Convocourses Podcast: Starting in IT with No Experience (2020)

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZATU40nemZg&t=2s

 

There are ways to get into cybersecurity and information technology. With little or no experience. 

In this podcast, I explain how to do that. Some things I've learned along the way in my 20 plus years of experience. And we keep open topics. So we talking about a lot of different Now this one is from 2020. A lot of things were happening as you know, in 2020, the pandemic was happening with all these protests in America and all that stuff. I try not to talk about that stuff too much but it does come up from time to time i focus mainly on cyber security stuff so if you're interested in knowing how to get into it with little or no experience check out this podcast

Hope you enjoy this one.  I I do weekly. I missed last week. Um, had some stuff going on, but here I am this week, and today we're gonna cover, we're gonna cover some questions that I recently got. So if you have any questions at, at any time throughout this, just feel free to ask and I will I'll cover it. But one of the common questions I I've been getting lately is how do I get into it with no little or no experience?

And so more than one person has been asking, for some reason questions go in sets like somebody will ask me and then like three other people ask me the same question. So I would like to cover that what, um, and give you some resources and stuff like that. But before we.  I should let you, uh, I should, I just want to give condolences to, to, to the, all the people who have passed away, do the COVID 19, I'm still bunkered in still, um, uh, staying at home and stuff just like I'm supposed to do.

And hopefully you guys are staying safe as far as the job market is concerned. Uh, it's pretty much the same. It's kind of a freeze going on with hiring new people that said, I am still getting job offers, uh, and opportunities in my inbox. Just not as many, not nearly as many as I was before. And also, um, like the company I'm working for, they have kind of a hiring freeze, but they, they did hire some people like at the tail at the very beginning of this COVID 19.

So we actually do have new people, but they're kind of slowing it down. Cause we don't know financially.  where the wind's blowing as far as the company and as far as clients and stuff like that. So that's kind of what's going on with COVID 19. And if you guys, uh, have any anecdotal, uh, personal experiences on what's going on in your wherever, you're from feel free to let us know.

Um, you guys are looking at the same data that I'm looking at, so that's, what's going on with it. And let's just go ahead and dive into this. Let me see if I could bring up the questions I've been getting. And, uh, yeah. So several people have been asking me this question right here. I dunno if you could see this, but I'm just gonna go ahead and read it and it says, um, Hey, what if you have zero experience and just got your security plus cert everyone seems to want new graduates or people with five years of experience.

Also, I don't have a security clearance. So I gotten this question several times, um, from several different people. From all over, uh, from, from LinkedIn, from my email box. Uh, and then there's a couple other people who have, who have asked that very question. So I'm gonna go ahead and answer it to the best of my ability.

And bef before I start on this, I should let you know that I actually have a course that talks about this very thing. So if you go to combo courses.com or you can go to security, compliance, dot, think.com, combo courses.com, easier to remember. You'll see some courses that I have, one of the free courses that I have that talks about my, my perspective on how do you get into it?

How do you get into cyber security with little or no experience? And I talk about it here. I break everything down. I talk about what I would do if I was in like, starting from scratch, knowing what I know now, what would I do?  um, and this is from an insider's perspective, what would I do to get in? And so here's some of the topics that I cover.

And so very briefly, I'm gonna summarize some of the stuff that's in here, but if you're interested in this, it is free right now. Um, the reason why I made it free recently is because people are hurting. People are wanting to change and I can see the service industry and several other industries are destroyed.

I'm fine. My job's fine. Um, even if I lost my job right now, I'm certain I could get a job very quickly. It's because I'm in it. And I realize that I'm, you know, I'm a very privileged growing field. And so I encourage a lot of people who, who are looking for a stability to, to get into this field because it's, we definitely need people.

We need people with experience. We need people with, with patients. Um, and you might be surprised you might be in an industry that compliments getting into it. A lot of people I think are kind of shook by all the technical stuff you have to know. But to be honest with you, there's some aspects of our career field that are not very technical and I will talk about those things.

So there you go. There's a free course for you. If you want to jump on there and then I've got some other paid stuff that's also in there, sign up is free. The course is free and it's to help people out. So there you go. All right, what would I do? What would I do? And I got some stuff lined up to tell you like other people's perspective on it.

What, what I would do is number one, I would look at my current experience. Cause as I said, some experience that you may have in the service industry, in the medical industry, in banking, whatever you do it, may you be, might be surprised how much it could compliment getting into it. And I'll give you a couple examples.

In retail, let's say you work retail or your customer service. You're a front facing person who a customer comes up to and has to interact with the way this can help, can help you if you're getting into it, is that a lot of ITP professionals are not good with people. They're not, they're just not good at talking to me, myself included.

I'm I'm I mean, I'm now I'm damn near 50, so I, I know how to speak. I've been, I've done so many things. I've been baptized by fire so many times I've talked, you know, I've done briefings for generals. I've done briefing for, uh, C level execs. I so many times that now it's just, it feels natural to me. I still get nervous and stuff cuz it's just not my I'm not an extrovert.

Uh, so what I'm getting at is a lot of us, it professionals we're good at technical stuff, but not so good. Usually at face to face interaction. So if you're at a customers facing. Um, whether it's retail or if it's, uh, if you're working in, um, the front, your clerk store clerk, or even, uh, you work at McDonald's or anything like that, you have to interact with people on a regular basis.

You have to have a, you know, you have to be professional at all times. You have to approach things in a certain way, from the perspective of the company, you know, you have to maintain this face. That right there already is way above what a lot of it professionals. Skill sets entail. Um, a lot of us don't have it.

We just don't, we're just not very, we don't have a  we're just not good at it. You know, so right there, you already have a skill set that is very useful for help desk for customer it customer service, believe it or not, there's an it customer service that is still alive and well in the United States. Not just in India, not just in the Philippines, not just in the us.

