Transcript

Cyber Jobs · CYBR.Signal

0:00
SPEAKER_00: And hello, everybody.
0:01
SPEAKER_00: Happy Cyber Sunday.
0:02
SPEAKER_00: Hope you're doing well.
0:04
SPEAKER_00: So I wanted to talk about some things I've been seeing in regards to on LinkedIn and stuff, and probably Twitter or some other places about the job market in cybersecurity.
0:19
SPEAKER_00: So a lot of what I'm seeing is uh there was specifically a post by Ira Winkler around if you're looking to get into cybersecurity right now, don't.
0:33
SPEAKER_00: Ira's never wanted to pull punches, uh, so I've always appreciated that about him, regardless of whether you agree with him or not.
0:40
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't pull punches and he's gonna you know have a strong opinion on things, and that's great.
0:44
SPEAKER_00: I I love that.
0:46
SPEAKER_00: It did feel heavy-handed to me a little bit on this post, and and I'll link to this and tag Ira so he can comment as well if he wants.
0:56
SPEAKER_00: But even though I felt like it was heavy-handed, I do understand where he's coming from.
1:01
SPEAKER_00: And part of it is, and it's something that I posted a while back around fear, uncertainty, and doubt and that kind of thing when you're talking about cyber, and I specifically was bringing up the point where it used to be that statistic of a a million open jobs or whatever, and nobody can really back that up as a as a real number, but everybody jumped all over it.
1:21
SPEAKER_00: And he says the same thing.
1:22
SPEAKER_00: There's just not there's just not a million open jobs.
1:25
SPEAKER_00: And his point is there's a lot of people getting laid off right now.
1:28
SPEAKER_00: It's a tough market to get into.
1:29
SPEAKER_00: It, if you're thinking about getting into it, you maybe you shouldn't.
1:33
SPEAKER_00: I don't agree with that holistically.
1:36
SPEAKER_00: What I do agree with is that you should think about it and do some studying of the market and take a look and make sure this is something you want to get into right now because it is not as hot as it used to be.
1:51
SPEAKER_00: If you get into cyber and you've been in this for and you get in and manage to stay in for a while, you've got good job security in general, but there are a lot of people getting laid off.
1:59
SPEAKER_00: Now, what I do see, I and this is anecdotal, I haven't done a lot of studies on it, kind of moving from the getting in to staying in cybersecurity.
2:07
SPEAKER_00: What I do see is a whole lot of vendors laying off in cybersecurity right now.
2:12
SPEAKER_00: And it's because there was a whole lot of easy, kind of cheap money for a long time to hire people and get them into that.
2:19
SPEAKER_00: And now there's really, now that that's not there as much, there's a big focus on uh making sure these companies are profitable and not just a good vehicle to invest in so you can sell them and make money that way.
2:33
SPEAKER_00: So the VCs aren't giving money as way as quick as they used to, at least not in cybersecurity.
2:38
SPEAKER_00: So that's kind of that maybe get in, maybe not.
2:43
SPEAKER_00: If you're in where those job layoffs are happening, again, I don't have the statistics with me, and this is something I kind of want to research a little bit, but what I see more is vendors laying off versus companies that have another focus, you know, maybe their healthcare or whatever.
3:01
SPEAKER_00: How many people are they laying off from a cybersecurity standpoint?
3:04
SPEAKER_00: I don't see that happening.
3:05
SPEAKER_00: Again, I could be wrong, and I'm open to somebody throwing some statistics down here, but I'm seeing most of those what I am seeing are like some CISOs getting let go, especially ones that have been at companies a long time.
3:17
SPEAKER_00: And there's not like a glut where I am, but there are a lot more CISOs on the market than there have been for a long time.
3:23
SPEAKER_00: So I've seen that, and that's interesting, and I think that's just because companies are trying to take new directions, and some of the CISOs that they have just not in that direction that they want to take, so they're doing something else.
3:35
SPEAKER_00: So that's interesting and unfortunate, obviously, um, that some of those higher level people are getting laid off, people they've been in there for a while.
3:43
SPEAKER_00: But what I want I will say from an advice standpoint, not necessarily the people who are trying to get in, but people who are in and who I've seen talking about how they're having problems getting interviews.
3:58
SPEAKER_00: There's there's an HR gate in just about every industry, and you have to focus on putting your resume and stuff together in order to focus it on what that particular job is looking for.
4:13
SPEAKER_00: Yes, there is a problem with HR being that gate because they don't sometimes don't even know how to spell cyber.
4:19
SPEAKER_00: Um, so they can throw out resumes and not realize that that person is a strong candidate.
4:25
SPEAKER_00: At the same time, it's they have a job to do and they have to do it efficiently.
4:30
SPEAKER_00: And so you have to kind of cater to the job.
4:33
SPEAKER_00: So I would say just to wrap this up as a piece of advice, if you're in cyber and you're having trouble getting interviews and you're submitting your resume for certain jobs, and if you aren't catering your resume to focus on what the requirements are for that job, then you may want to do that.
4:51
SPEAKER_00: I'm not saying you're doing it wrong because that's inefficient as well sometimes, but you may want to take the time to do that if you can, because that can help HR see those things and those keywords that they're looking for.
5:04
SPEAKER_00: So anyway, I know it's a tough market out there right now.
5:07
SPEAKER_00: If you I think if you want to get into cyber, you still should pursue it.
5:12
SPEAKER_00: Just think about it cautiously and ask some people some advice.
5:17
SPEAKER_00: If you're in cyber and you're having trouble getting interviews, just look at that HR gate and figure out some ways of getting past it by catering your resume to those jobs and then do as much as you can to get references and talk to people you know to get some jobs.
5:34
SPEAKER_00: Because there are a lot of open jobs out there.
5:36
SPEAKER_00: I'm posting jobs almost every day.
5:38
SPEAKER_00: There's a lot.
5:39
SPEAKER_00: There are just a lot more people in cyber right now than there are jobs, I think.
5:44
SPEAKER_00: So, anyway, thanks for listening.
5:45
SPEAKER_00: Let me know what you think.
5:46
SPEAKER_00: I'll talk to you next time.