So when it comes to salary potential, when you start on cybersecurity, you can typically expect the
higher starting salary than most other, you know, I.T. professionals.
Most likely you're going to be able to make 60 to 70 thousand dollars plus on your first job.
Now, I will say that this may not be for everyone and you can change everything on where you live.
But for example, I live in the Northern Virginia area, and this is a very, very common starting salary
for I.T. jobs, especially cyber security.
That's like almost the minimum wage.
What are you going to start out?
And, you know, as you gain more experience and certifications, you're going to be able to move towards
making six figures within the first five to 10 years of your career.
I can almost guarantee you that if you make the right moves, you make sure that you keep on learning
and you always try to, you know, perform your best.
You're going to be able to move into new positions, move up the ladder.
You're going to start making big bucks.
Cybersecurity is where as Evan.
Just as a quick road map for you guys, the first thing that you're going to need to do is get some
type of proof that you know your stuff.
You probably won't get hired if you don't, you know, either have some type of experience or if you
don't have, like a proof.
In our case, this can be like, you know, an associates degree, which is just a two year degree that
you might get from a community college, a bachelor's degree or even just a certification.
Now, Ilene, personally, honestly, towards certification, because that is literally everything that
can get you into a government job, that can get you into most of these companies that work with the
government because they take their requirements very seriously.
There's something called the DOD 85 70, and that's a list of accepted certifications at different levels
and a lot of jobs, you know, focus primarily on those.
And, you know, this will decide if you get a job or not.
Even sometimes you might have like a ton of experience, but you don't have, like, the right cert.
They might not give you the job.
And certifications nowadays hold a lot of weight.
I still want people to get their bachelor's degrees, you know, and it's in cybersecurity and maybe
even move on to your masters.
But I would like people, you know, if you're switching, you know, making a career transition or
something or you're just trying to get into it, go for certification and work on a bachelor's degree
over time, maybe you can get somebody you know to actually pay for your bachelor's degree.
That's something to keep in mind.
So when it comes to the certification, I recommend that anyone interested in cybersecurity starts with
these security plus certification.
This is pretty much like, you know, the status quo in the industry and security.
Plus it will get you a job.
Quick story.
So I might add, one of my previous jobs, I was I.T. security analyst and a bunch of my co-workers
that started after I did.
They literally came in like one guy that worked on my shift.
I worked the night shift for like three years.
He worked on my shift and he told us that, you know, he was doing door to door sales and then his
friend worked in the SOC that I worked in and said, hey, you know, we're hiring.
He said, hey, what do I got to do to get this job?
I thought, oh, you know, good job security plus and you should be good.
So he literally went, I got a scary place a couple weeks.
He came in and started making really good money.
Another guy, he worked in a hotel as the person that can reach you at the front desk in the hotel.
So and he did the same thing.
You got security.
Plus he came in past the interview and he was good to go.
That's not going to be how it is everywhere.
But for the most part, I recommend that you start with that because he does hold a lot of weight.
I can't express this enough.
And in terms of hacking, I become an ethical hacker, penetrations, tester, whatever you want to
call it, sort of your S.H. or a certified ethical hacker certification is going to be very important.
This is a certification from counsel I don't want to say is the status quo, but it will get you an
interview most of the time if you get your S.H. It is highly regarded for the most part.
And it's a really good introduction.
You know, in a lot of the stuff that we go over here, you're going to see that we've gone over this
clash.
You're going to see, you know, in the material there and you'll probably be able to get through that,
you know, that certification pretty quickly and pretty easily as well, because we know we're following
like a similar methodology, using a lot of the tools that we might bring up there as well and techniques.
So C.H. is definitely something you should if you try to, you know, jump start your career in cybersecurity
and more specifically, ethical hacking.
You know, these two states alone, they can qualify.
Like I said, offer me jobs is going to be message you on LinkedIn all the time.
People are going to be emailing you, calling you, leaving voicemails.
Just I mean, once you start to get these search, people are looking for people specifically with these
certifications to interview for positions.
And just to reiterate, you do not need a degree to get into cybersecurity.
Say with me, you do not need a degree to get into cybersecurity or I.T. the way that the landscape
is now.
Like I said, it's heavily based on certifications.