We have a lot of customer service representative spots. Um, and as, without naming any names without, without naming my clients or anything like that, I was. Few weeks ago, maybe a couple months ago I was, uh, at a client's location and one of our client was saying, yeah, we need, we need it. Security, not, we need it customer, uh, customer service people, and we just can't keep him.

And he was, he was this guy explaining like, man, we just really need, you know, so there is, there are jobs out there for customer service and sometimes some of the entry level positions will train you on the job and you have like a script, uh, and you'll have to interact with people, but they have a script and a walkthrough of how to fix certain things.

Um, so if I was to start now, if I starting off had no experience at all, what I would do is look at my own skills that I already have. So that's one, I just named one skillset that you probably already have. If you're a customer, uh, customer service representative, that's actually a very good skill to have.

Now you still have to learn the basics of it. You still have to learn. Uh, things like what's in the, at the, um, compt a plus certification which breaks down what, what goes in the hardware and software, how it all works together. You still have to have a basic understanding of that stuff. Um, if you're getting in the it, right.

Um, another skill set that you might have is if you've worked in a bank, so banks, their security and their terminology is different. They call assessments, auditing, you know, they, they are always looking for auditors. Somebody who's gonna look at comp. They kind of see the world from a, like a CPA's perspective, you know?

So it's, uh, different terminology, different frameworks, like security compliance frameworks that they have to meet, that banks have to meet a certain compliance. And then you might have to have compliance for PCI. Like that's the card readers. Um, there's Sarbanes Oxley that you might have to learn. There might be some things that you already know that I don't know, Haven never.

Work directly in a banking environment. You know, I've done assessments and stuff for different organizations, but not, I've never worked for a bank. You know, I've never been an employee there. So you may already have some skills. You may already know some terminology. You may have already taken security, basic security training that is very specialized for you as a teller or you as a loan officer or you working in a financial sector, you probably have some skills and some terminology that I, I don't even have with 20 plus years of, um, security and it experience.

So that's another one. Another one is he, the healthcare industry, healthcare industry has, uh, different frameworks and different practices that they use on a regular basis. That is very important in their field, which is like HIPAA is one of them and protecting, uh, the. Healthcare information. So there's a whole realm of things.

You've probably already gotten the training. If you work in the healthcare industry about what HIPAA is and how to protect, uh, electronic, uh, private healthcare information and all those things. So you already have some skills, some of that stuff you can actually literally put on your resume and it's legit.

If you, like I said, customer service, that's legit. Um, healthcare, if your healthcare industry, you know, HIPAA you've been to this or that class, you've done this or that training you've protect this or that per, uh, personnel's information that's you could put that on your resume. Um, what else did I mention banking?

Same thing. There's certain things that you already have certain skills you already have. You can literally put in a resume and it will, uh, help you now that said most people are not gonna, uh, hire you without any.  information. If you don't have, um, a it certification, if you've never taken a class in it, if you don't have any it experience whatsoever, you gotta go out and get it.

So it's, that's the thing you gotta go out now, if it was me, what I would do is I would go volunteer. If I would work. If I work at Walmart, you know, I would, I would see if the, it guys at work in Walmart, there's it guys there. See if I can volunteer my time to work with them, knowing that that experience that I get from volunteering with them can be put on my resume.

You know, if you're, if you, or excuse me, if, if you're allowed to get in there and do it, then yeah, they're gonna, you can put that. On your resume. Um, if you go to church, like church might have an it, like they might want to hook up their wifi server there, you, you might volunteer to help 'em out, uh, wifi, uh, hotspots or whatever, you know, they have there, you might volunteer to help them out.

Um, so there's a lot of volunteer stuff that you can do. You gotta see what's on your resume. Put that stuff on your resume. Um, see what get, dive into it. Learn its another thing I would do. I would hit the books, get in there, start studying, uh, to learn how this stuff all works together. That's what I would do is in entry level is not gonna be overnight.

It's gonna take some hard work, but what I wanna do right now is look at some tips that some people have brought up here. This article right here brings up a couple of things from leader quest.com. Leader quest online.com is where I'm at. It says seven tips for getting into it. With zero experience. Let me see if there's any of this that I can agree with or stuff that I think you should know, um, reexamine and apply for your past experience in it industry.

Yep. That's what I just said. Um, and it's just to kind of read it real quickly, like a little part of it. It might be, it might seem like to you, like you have none, none of the skills that you need, but soft skills can be surprisingly important. Exactly. Soft skills are like non-technical skills because, uh, we need people who can talk to people.

You know what I mean? Customer service people are very good at talking to people. They, they have training and they, it says, for example, if you were looking into starting to help desk position, a common entry level, it role, uh, things like communication, customer service familiarity with Microsoft office.

Yeah, those skills are, you can put on your resume. So right there, you know, that's one, use your past skills, put those on your, find out and see that's the reason why you have to dive into it. Cuz you don't know anything about it. Once you start diving in, you'll start finding, well, I've done this before, put it on your resume.

If you've done it before in a professional. So you don't even know, you don't even realize how experienced you already have in it, or even it security. If you've ever, uh, done it, training in your company, if you, if you've ever been in any kind of company and they gave you access to a computer more than likely what they had to do is sit you down and say, okay, um, here's the things you don't do on our computer, right?

When you log into this computer, when we give you this count, here's the things you don't do. So you have to have some kind of standardized security awareness training. Um, some of that training that you've had to use. Like, whether it's you, uh, create, you had to have an account made, you had to, um, do anything with the computers.

You need to look at what you've done and put that on your resume. But as you dive into it, you'll be able to realize things like, okay, audit logs are super important. Logging in, in a, an account creation. Having an account is super important. Uh, training is super important. Policies are super important.

