Soon to be unemployed

[JRVInfoSec]

Hi all,

I guess it's gotten to this point where I feel compelled to post in here for advice/tips/help/anything. After being at my current employer for 6 months I was informed that my position would be eliminated and replaced by someone internal and at a higher level (I was hired from outside the company and am a manager - they now want to have a SVP or Director doing this) - apparently something they were asked to decide before hiring me. I guess I appreciate the heads up, but that was almost 3 months ago - I've applied to easily 100 jobs, had a minimum of 30+ phone calls/screens/interviews, and about 5 on-site interviews. All leading to rejections. It also doesn't help that my resume now looks like I'm a job-hopper and trying to skip out on a job I've been at for a little over 6 months. I've been in InfoSec for about 6 years and have been a CISSP for 2 years. I'm at a complete loss here and am pretty close to giving up completely. I'm even willing to work part-time and work my way up but still can't find anyplace willing to do that. As far as I know I won't be at this job past the end of the month - which means unemployment and I'll have to move out of my apartment and I have no place to go. Of course I'm kicking myself for even taking this job because there were red flags before I even got hired, but here I am and no use getting upset over it now, I just have to forge ahead. I'm starting to think my career is pretty derailed and I won't be able to redeem myself and get back into a position that is a proper fit for me.

I've used nearly any website that's been recommended to me - LinkedIn, USAJobs, Indeed, SimplyHired, The Muse, VentureFizz, VirtualJobs (or whatever that one is called). Nothing seems to be a fit. I've paid for LinkedIn Premium, I've turned on the "seeking new opportunities" option, I've networked, I've emailed, I've posted. I want to learn more to be able to further myself in InfoSec, but obviously right now time and money are issues (I am aware there are free courses out there, but my job hunt has become my second full-time job currently, as has an apartment or cheap living hunt).

Not sure what exactly I'm looking for as far as advice or thoughts, but thought I'd at least take a moment and post this to see what kind of feedback there is.

[Campbell3336]

Have you considered IT Audit?  Consider ISACA's CISA certification and together with your CISSP it makes a good pair.   After many many years in IT (operational), I switched to IT Audit 4 years ago and while the pay is a bit less, I love the work and hours are better (non-operational).  Hang in there - never give up hope!

[dsweetman]

Over my career I was let go on three different occasions when the economy was soft and jobs were difficult to find (1993 during a weak recovery and 7 weeks after 9/11 are the best examples).  My experience was that if I treated the search as a numbers game I could generally find work within a six month period, even if I needed to take a cut in compensation to pay the mortgage until the economy recovered.  I treated the search as a job - full time, constantly researching opportunities, tailoring resumes and intro letters for each company and job opening.  My goal was to locate and apply for 1000 positions in the six month period.  On average, this resulted in about ten interviews and three offers.  The offers very rarely came in early in the six month period, more often in the fifth or sixth month of the search.  I never knew which response or job source would result in success, so I covered all bases - networking, online want ads, headhunters, etc.  Two of my jobs came from search firms, one from networking.  Two of the jobs I found were at the same compensation level, one involved a compensation cut that I recovered in less than three years.

One thing I noted is that when employers do searches of online resume sources, they give a higher priority to those that have been posted recently.  So I developed the habit of always updating my online resumes every two or three days, so the web site would show recent activity and move me toward the top of the search results.

You are doing better than I did so far - more interviews for your first 100 responses.  This is also a good time to be looking - the economy is better than when I was doing searches, and the InfoSec space is still very warm with low unemployment.  So my sense is that you will locate something within a reasonable period of time if you maintain the intensity of your search.  Good luck sir and hope this helps.

[CISOScott]

I didn't see dice.com listed in your job search, try that also.

Have you considered putting into your resume "Due to company reorganization my position is being eliminated."? That might help with the job hopping worries. Also, I would address that upfront in interviews.

I spent 25 years with the federal government so I have some advice for USAJOBS which is this: Apply to everything you qualify for but expect a lengthy wait of 3-6 months for the initial job offer. If you have to have a background check it may be even longer than that. If you get referred for a job, keep applying to other ones. Do not expect the process to be fast. 

You could also try googling for state government jobs where you are at.