CISSP is Resume Gold
I just wanted to provide some motivation to others thinking about or currently pursuing their CISSP, and tell how passing it has helped me come closer to achieving my goals. Others can feel free to chime in with their success stories as well.
I have almost seven years of total InfoSec experience, including the last 5+ years in my current role (primarily IAM). I've been trying the past couple of years internally or externally to get another security position, specifically a more broader security role so I can expand my skill set. With the amount of experience I already have and the roles that I'm targeting, there are probably tons of people applying and when I apply online I don't think my resume even got passed the filters and made it to HR. And the hits I received from posting on LinkedIn, Indeed and Dice were all pure IAM positions.
When applying internally I was continually passed up on broader security positions because I didn't have the broader technical skillset that external applicants have. This is one reason I am leaving my employer (global financial firm), as they couldn't care less to retain talent and post all jobs internally and externally at the same time, giving not a thought to the current employees. They just go with whoever has more on their resume.
From what I've read here and elsewhere, and in my own targeted job searches on many websites, CISSP was almost always in the preferred, and sometimes even the required fields, for a lot of the jobs I wanted to apply for. For the past couple of years all I wanted is to get my resume actually looked at by a human, and have a chance for it to go in front of the hiring manager. I told my wife the CISSP is like the gatekeeper to better security positions.
Man was I right. Since getting my official CISSP endorsement two weeks ago, I updated LinkedIn, Indeed, and Dice with the CISSP, as well as applying for jobs, and the results so far have blown away even my expectations. I can barely keep track of all of the inquiries and interest I am getting not only from staffing firms, but from actual corporate recruiters (thank goodness for threaded conversations to keep track of who I've responded to and what I've sent!). I even just had an initial interview after a corporate recruiter for a company in Redmond, WA (!) contacted me. Also for the few positions I've applied to myself, I am now actually getting responses from either people or canned form responses, where before I wouldn't even get a canned response most of the time when I was not even selected for consideration. I've had an an interview for an internal position I've posted for, and getting interest from the external postings. I actually was going to get an internal position as the hiring manager really wanted to hire me but her exec leadership wanted someone in a different core business location. The key in all of this is, I've been told that the team or hiring manager is OK with people lacking some of the skills, they want someone with the drive and determination to grow and expand their skillset.
Crazy thing is, I'm not even actively looking yet, just more selectively looking and will actually go on full out pursuit of opportunities after the new year. And right now is really a slow time of hiring too as I've seen the number of opportunities almost cut in half from where they were from the beginning of the year throughout the summer. It's just like kalkan999 posted on here earlier this year, it's amazing what can happen when you add the CISSP to a solid resume.