There's certain aspects like when you look at secur, normally from somebody from the outside, looking in, they look at a it person, all they think about is a person taking a computer apart, putting it back together, or a person staring at a computer and typing stuff into the computer. I don't even know what, what they're typing.

there's so many things that go into this field. It's so big. It goes into all often all these different, uh, categories and some of 'em are not even technical, to be honest with you. You're not even that tech one example of. Just kind of go off on a tangent here is, is called project management, proj, and also known as, uh, program manager or project, uh, project manager.

Those two basically are very needed in many different, um, it roles, uh, it units will use a program manager or a project manager to manage giant projects that are going on. They don't have to be technical. They have to know very little about it stuff, cuz they're not diving in the weeds. They don't have to know.

They have to know some of the terminology. They have to know how to work with people and stuff like that. And that's my wife right there. Gimme a second here. So yeah, they have to know certain things, uh, related to the project, but not, not super. They don't have to be super technical because they're not in the weeds.

All right. So let's keep going for, with this thing. Uh, get. It certifications. This is actually something a lot of people do when they contact me. They say, Hey Bruce, I got this a plus certification. How can I get a job? I've been applying for jobs and I can't get one. Um, it's actually a really good step forward because it's showing that you have the initiative it's showing that you have learned, you're learning a common body of knowledge.

Uh, and then you should start to, you'll start to realizing things you've actually done. Like if you actually take the, a plus certification, you actually take the security plus certification. Any of those certifications, you'll start to think. Well, you know, you'll be reading through it and studying and stuff and you'll be realize, damn, I've done this before.

And that's the kind of stuff you wanna put on your resume, you know? So there's so many different aspects of it. As you learn more, you'll, you'll start to realize what you've already done. So it kind of mentions a couple certifications here. So entry level certifications, like the I L certification compt security plus network plus security plus.

These are all good entry level certifications. And some people will hire you just off the strength of that, but they do want you to have some level of experience more times than not, but some entry level jobs. If you just have one those certifications, they will hire you. Um, said you have to apply for certain certifications.

You can't apply for a, uh, junior level cyber security, uh, position with a, just a security plus and no experience. It won't work. Um, it says junior, so you're like, oh it, well, it's a junior certification. No, listen. So there's different tiers here. All right. So, and I wish, let me see if I can show you like a visualization so you can get an idea of the tier system that you have.

I till kind of does a pretty good job of showing this. Let me see if I can find that I till is like, um, A library of different processes. It maps out different things that have to happen within an information technology, um, within the information technology and in any large organization, they have this great breakdown of the different tiers that you have.

And I'm looking for something there's like a lot of maps and stuff here. Here's what I'm, lemme just show you what I'm looking at here. They have this really good breakdown of the different levels that I'm, I'm thinking of right now. That is really good at showing you like where you, where you should really start because you can't start in the middle and with a, just a security plus or an a plus you gotta start from the beginning, think of your own career, you know, think of your own career.

Somebody can't just walk in off the streets and then suddenly be in the middle. You know what I mean? Um, let me see, this looks kind of like what I'm talking about. Yeah. This kind of looks like it. Let me see if I can get a better picture of this. This map is kind what I'm talking about. So here's ital and it breaks down different aspects of an organization that has it services.

Um, and that's, that's what it's all about. When you start off you're you're not starting in the middle. You're not starting here. You know what I mean? You're not starting. So a lot of jobs that you, that people say, Hey, I've been applying for all these jobs and I can't get in a job. They're applying for mid-tier positions.

Like they already know, okay, I'm not a manager, I'm not a middle manager, man. I'm not gonna be able to. But what they don't realize is that the job they're applying for a lot of times are middle. Level, you're gonna be on like a service desk type position. You're gonna start from the bottom. This is where most people start.

Even if you go on a program manager, which has, which has no technical, very little technical skills, I should say, cuz you do have to know like office when Microsoft office and the Gantt charts and stuff like that. But which you can learn very quickly, but even those jobs it's non-technical you still have to start from the bottom.

And so that's what this is kind of kind of showing here. The service desk has a many different layers on top of it. Even service desks gets extremely advanced all the way to management, you know, who answers directly to the CIO and, and higher management positions. But you gotta start from the bottom. And how do you find these positions?

Let me, let me show you. So if you go to just go to Google, like we don't have to get fancy. Let's just go to Google. If you type in entry level, um, project manager, let's say we were going for a project manager job, just Google. It's gonna go on your local, wherever you're from. It's gonna start from there.

And you'll have a bunch of entry level positions starting from where you're from. If you're willing, willing to move, you'll find way more positions. If you're willing to move. If you're, if you're flexible in, in location, then it'll, it'll be some of these project management jobs are actually, um, or actually, uh, work from home positions as well.

You can get, find these from, uh, work from home, but here's a couple of entry level project coordinator, project manager type positions. They're gonna tell you what they expect from you. And most of 'em are, look this one, one to two years. You know, you can apply for it, but they're saying, look, we expect you to have some experience.

We expect you to have this kind of bachelor's degree, you know? So there are still things that you caveats that you need to, to, to have. Um, so that, yeah, that's just to give you in a nutshell, like that's a couple things on the list of a person with no experience trying to get an it, let's just read a couple more here.

Your degree in another field may be a huge asset and this is true. Like a lot of positions in it will actually take science degrees. They'll take, uh, engineering degrees that are not necessarily computer based. And let me just read a little bit, says you may be tearing your hair out with regret, wondering why you used all your time in college to get a degree that isn't helping you and your quest for a long term career.

Many employers are more. Inclined to offer you a job because you have accomplished that feat and earning a degree, instead of focusing on how your degree may have cost you money and, and blah, blah, blah, um, uh, focus on ways your degree can help apply for moving for a degree moving forward in the it career field.

