Latest / The Comeback Career Podcast with Fexingo: Returning After a Gap, Stay-at-Home Re-Entry / How a Career Gap Helped One Parent Return as a Cybersecurity Analyst
Transcript
- Lucas: So there's this stat I came across last week that made me stop — the cybersecurity workforce gap. According to ISC2, there are about 4 million unfilled cybersecurity roles globally. And the interesting part? Nearly half of the people entering those roles in the past two years came from non-traditional backgrounds. Luna: Non-traditional like — not fresh out of a computer science program? Lucas: Exactly. Career changers. People who were teachers, nurses, retail managers. And I thought — that's a perfect angle for this show, because a career gap doesn't have to be a barrier to entry in a field that's desperate for talent. Today I want to talk about a specific case: a former elementary school teacher named Sarah, who after a six-year gap raising her two kids, landed a role as a cybersecurity analyst. Luna: Six years is a significant gap. How did she even start? I imagine she didn't have a background in tech. Lucas: She didn't. She had a degree in early childhood education. But she'd always been curious about tech — she built her own PC in college for fun, and she enjoyed the logic puzzles in the cybersecurity awareness training her school district ran. So when she decided to go back, she didn't aim for a help desk job or a junior developer role. She went straight for cybersecurity, because she'd read that it's one of the few fields where a certification can outweigh a degree. Luna: Right, the certification path. So what did she do first? Lucas: She started with CompTIA Security+. That's the entry-level certification that's widely recognized in the industry. She studied for about four months using free resources — Cybrary, which has video courses, and Professor Messer's YouTube channel. She spent maybe two hours a night after the kids went to bed. Total cost for the exam was about $370, and she passed on her first try. Luna: That's impressive. But a certification alone — does that get you an interview after a six-year gap? Lucas: Not usually. So she went further. She built a home lab — basically a small network of virtual machines on an old laptop, where she practiced setting up firewalls, detecting intrusions, and simulating attacks. She documented everything on a blog. Then she got her Certified Ethical Hacker certification, which is more hands-on. And she joined a local cybersecurity meetup group — virtually, because this was 2024, 2025 — and she started contributing to open-source security tools on GitHub. Luna: So she basically built a portfolio of work. That's a lot of effort for someone with two young kids. Lucas: It is. But she said the key was treating it like a part-time job. She had a schedule — Monday, Wednesday, Friday nights from 8 to 10 p.m. — and she stuck to it. Her husband handled bedtime on those nights. And she framed the gap as an advantage in her interviews. She said, 'I spent six years managing a household budget, mediating conflicts between small humans, and staying calm under pressure. That's risk management, crisis response, and communication — all core cybersecurity skills.' Luna: I love that reframe. Did employers buy it? Lucas: Some did. She applied to about 40 positions over three months. Got interviews at 8, and offers from 2. One was a junior analyst role at a regional bank — 55k. The other was a fully remote analyst role at a mid-size tech company — 72k. She took the remote one, and here's the kicker: she negotiated the salary up to 78k by using the competing offer as leverage. Luna: That's a 15 percent bump. And she had a six-year gap. So the narrative that you have to start from the bottom after a gap — that's not always true. Lucas: Exactly. And I think a lot of that came from how she positioned herself. She didn't apologize for the gap. She said, 'I took intentional time to raise my children, and during that time I developed skills that are directly relevant to this role.' She also had a one-page skills sheet that mapped her parenting experiences to cybersecurity competencies — conflict resolution to incident response, budget management to resource allocation, multitasking to threat monitoring. Luna: That's brilliant. I've seen some career coaches recommend a 'skills translation' document, but I've never heard it applied so specifically to cybersecurity. Lucas: Yeah. And she also used the returnship pipeline. Some companies — like IBM, JPMorgan, and Verizon — have formal return to work programs, but she found that many smaller firms are open to career changers if you show initiative. She applied to a couple of returnships, but ultimately the remote role came through a referral from someone in her meetup group. Luna: That networking piece is huge. So for someone listening who's thinking about a similar path — what's