASQ: CSSBB, ISC2: SSCP/CISSP, (I expect to have these three finished by end of April) and a few other lesser certs that I can qualify for or can find.

Any advice would be fantastic whether in the cyber security realm or other.  The worst part about submitting applications and being turned down (working on towards 4000 rejections now) is not getting any feedback about where I might be better suited or what KSA's I'm missing to be a better candidate.

Thanks in advance.

[Early_Adopter]

Frankly hard to say without more information but let’s see.

I’d personally be super circumspect on the previous environment being toxic, HR tends to screen out any candidates that might prove(in their opinion) risky/problematic and a gap in employment generally needs a credible explanation(especially with managerial types). Laws/customs around this vary region to region, but good to not hit filters early on - or run into tricky during an interview. Can you get a reference?

What role in cybersecurity do you want to do? It’s such a broad field with so many pockets of depth, that connect in funny ways that it helps to be specific, focused and targeted. Just wanting “cybersecurity” is a trap I see many falling into.

Helps if you’re thinking towards and as a data protection guy, policy authoring, blue team player the lady that keeps the HSMs well stocked with entropy etc. with your experience you’re probably not looking entry level… so you’ll need to leverage stuff you have as skills but also have a very clear vision of tasks a role requires.

Too many certifications that don’t match can be confusing, make you look overqualified. There’s the story of “Das Furby” that the oldsters of wisdom, talk about in hushed whispers in the other place. From what I gather he might have been good at exams and did lots of certs… but he was very annoying to his peers. No idea if it helped him or not. But at least this profession has lore…

Where are you based and where might you be able to work? Good news most corporates get plans in for headcount in March for April, so if you have flexibility then it might be good.

You have Project Management Experience to back the PMP..? Then contracting on projects for an SI is a good way to get back in the grove.

Markets funny at the moment, I’ve got a mate in Japan who is a rockstar and has finding it hard to get back into the workforce after a similar break and he’s focused etc - sure he’s choosy and is greeting interviews but it’s still crazy. One bunch of jokers too him to eight interviews(yes same number of metacarpal based digits as Mickey Mouse) and then said no.

Anyway good luck, I feel you might want to have a chat with someone in the industry based in your commutable are if you can’t just ditch it all to be a journeyman again.

[Early_Adopter]

P.S. Don’t put too much faith in the paper tigers, they are nice to have for sure, but I’ve never yet hired based on any certificat(e)(ion), and while I’ve got… a modest number… in my time the only one that got me a Job directly was my MCSE 2003:Security.

[Leandave]

The certs are more of cashing in experience and learning new things/updating skills.  I'd rather do that than sit around and watch TV all day.  Ya it costs money but the companies/mangers i've been in/under I have had virtually zero support and basically had to develop myself.  

[Leandave]

First point:  Dad died and mom had a heart attack 8 months later, so i left my job and moved in with mom to help her.  So thats covered.

Second point:  I don't know im just trying to work on the KSA's and see what happens.

Third point: I'll look into that

"Too many certifications that don’t match can be confusing, make you look overqualified." -- While i realize this can be a thought process, there should, however, be nothing wrong with learning new ways of doing something or new methods, or credentialing yourself in some other topic.  I'm not going to stop learning.  If it means i gotta be homeless, or work at McDonalds than so be it.

I have references from a COO and directors all the way down to the people I lead at the previous job, I have training and experience from the multiple hats i had to wear as a leader (yes i have experience running projects, 3 years proven is mandatory to qualify for the exam).  I've tried to talk to temp agencies, contract agencies, applied for positions from entry level all the way up to director.  I can't even get an interview since June 2023.  

Jobs I've applied for and got an interview the response I get usually is "we are not longer filling the role at this time".  So that's fun.

I've had a recruiter recently tell me I have an incredible resume and after talking to references tell me " you have the best references I have ever heard of" still nothing.
I've had a recruiter do this to me after talking to me and putting me in for a role:

Recruiter: "Question, are you currently employed?
Looks like your last role ended in November 2022."
Me: "Nope not employed at the moment."
Recruiter: "Okay, my apologies for overlooking such but this would make you ineligible for this role at this time."
Me: "May I ask why being currently employed is a prerequisite for being considered for employment?"
Recruiter: "Of course. It's a standard policy of ours in ensuring that we're sharing top talent to our partners and clients."

The reason im going for the CISSP because i had a conversation with an IT guy when i was at a career fair, he was saying that is the "gold standard" here and since i have the time and ancient experience working with AD polices development, implementation, and auditing, i figure since i have the time lets get that added to my KSA's.

Thanks, i appreciate the thoughts.  Seems based off what your friend in Japan it's a strange world to be unemployed. 

[Early_Adopter]

Sorry to hear about your parents, it’s a pretty tough break.

Based on your response I think the first thing to do is try to tune for interviews. See if you can get some folk here or elsewhere to review your CV - resume and give pointers to edit it for certain jobs. I think at this stage you probably need to be specific and targeted so it would be a good idea to look at roles advertised and reverse engineer your resumes presentation to fit these - match their language terminology and forms (keep a general one as well and you an do A B testing).

Steve mentioned cover letters in another thread and while this might be something you’re doing and HR talent acquisition more or less plays fetch with candidate profiles, the specificity helps. In my experience HR also didn’t pass the letters on(but let’s assume that’s not universal).

Regards certifications - it’s good to learn and do them but try to keep to the critical few for presentation - if nothing else you’ve only got 1 or two pages to play with. CISSP is a good idea, and you can likely claim part time experience for your IT work as part time if you did over 20 hours in at least two domains of the CBK. It’s no silver bullet, and I feel it’s becoming a little less valuable relative to other things as ISC2 focuses on entry level, no more CISSP concentrations etc - but you’ll still see it in adverts where broad knowledge and perspective is required(it’s also sprinkled in all sorts of places that make less sense).

Don’t be homeless/work in McDonalds(unless it’s for their corporate group security function - that would be very interesting).

Anyway, good luck in the search and hope the planning for the new FY (for most companies) give you some good opportunities.

[Leandave]

Thanks man, appreciate the feedback and support.

Have a great week.