And this is, yeah, I would say this is true. Like, especially if you have a technical degree, not all degrees are gonna help you. You know what I mean? If you have a, if you have an, um, art degree, it's probably not. I mean, unless you're doing like a AutoCAD or something, or if you're doing engineering and you need to learn 3d modeling, then that might art might help you.

But if you're doing straight up it fixing computers, or if you're, you know, it it's science degrees might help you, engineering degrees might help you.  just being completely honest. Not all degrees are gonna help you out, but they're saying here in this article, a philosophy major, I think this is a stretch  philosophy major, uh, has a deep understanding of a logic and unique way of approaching challenges.

I, I guess I, you know, I don't know about that. I just tell you from my experience, normally, when companies are hiring people, they're looking for technical type degrees, philosophy degree. I don't know that it's gonna help you. So I, I kind of disagree with this portion, what you could do. If you have a major in philosophy, you have a master's degree in philosophy, it could help you to get an it degree, go back to college, get a minor in it.

And you, you know, you're doing less classes, but you're gonna, you're gonna still get, uh, your degree faster provided they, they accept your, your previous credits. Okay, so be open to start from the bottom. This is absolutely important. Um, you gotta start from the bottom, right? If you have zero experience, you gotta expect to come in and learn so super important.

Um, you can't start from the middle and think you're gonna get a job. You need to type in entry, go to Google type in our LinkedIn or wherever you're at type in entry level position and this entry level position. And that, um, especially the thing is if you have, if you were trying to get an entry level, position and network engineering or net, uh, uh, beginning in, uh, security, it's probably not gonna happen cuz once you get to networking or servers or if you get it's kind of a, the next step, it's another tier.

It's another support tier. That's very specialized. You have to start from the bottom first, which is help desk, customer service.  you know, junior level help desk positions, uh, is the best way to get that experience, but you can also volunteer too. Okay. So don't forget the power of networking, talk to people, you know, if you happen to be at a job, um, and you, you know, there's an it department and you want to get experience, you are you're in a gold mine, especially if the company allows you to help out.

You can. Even, what I would do is if I was so hungry to get into this field is I was willing to work extra just to learn. Not to get paid, not over time just to learn cuz I realized the value experience and it's really paid off in the long run. It's a long term plan that I had and it worked teach yourself relevant technical skills also very important.

Absolutely. You gotta get in there and, and once you do that, you can actually use that to put some of that stuff that you've learned on your resume by saying familiar with this, familiar with that. Meaning. Yeah, I've never done. I've never used this thing before, but I'm familiar with it. I've read about it.

I have a lab at home that I worked on. I'm familiar with it. You know, you can even say that you have a lab in your house where you take care of a, uh, a Splunk system that's collecting logs on 45 different virtual systems. You know what I mean? Like you can, you can put stuff like that on your resume. Um, look for crossover positions.

Yep. This is what I was talking about. You happen to be in a field. They might have a, an it workers there that you can go and ask them or ask, see if you can laterally, move over there and start learning stuff. Some companies will allow you to do that. So a lot of the stuff that they talked about in here actually have talked about in this free course, it, if you happen to be in entry level and you have no experience, this is a great opportunity for you to, uh, dive into this.

It's about four hours. I think of video and, and, uh, slides, presentation and stuff like that. You can watch it at your leisure on all devices. Go ahead and go check it out and it's free. All right. So let me see, I'm gonna switch gears here. And there's some people been watching me. Thanks guys for watching.

Appreciate you guys. I got, uh, spades 93 says how can, how can anyone, how can one established. Uh, two to three years in administrative, how can one established a bit with two to three years in administrative support, get, uh, transitioned into cybersecurity position. I'll be taking my security plus exam in two weeks.

Okay. This is right up. What we're talking about. This is great. So this is exactly. If you're still watching this spade, this is for you. This is exactly what I'm talking about. So you're in a administrative supportive position. What I would do is number one, just like this is number, and this is what I'm talking about in this course.

This is why this course is IPO is, is, uh, important. Cuz I, this is exactly what I I'm saying. Okay. If you're a beginner, you have no zero experience. Here's where you start. If you were an it geek, meaning, meaning you don't, you've never held a position, but you do, you do stuff online at your house. You like to mess around and tinker around with things in your home.

I I'm saying like, here's how you evolve from that point. Cuz you need to go to the next level. If you're a beginner, you need to become an it geek. If you're an it geek, next level is a security. Plus get those courses in there, start volunteering places and become an it professional. And then once you're an it professional, you start to focus in on whatever field you can go into forensics.

You can go into cyber security, you can go into, uh, cyber and analyst, work, threat analysis work. There's so many different aspects and so many different places you can go once. You're an it professional and to, uh, hone in your skills and have one specialized skill. Not just cybersecurity by the way. So yeah, so exactly what I'm talking about is for you.

If you're an administrative support person, this is what I'm talking about. You already have soft skills that, um, That you can apply to your current resume. You probably, even as an administrative person, you may even have technical skills. You need to see the thing is, as you dive into security, plus, as you get into the a plus certification or whatever certification as you start cracking those books and start doing, looking at the common body of knowledge that goes in the it, you'll start to realize, man, I've done that before you wanna put that on your resume.

Like as an I'm trying to think of an, an administrative support person, like the kind of things that they might do is like personnel security. So personnel security, meaning you vet people who come into your, and I'm just guessing what your job is. So bear with me. So a person who, a new person, a person who's coming in off somewhere else, they're coming into your organization.

An administrative support person might be in charge of doing things like personnel security, meaning they conduct like a brief background check. They maybe they. Call their supervisor and call that's personnel security. That's something that you can legitimately put on your resume to say, yes, here's some security I've done.

