During the On Air recording, I noticed that Nicole had great camera presence and was able to articulate, what most people would consider, complex topics in a language that really anyone would understand.
At some point I decided to make a career change so that I could have multiple skills that would allow me to find work regardless of where we moved to.
It wasn't until I attended my first cybersecurity conference virtually that I got excited about the topic.
I would say that after that first conference, I really enjoyed not only attending conferences in person, but also virtually.
A lot of the first jobs I had in cybersecurity were at startups with very little resources and dedicated cybersecurity staff.
This is why I came to value people who share their research, do open-source projects, or present their knowledge at conferences.
I relied on open-source tooling for the bigger part of my work, and it wasn't until I gave my first conference talk that I realized I could be one of those people who gives back to the community.
The first conference that I spoke at was GRIMMcon in 2020, which is one of my favorite conferences.
It is something that I look forward to, as a way to pay back and connect with the people that I look up to in our field.
Don't spend your time, money, and effort getting a bunch of certificates before you know what you really want to do.
I see a lot of people come in and they immediately start getting focused on certificates.
First, if you enjoy having your own research or having your own blog.
Even if it has nothing to do with cyber, you could still share it with people and you could still build up a social presence.
I've met so many people just by writing a blog, and then someone says, 'oh my gosh, I love this blog.
' One of my best friends in the field, John Doyle, wrote a blog about burnout, which really connected with me.
You can then always reach out to some of the people that you've met through networking and see if there's anything that they can do to potentially get you a new job.
The importance of soft skills and just talking to people.
When you're first starting out in a career field, it can be very intimidating.
Luckily, I had a mentor early on who would tell me 'If you really want to learn about the field, you want to learn about the different types of jobs out there or if you want to go work somewhere, talk to the people that work there.
It's really important to not forget that people are just people, even if they're in a position of power and soft skills are really important.
This Cyber News was published on feedpress.me. Publication date: Fri, 15 Dec 2023 13:13:05 +0000