Confused with IT Industry

Newbie87

Hi Everybody,

Im new to this forum. Great site, which answered some of my questions.

I'm currently an undergraduate IT student graduating with my Bachelor in Spring 2015. Have already my Associates degree.
I worked one year for financial company within its Information Security department. While back, had some in house training for Network and Network signatures.

I have some experience with SIEM Tools (HP ArcSight) and cyber Intel and intrusion detection. I successfully completed college courses such Security+, CEH, CCNA, CWNP but never went for the actual certification exam. No Certs right now. Preparing currently to take Security+ and Network+ Cert.

Here is the question. I applied for few entry level information security jobs but only few responses. Most require security clearance which I can't get because I'm an permanent resident.

Somehow It really makes me think you need 10 Certs, 3+ years experience and a B.S degree to get a decent paying job ?
Did the IT job market really change or did I miss something in my career path ?


Please Advise

Danielm7

It really depends on what you're going for. If you don't have clearance, and they require it, then you aren't going to get that job, but keep looking for ones that don't require clearance. If you've taken college courses, but don't have the actual certs, it's a lot harder to prove. Getting into infosec is difficult without past IT experience, you have some, but even then from what I've seen the requirements to get into infosec seem higher than any other area of IT, it's not IT in general, but more that niche.

You could go a couple different ways, you could start at the bottom at helpdesk like everyone else, you could try to get the certs for the security courses you took but even then it's not a guarantee like it was 10 years ago. You could look (or have the gang here look) at your resume and try to build up your 1 year that you were working, was it an internship?

Also, are you in school full time now? How does that look on your resume? Meaning, does it look like you're in school full time but looking for a job that can work around a school schedule? If so that might be a turn off to a lot of companies too.

One last part, some jobs are already filled, or they have a specific person in mind but they have to post it anyway. I've applied for a few where (sure, I'm biased) but I would have been the perfect candidate, had everything they asked for and more, lived half a mile away, didn't even get a call back. I've seen some cases like this when friends told me about open jobs to only have them tell me days later that the managers brother in law got the job but doesn't know anything. I had one where a friend told me I'd be perfect there, then when they posted the position they had really strange requirements, like Visual basic 5, office 97, windows NT, things from 15 years ago, turns out they had 1 guy they wanted, so they based it off his old resume when he used to work there, might as well have said, "only apply if your name is Scott"

markulous

Good post above.

I agree that you need to temper your expectations at the beginning. Take whatever IT-related job you can find to get experience on your resume. It's rare that any job is going to trust you with their servers when you have zero experience. With education, certs, and the right attitude, you can move up very quickly however.

no!all!

Like others have said, take whatever you can get and get some experience under your belt. That's the most important thing. Down the road you'll use your certs to back up your experience.

tkerber

I agree with the rest of these guys about the experience. Even a low level security position usually requires 1-3 years of some IT experience. If I were you I would go for any entry level IT internship / position you can get.

I must also ask; why you didn't go for the certs? If it was a money thing I understand. However, I've noticed with some of the classes I took is that generally I will get asked right away why I took a cert class and didn't get the cert yet or don't have it. It's the one thing I wish I would have done a little more of in school is pursue certs for all of the classes I took--being Microsoft, Linux, CompTIA, etc..

Newbie87

Danielm7: My degree program is online and I'm able to work full time. Yes, my 1 year experience was a co-op program. I worked full time during that time and learned working with SIEM Tool and other popular security tools. I posted my resume online and I had few job interviews for a security position but didn't get an offer. Somehow I feel I have to know everything in Security starting from networking, programming language, forensics, intrusion analysis, packet analyzer and more. Im willing to take any entry IT position as of now thats why Im preparing for my Security+ and Network+,

tkerber: It was the money issue. I really regret it that I didn't took the cert exam after the class.

Newbie87

I had some job interviews for security positions buy got not offers yet. My 1 year work experience was a co-op program. I worked with SIEM Tools and other great security tools. And my degree program is online, im flexible working full time.

Newbie87

Its was the money which hold me back from certs. Im preparing taking my Security+ and Net+. Hope this gives me boost on the job market.