What other kinds of administrative support stuff have, uh, that I could point to would be kind of like, um, uh, security awareness training. Everybody has to have that. I'm sure you've had some kind of cyber security awareness training, or if you've ever caught an email from a, from a, uh, fishing attack, that's another thing that you might have done.

Like there, a lot of times organizations will do their own fishing attacks or actual fishing attacks will come into your email box and you caught you spot one. Like this, this email looks weird. I'm gonna send this to the security support team. Guess what? You could put that on your resume. You know, that's one thing out, it's a small thing, but the thing is you put enough of those small things that you've done on your resume and it looks like.

They're, it's not that you're painting some fake picture, but you're saying here's the actual exposure that I've had in it. Another thing that you may have helped out is like, if you had to stay a while with the it department to help them to load patches or something, maybe they want you to stick around and, uh, reboot your system and they're, and you're, so you're actually coordinating and assisting them to, uh, put patches on a, on a system.

Uh, another thing like that, this article actually mentions and is also in my course, my free course is that get in the certifications does help. I do agree with that. It does help. It's not the end all be all. You definitely want. Don't wanna start there, stop me. You don't wanna stop there. Um, and starting from the bottom.

So all of these things help. Another thing is, um, using, they mentioned it in here. I think they said it was called. Teach yourself relevant skills. Yeah. We already know about that crossover positions. Yeah. This is a good one. So if you're in an administrative position, there's it guys you might wanna try to get in there, like the even volunteer, uh, a couple hours for free, like be like I'm off right now, but I wanna learn this so bad that you go in there coordinate a time.

Like you don't want to, you, you wanna be on their time. Right. So if there's like a swing shift and the it guys are there at get permission to legitimately go in there and learn from them. Or even do work with them that is even better. Cuz you can put that on your resume and, and every all experience equals money in it.

All right. So he says I've triage computer issues, uh, at my position as an AA. Exactly. So that's the kind of stuff you can put on your resume and that's really good stuff. That's the kind of stuff that you wanna put on your resume. Okay. I've got some other questions here. DD says, hi Bruce. I have been applying for jobs for over 15 and over 15 interviews and still no job offers, what am I doing wrong?

So DD, I would have to, if you tapping to still be on, um, I get this a lot from people saying I've applied for all these jobs and from my position. And I, I, I realize I have a kind of a, um, filtered position. It's kind of, um, through my eyes. There's so many job openings. I it's shocking when people say that, but I don't know your context.

Like, I don't know how much experience you have. I don't know what you're applying for. I don't. So what you want to do is you wanna match your skillset. Let me just see if I can bring up what I was looking at before you wanna match whatever skillset you have with positions that are out there. So in this example, right here are these jobs here.

I'll use this one. I just opened up here, right? This is for a junior project analyst. Sorry, a junior project engineer, right at Kelly services in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Excuse me. Now look at this job title. What we just read project engineer. They are looking for three to one to 2, 1, 2, 3 years of experience.

They're looking for a bachelor's degree, they're looking for necessary 3d modeling design. So here's what I do.

Here's my technique. What I do is I look for jobs that I have the skills for. Um, so for example, this says junior level one to two years of experience, one to three years of experience, right. As a project engineer. Okay. I make sure I have that education, uh, education level bachelor's degree in these items.

Right. I make sure I have that. I match myself up with that career path. No, you might be thinking well, Bruce, I don't have a year experience. I don't have 3d modeling. I don't have, are you telling me that I'm supposed to go get this job get three years? Where do I get the three years experience? Okay.

Listen to what I'm saying right here. Check this out. So you have to find a job that already matches the skills you already have, right? Not, not necessarily, if you're just kind of shooting around, if you're just like throwing resumes out there, that's not going to work as effectively as finding somebody you already match up with you already have these skills, find somebody who matches that same skill.

That's all I do. That's all I do. And now, nowadays you got tools like Google. This is cool. This is a cool little tool and everything, but the best tools are ones that have built in job search algorithms that are built specifically for that. Google's very good at search. Very good at research. Awesome way to, and I would definitely put that in your toolbox, but linked in is.

Incredible LinkedIn, you can do exactly what I'm telling you to do. Like, what you do is you fill out a LinkedIn profile, right? Fill it out in complete completely. Then what you now have a whole course about how to do it. What my exact techniques, in what keywords I use tools to find keywords, all that kind of stuff, go to convo courses.com.

You'll find it there, but let me just summarize some things that are very important for you right now for free. So what you do is you take your current skills and I'm assuming you're an it guy right now. If you're, if you're a NBE, that's totally different. That's what we were just talking about. That's entry level, that's volunteer work.

That's something else entirely. If you have it experience, take your resume. Match your resume. What skills you already have with something you find on LinkedIn on career jet on indy.com on dice.com on all these different algorithms, search engines, um, that are specialized in jobs. That's what I do. And it works.

So let me just give you another, let me just show you what I'm talking about here. I'm gonna find one of my real profiles out here on LinkedIn. Let me just, I just gotta sign in real quick. If I could sign in what's going on here, why is it lead me all these different directions? Okay, here we go. So check this out.

Here's my real LinkedIn profile, right? And I, I've not looked at this in a while, so, but here, I hope there's no surprises in here, but here's my real LinkedIn profile right here. And I feel it completely out. I don't even have that many connections. Here's the thing. Many people I know have way more connections than I do, but somehow I get all of these very targeted positions.

Why, why is that? Cause I feel this completely out from top to bottom. So once I do that, this, this tool linked in finds jobs for me, it lines me up and suggests certain jobs for me. When I do a search, if I was to type in, um, it security, it's gonna find jobs in my location. It'll find jobs that, um, that accept my degree, accept my certifications.