I do recommend that you get your bachelor's degree and even maybe go higher than that one day like in
your career, just because it'll make them, you know, pretty much have to pay more and also qualify
for, you know, some jobs.
I might need a actual bachelor's degree or some type of degree, but you do not need a degree in this
field.
So don't ever let someone tell you that you need to go get your bachelor's degree because you really
don't, although I do recommend that you do after you get your career started by getting certifications.
So your first objective is going to be to find, you know, some type of entry level security position.
Now, this can be, you know, a position and maybe like a Tier one cybersecurity analyst or a junior
security engineer, junior penetration test, or be open to taking on an internship just so that you
can gain experience.
You know, one of those roles, even some other security roles if possible.
The anything that you can get your phone into is going to, you know, for all your career.
And, you know, if you can't find one of these positions, you know, just try to get your foot in
the door with something like a sysadmin position or a systems engineer position, because most likely
you're going to have some security tasks wrapped into your responsibilities and, you know, your daily
duties and such.
So you're going to be able to spin that and say, hey, you know, I have some cybersecurity experience.
And then you took this class and, you know, you're going to be to talk about hacking and we'll talk
about cybersecurity and stuff.
So you're going to be good to go.
So just try to do one of these things.
And there's a lot of other different names that kind of these are kind of like, what are you going
to see the most?
But there's a lot of different names of different positions, cybersecurity.
So go ahead and look.
Just go on like on indeed.
I really recommend, you know, you're going to need and you start to search of something, see what
the requirements are for like entry level cybersecurity positions.
I would just go on and and type in like entry level cybersecurity and whatever else you want to work
in and the location box and just look at what's there, looking at look at the requirements that look
that stuff up.
You might even know some researchers.
So do that start to brainstorm and then you'll figure out a way which targeting an issue first.
Let's say that, you know, you go ahead, you take my advice, you get a job great.
So now you need to build your experience up and go after a higher level, you know, security certifications.
And this can be something like the top tier cybersecurity as far as I see why I say.
Plus, this is like a mid-level cybersecurity certification as that's something that you would take
after security plus and it's a little bit more technical in nature.
And then there's the top tier Kaspi or the Advanced Security Practitioner Certification.
And this is like a top tier CISSP which don't want to go on to next.
The CISSP is like the highest regarded information, you know, cybersecurity certification.
If you get that certification, you get almost guaranteed, you know, to get jobs like very, very
high paying jobs in like high level jobs.
So I really recommend that one as well.
I think with the CISSP is that you get a certain amount of experience to actually get the certification
after you pass the test and you'll just be an associate.
And so then but to be honest, you know, I told my son I told you this, but if you're an associate
CISSP, it kind of holds the same weight.
OK, so and like I said, the CACP is like his version of that one.
It's it's like a mini but kesby, from what I've heard and from what I've seen from studying for myself
is that it's a little bit more technical in nature than the CISSP in a CISSP is more like management.
You know what we've managed to do in this situation, you know, but also wrapped in with a high level
of technical, you know, security things that you're going to learn throughout your career and throughout
your studies.
So for hacking specifically, there's a couple certification that you can look into as well.
So one is the office is security sort of a professional?
This is like gaining your hacker badge.
So it is certification.
It says that you know how to manually, you know, go in and actually conduct a penetration test or
hack into various different systems.
I follow this the methodologies from that course very heavily.
And it's something that I'm studying for myself.
And a lot of the things that you learn here, you would see there as well, like some similar things,
because it's very, very useful and it's very educational.
You're trying to get into hacking.
This will actually make you feel like, you know, a, I'm actually a hacker.
And if you go on and start to look at that material, you're going to see some you're going to see some
similarities between, you know, you're going to start seeing like maybe some tools or methods and
such that I taught you here.
So this can actually treat as like a like a pre course to that.
So I definitely recommend OSTP.
Go and check that out and see, you know, see what you think about it.
And then there is the council's license penetration tester is right there, I always say is a little
bit lower than the OCP and technical nature of OCP.
Connolly really gets down into like the technical like, you know, this site, this is how you do that.
And LPT is closer to the real world when it comes to penetrate distressingly different things that you
do is that you would say stuff like that, more emulates like an actual real world type of environment.
What you would see if you had a career, you know, in ethical.