Is an experience that too much important?

kasgaromeo

Hello everyone,

Beginning of my story, I’ve been out of IT field around three years because of the military service. I will be out of military soon so I need to get a job. But, I really want to get a penetration tester position even if it is a junior position.

By the way, I haven’t gotten any offer yet even though I knocked out penetration testing challenges from several companies. The reason was lack of experience or they need a senior position.

I’ve been trying to keep my skills and knowledge sharp for these three years. The outcomes are BS, MS, OSCP, OSCE, and OSEE.

i’m feeling like wasting time for my efforts.

What do I need to do? I really need an advice.

JDMurray

I assume that you've connected with recruiters on LinkedIn to let them do the looking for you. If you have posted your resume on LinkedIn, Indeed, Monster, etc. then the recruiters should be calling you.

If you haven't received any offers after a reasonable amount of time then you need to send out more job applications specifically to pentesting companies. If you can move to where a job is the better your chances.

What time and effort have you put in so far? How may pentest companies have you sent applications to?

kasgaromeo

I’ve contacted by a recruiter to get three interviews, but no luck for every company even I did their challenges. I’ve applied for tons of companies that mentioned about pentesting or red teaming.

Most of them saying my qualification is not met at their standards. I think that it might be bypassed by the resume system because of the experience.

paul78

What's your definition of "tons of companies"? With military service and those creds, you should be able to at least get some interviews.

Maybe it's your resume. Maybe it's the jobs you are applying to. Have you tried more junior positions?

3 interviews is nothing. I am sometimes asked by our clients to help them screen for security positions and that's because they can get a few hundred applications for one position. I'm doing interviews now for a position that received over 200 applicants. BTW - my instructions to the in-house recruiter was to preference candidates with military backgrounds and that's not unusual.

Also - pentest companies are a picky bunch. The decent ones will definitely have certain criteria for what they want. For example, I won't bring on someone in my own business that doesn't have software engineering experience (hobbyist or commercial counts with me).

cisco_trooper

You have OSCP, OSCE, and OSEE? And you are not getting any traction? Something is wrong with your interactions, your salary requirements, or your resume. I get more or less harassed on LinkedIn constantly and I haven't even had the time to actually complete the #offsec certs. That is actually what brought me back here today after a very long hiatus. HackTheBox also has a jobs section. If you are as good as your certs indicate you should be able to level up quickly at HTB and gain access to some top tier gigs and see how it goes. If nothing else you make some like-minded contacts in the forums, etc. Industry contacts are important.

Infosec_Sam

I don't see anything wrong with trying to pick up some more entry-level security (non-pentesting) experience while you continue to look for a job in pentesting. Since you're already not working where you'd like to be, you might as well be picking up some relevant experience while you look. If you happen to find something only a couple months into this job, so be it. I don't see anything wrong with job hopping as long as you don't make it a habit.