It's not blasting everything out. It's, it's looking for stuff that's within, uh, 30 miles from. So there's tons of stuff. And it also shows here's another little gym. It also shows other people with my similar skills, people resulting in it security like this guy, if I was a type click on this guy's resume, I'll see all the stuff that he does now.

This is the owner of black heels information. So he's not what I'm talking about.  um, a better job description would be, uh, it securities too. Generic. I'll just say, okay, let's just, let's just go risk management framework. This is pretty specific, um, analyst or engineer. This is very specific to what I do.

It's a very, it's a very specific thing. Another thing I could have typed in is cybersecurity engineer, cyber security analysts. There's lots of different things I could have typed in it. Security is too broad. All right. So here's some guys here.  we're very closely aligned with what I do that are kind of in my field.

I could click on any one of these guys' resume to get a better idea of what I should be putting on my resume. What's working for them. Why are they like the top people popping up? Another thing you can do is go into actual jobs, going to actual jobs and look at what they're looking for, examine what the things that they're looking for in when they say they want you to have, what, what are they looking for experience with risk management framework.

And, and this is, this is my field, but you could be whatever your field is. And you're saying de de says, no, no experience previous experience. I have.  a BA in criminology and have an ma in strategy and security administration. All right. So that's the reason why right there, you don't have any experience.

It's really hard to get a job with no experience. So what I would do if I were you, is I will type entry level it, entry level it. And I would start from here. I would start from looking at entry level it jobs. What you wanna do is get in at a, get in, at a low level and then start gathering as much. It's not gonna pay.

Well, all right. It might be shift work. It might be 30 miles farther than you want to drive, but you gotta think long term. So what I mean by that is where do you want to be in five years, in five years from now? What kind of career do you wanna have? What kind of career and what path. Are you trying to get into that's what you do.

Just like with your degree, you have a master's degree in strategy and security administration, which will help you, by the way, you have a bachelors D degree in criminology. What was going through your head when you got those degrees? You know, it's a, a four to six year degree, right? You had to plan it out.

It's the same thing with this career path, you gotta be like, okay, in four years, I wanna do, um, forensics that'll match great with my criminology stuff. Forensics is, is a great match for me. Where can I get my first entry level, position experience doing forensics? That's how you gotta think. So what you do is, okay, forensics entry level forensics, which who knows it might, I don't think we're gonna find it, but it's worth a try.

I can't even spell forensics  entry level per forensics. Did I spell it right? I guess I did. Okay. So yeah, so here's some entry level positions, uh, cyber security analyst, entry level, uh, security analyst. So you have stuff here. Um, and I don't know that this is what you wanna be. Hopefully you're following along with me.

This is kind of what you wanna do. Entry level is only one keyword or key phrase that you could use to get in. Really. You want any kind of entry level position just to start. Once you get your foot in the door, you can then start putting that on your resume experience equals money experience equals stability.

All right. I can't stress. It enough. A lot of people who contact me, that's the same thing. It's the same story, Bruce. Um, I have no experience whatsoever. I've applied for a hundred jobs. I can't find a job experience is king experience is better than a D than a degree experience is better than a certification.

Um, everything else is just icing on the cake experience is everything. Um, I, I knew people who, who had no degree, no certifications, and because of their experience coming out of the military and they had done all they'd set up servers before they'd set up DNS servers, they'd secure systems on, you know, 500.

Uh, systems around the world. No, no degree, no certification, but they were brilliant.  they were, and they had experience. They could do whatever task was given to them. And they would get a job from their connections and they were getting paid like crazy, the certifications and degrees, all that stuff for them came later.

I know a lot of guys like that, um, that, that happened to couple of my mentors, actually, neither a few of my top mentors had no degree, no certifications. Those, they were just extremely brilliant. Uh, and they , they just knew how to do stuff. It's crazy. Um, but that said they had experience. So the reason why they were able to figure out these problems is because they were thrown to the wolves.

They were a baby that was thrown to the wolves in the military. That's what they do. They just throw you in there and say, fix this, fix that. That's what they used to do. I don't know what they do now. It's been, it's been a while.  experience, experience, experience. That's how you do it get experience. Um, and how do you probably think, how do I get experience volunteer?

Do you go to school? Do you still have an Alma mater? Do you still have a, a, are you still close to your college? See if you can volunteer at the school, try to experience is money. Okay. It's not money now. It's money in the future. Go volunteer at whatever community, um, thing that you do. You have you go to church volunteer there.

If you go to you have a high school volunteer there, volunteer to teach, volunteer, to help out set out, uh, set up a teacher's, uh, little network. If they have something there volunteer to be their assistant volunteer, to help out set up the, uh, the wireless volunteer, you know, and then do stuff on your own too.

Set up stuff in your own house to, to learn more. And spade says, uh, look into e-discovery. Is that like a training? Is that like a training session or something?

Okay. So I hope that helps out, uh, DD and also look into your own field. Like whatever field you're in, you might already have some experience, you know, a lot of times people say they have zero experience and especially if they're older people like kids don't have experience. You know what I mean? Like if you're just coming outta high school, you pro you really don't have any experience, but if you are, have been in the field for a while, like my man is doing, um, uh, administrative support that I'm sure he has experience.

I'm I'm certain he has it. He just doesn't know. Probably doesn't know what he has yet, but he, he has experience. All right, let me, there's some other questions here before I let you guys go. I've been on this for 48 minutes. I think I answered this one, but I do have some more stuff. Spade says it's like the practice.

And prep. It's like, it's like the practice and prep and preparing data and security controls for litigation. Some FARs work in it. Is that the kind of work that you've done? Oh, okay. E that's what e-discovery is. Oh, okay. I see what you're saying. And you in criminology, um, you might even wanna look into the FBI.