the first step you'd recommend? Lucas: The first step is to figure out if you actually like the work. Before investing in certifications, spend a month on TryHackMe. It's a gamified platform where you solve security challenges — it's free for the basics. If you enjoy the puzzle-solving aspect, you'll probably enjoy the job. If it feels like a chore, cybersecurity might not be for you. Then, if you're still interested, go for Security+. Luna: And what about the resume gap itself? Any tips on how to present it? Lucas: Sarah's approach was to list her gap as 'Family Caregiver' with a bullet point summary of relevant skills. She didn't hide it. She also included her homelab and blog as a separate 'Professional Development' section. And she used a functional resume format that emphasized skills over chronological order. That's controversial among some recruiters, but in her case, it worked. Luna: That's good to know. And the certifications — Security+ and CEH — those cost money. Is there a way to do it cheaply? Lucas: Yes. There are discounted exam vouchers for students and military families, but for parents on a budget, there are also free resources like Cybrary's free tier, MIT OpenCourseWare for computer networking, and the Cyber Aces online tutorials. The biggest cost is time. Sarah estimated she spent about 500 hours total over 18 months from starting to studying to landing the job. That's about an hour a day. Luna: That's doable. And the payoff is a whole new career. I want to circle back to something you mentioned earlier — about how the field is desperate for talent. Is that still true as of mid-2026? Lucas: It is. The demand has only grown. With more companies adopting cloud infrastructure and remote work, the attack surface has expanded. Ransomware attacks are up, and there's a shortage of people who can handle both the technical and the human side — communication, training, policy. That's where career changers from non-tech backgrounds can really shine. Luna: That's a hopeful message for our listeners. And speaking of hope — we've been doing this show for a while now, and we've never run ads. We deliberately keep it ad-free because we want the advice to be unbiased and accessible. If you've found value in episodes like this one, and you'd like to support that choice, you can find us at buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. No pressure, just a way to keep the show independent. Lucas: Yeah, it matters to us that we can talk about whatever we want without worrying about sponsors. So if you're able, that link is a simple way to say thanks. And now, back to Sarah's story — she's been in her role for about eight months now, and she told me the most surprising thing was how much her teaching background helped with the security awareness training part of her job. Luna: How so? Lucas: She said that when she runs phishing simulations or explains multi-factor authentication to employees, she draws on her classroom management skills. She knows how to break down complex ideas into simple steps, how to keep people engaged, and how to handle the occasional resistant personality. Her boss told her that her training sessions have the highest completion rate in the company. Luna: That's a perfect example of a transferable skill. So if you're a parent re-entering, you don't have to become a completely different person. You can leverage who you already are. Lucas: Exactly. And I think that's the core message of this episode. You don't have to erase your gap. You don't have to pretend you spent the last five years coding. You just have to be intentional about how you frame it and what you do during that time to build relevant skills. Sarah's story is proof that it's possible. Luna: One last question — what about the negotiation? She got a 15 percent increase. Any tips for our listeners on how to negotiate after a gap? Lucas: Sarah's advice was to research the market rate for the role in your area — she used Glassdoor and the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Then, when you get an offer, thank the recruiter, say you're excited, but ask if there's flexibility based on your skills. She had a script: 'Based on my research, the market range for this role is X to Y. Given my certifications and my track record of self-directed learning, I'd like to be at the higher end. Can we revisit the offer?' She didn't mention the gap at all. She focused on the value she brings now. Luna: Confidence. That's the key. And it's something you can practice. Lucas: Yeah. And if you're listening and you're thinking about a return to work — whether in cybersecurity or something else — I'd encourage you to start with one small step. Maybe it's creating a profile on LinkedIn. Maybe it's signing up for TryHackMe. The gap doesn't define you. What you do next does. Luna: Well said. And that's our show for today. Thanks for being here.