Um, I'm, you're probably laughing, but seriously, uh, because you sounds like you have, I don't know, you don't might wanna look into it. They have some really good, um, they have some really good programs in, in the federal government that, uh, where they'll teach you the federal, government's a different kind of beast.

Like basically they don't pay you a lot in the federal government. Like if you're a federal employee, I'm not talking about contractor, I'm not talking about like, I'm talking about U R E federal employee. What they'll do is they'll you sign up, right. And they'll give you all this training, but you have you're on like a contract.

I don't know if the FBI does this, but in the military though, you're on a contract, but they're going to give you so much training. The thing is, I know field agents have something similar to this and field agents get thousands and thousands of dollars in free training. And if you were to stay with them like a government agency for like three years, hell two years, you have, by the end of it, you have so much ex experience that, uh, you're so far ahead of most people in it field.

All right. Let me read some of these questions here. See if there's anything else? Um, let me see here. Somebody said, um, I don't have a secret clearance, but I have. I have a degree in it. Security I'm air force veteran, how can I get employment? So right here, all he, all this person has to do daily hip hop live.

If you, if you're watching this, you ever watch this. If you send me your resume, I might be able to help you out. Cuz if you have a it cybersecurity degree, if you were in the air force, um, yeah, I might be able to help you out if our, were you one option for you? I don't know how you feel about this, but one option that you have just from what I'm reading here is to become a us, um, a, a government, civilian government, civilian employee is one option for you and then just do it for a couple years.

And then after that, it also helps you to retain your total active federal service. So there there's that. So, yeah, that's, you're actually way ahead of, of most people, if you have these two things, so yeah. Send me your resume. I might be able to help you out.

Um, DEI says, thanks, Bruce. You are awesome. Thanks man. Appreciate that.

I mean, thanks, sir. Or ma'am  uh, let me see. I'm reading more stuff here. I'm trying to find more questions. I might be able to answer right now before I go.

That's relevant to what we're seeing here. Okay. This one says

hi there, are there any sites that offer a free security com a free cyber security certification for free offers? A, a cyber security certificate for free, because I do not have the money. If there is a site that I hope you will put the link or tell me about it. Um, I don't know if there's any off the top of my head.

I don't know of any free ones. I know there's some that are pretty cheap. Like I tell used to be very cheap. I think right now that they're requiring that you take their they're requiring now that you take their training and I don't know how expensive their training is, but it's not free, um, free courses.

Let me see if I was kind of messing around looking for this online, and this is kind of what I found. One of 'em. I know that there's lots of free courses out there. One of which is my course, I got a couple free things and actually I've got a few other free things out there that you can try out. If you're trying to get into cyber security.

This is an entry level course right here. But then I've got some other stuff that's free. Some, some of my stuff that's actually paid, I'll have free things in that. So you might wanna still just go on there and check out free stuff, but there's other free courses online as well. There's some from Harvard, there's some from you'd be surprised.

So this is 15 best free online certifications, courses and training. Let's see what they're talking about here. There are several great sites that offer free online certifications among these sites are cor Sarah edx.com. allison.com code academy. TMY uh, U to me has some very cheap courses. Very, very cheap.

I don't know that they have free ones, but they might, um, general assembly and MIT open courseware to name a few. All right. So let's see what they're talking about here. So for programming. You've got a introduction to computer science at Harvard. You've got a Michigan university programming for everybody introduction for Python.

These are just courses by the way. Uh, you've got a, this is how you make iPhone apps. And I actually making apps, I learned to make apps from where was it, does a free couple free sites. And then some YouTube channels that I learned to actually code, uh, smartphone, um, apps with it's still, you know, I don't have a lot of experience with it.

I, I don't have a, I don't have a, a, uh, talent for it.  but I was able, actually able to make one just from free courses online from YouTube and from just sites that walked me through it design. Okay. So they have some free design courses like Adobe certifications, I guess these are free certifications. For designing what though?

Um, it's cuz Adobe has okay here. It's it kind of mentions it here. Image manipulation, photo retouching, um, Adobe's tools, vector design, layout design. And I guess there's some, some actual certifications in, in that as well. Uh, graphic design specialization at Cal arts,

fundamental graphic design graphic artists can make money, even if they're independent

online marketing, let's see online. I know there's a lot of good stuff for online marketing. Google, I think has one. As a matter of fact, I believe is free diploma for web business development and marketing from Allison. There's marketing and digital world, university of Illinois getting started on Google analytics.

Yep. That's free. And I think you even get a certification off of this one and they also have one for ad sense. I think they got Google analytics, Google ad sense. And then they got some other stuff, learning a new language. This is kind of off the beaten path. I'm just gonna zip through this one, uh, entrepreneurship, new venture financing.

Okay. This is just business stuff. I'm looking for kind of technical this I'm writing, uh, communication, communicating strategically Purdue university. So yeah, there's, there's some stuff out there. I know that Google has some free courses. Amazon may have some free courses. , you know, I don't know that you'll, after you take those courses and those cert and you have that certification that you're gonna be able to just go out and get a job immediately or anything like that.

But to answer your question, yes, there's free training out there. So I'm gonna go ahead and leave this link for

I have, well, before I promote my own stuff, I'll just put, put this here. Here is some stuff, stuff I found

also Google and possibly,

possibly, where can I spell possibly? Um, Amazon might have some free, might have free certs and training. I also have free training.

You really need experience to get a job though?

Um, yeah, I don't even know how many of these are actually, I don't know if they're security, not sure if they are security related.

Hope that answers this question. Big, like big thumbs up. And somebody said D five D D D. If you, if you're a military veteran, uh, they're actually a few organizations that pay for your search. Yep. That's another thing. So this guy right here, I'm gonna go ahead and message him.

You may. So as a veteran, as a vet, you may have many opportunities,

opportunities, grants, and other stuff you can do to get more training and or positions.

I don't have a security clearance, but I have a degree in, I think he means associates, a master's degree, master's degree in it, security and I'm air force veteran. How can I get employed? Send your resume. And I will take a look, send my email address.

There it is right there.

Hey Al, how you doing? I'm just finishing this up, answering some questions that people have sent me. Um, but if you have any questions right now, I am. Free to open, uh, free to answer any questions at all right now, I got two job offers this past week from my dream companies. Your videos are the best. Thanks, Bruce.

Love to hear that. That's great news. Great news. There's there's lots of opportunities out there even now for it there, we just don't have enough people to do this work. Um, enough qualified people who are willing to put in the, have the patience to actually sit down and learn it. And that's why, like, most of our it's funny, like our, our nation, like is kind of like, not, doesn't seem appreciative of, uh, immigrants, but immigrants really are like something like 75% of the business is made here from immigrants.

I don't know if you guys knew that, but Google, Amazon, uh, name a company. Uh, they're probably made by either I an immigrant or the children of immigrants. Like I'm talking about, they were born, their parents are born in another country, came here, had they had kids and then their kids started Google. Yeah.

Larry look up, um, Larry Page in, uh, Sege Brin, at least one of them is from German is from Russia. I think Serge BRN is from Russia. His parents are from Russia. He was, uh, he may have been born here. Um, the dude who started, uh, uh, Yahoo was, uh, he's either a Chinese immigrant or his parents are a Chinese immigrant.

The, uh, the dude who started, uh, well actually Bezos fr uh, Jeff Bezos is, is, uh, his dad was from Cuba Bezos. Um,  uh, who else? Uh, go down the list. Just go down the list. I mean, president Trump, himself, his. Great grandfathers from not from here. So yeah, I mean, immigrants, um, immigrants are like really a great part of, uh, this of the us.

And it's just unfortunate, more Americans don't take up engineering or mathematics, or I know stem, like we just, I don't know what's going on, but there's not enough Americans people born here, you know, that actually apply for these jobs. And so they're always, we're always wearing two, three hats. So I'm about to end this guys.

Um, I got more questions here. Um, some of these, I probably maybe I'll save 'em for next week and I appreciate all the compliments here. Great, great compliments. I'm glad this stuff. Some of this stuff is helping people. I appreciate everybody. Who's been watching me week after week. I'm gonna continue to put out more, more, um, content for everybody.

And, um, if you guys have time, check out my courses, it's at combo courses.com. I got a collection of, of stuff I'm building. I'm gonna do certifications, certifications take a lot longer to do, but there's free stuff out here. A lot of informative stuff I'm gonna, I've got more stuff coming real soon. Al says, uh, is because I don't have any certifications is because I don't have cert any certifications or anything.

I straight, straight cyber security for five years. Al do you mean that you don't, you, you haven't had a position or, or what, what was your, what was this? It seems like I, I caught this conversation in the middle of, of what you're saying here.

Is this a question you said it's because I don't have any certifications yet. Um, Cyber security for five years. Are you asking if, like, why can't you get a position or do you have a position or is, I'm not sure I understand your question.

So let me see if I can answer one more question before I cut outta here. Um,

our great says, just wanted to say, just wanted to say your interview tips and information has helped me to get an offer with a prominent government agency. As critical asset and vulnerability analyst. Thanks a lot. Yep. I've been doing this for a while, man. Um, this is just stuff that I've been doing and I've learned with trial and error and that's why this stuff works.

Um, it's just, this is honestly, I am in the industry currently. I'm currently in this industry and I'm just, I'm just saying what I've been through. I've I'm telling people how I've gotten to where I've gotten and the interview stuff. Yeah. That's just, it's just worked. It just worked over and over again.

So now I'm just passing it along to people who are willing to listen. So that's what this whole channel's about. That's what my combo courses.com is about. It's telling you literally what to do. Uh, let me see. Joe says, are cybersecurity labs enough experience to get a job? Um, I would say, uh,  I would say yes.

And no reason why I say that is because is because, uh, it depends on the job. Number one. So if you're, if you're looking for a high level job, no, it's a lab is not enough. Uh, if you're looking for entry level job, and the lab allows you to a, the lab gets you in a place where you can either volunteer to get other experience, or you can get a certification, um, or you can get that, yes, that might get you to a place where you can get your foot in the door at an entry level position, doing something like help desk, junior level entry level help desk, or, or doing, uh, customer service where you're taking calls and helping people troubleshoot, uh, different issues like that.

If you, if you're looking in, if it's something like that, then maybe, maybe, um, but typically I can tell you. As a person who's actually done interviews on people. Um, them just, if I can't say it is not that we wouldn't hire somebody just off of their knowledge, cuz if they had really good knowledge, then maybe, but normally experiences what you're looking for.

Like the baseline is normally experience. And then the big question becomes, how do I get that experience? You're on the right track. If you have a lab in your house and you're training, or if you got the security plus or a plus certification, you're going on the right track. That's what you want to do.

You wanna crack those books? You want to get your hands dirty. You wanna set up labs in your house. You wanna tear computers apart, putting 'em back together. You wanna learn as much as you can. And then while you're trying to get your foot in the door in it, now that doesn't mean cold calling IBM necessarily.

Right? There's. Nowadays, you put your resume out there. You put what your experience is, but also if you happen to already have a job, you can get a lateral, uh, get lateral training or you can get a lateral move. You can, if you're already at a job, wherever it is, they have an it department go over to the it, it department and get friendly with them and start asking 'em questions.

Like man, I'm, I'm really trying to get into it. You'd be surprised how many geeks and nerds are there who want to talk your ear off about how to do it? Cuz we don't normally get those kinds of questions. We don't normally, I mean, I know me, I'm always anxious to, to train people.