Where to Direct Job Hunt?

I have been looking for a job for about a month now and I'm a little concerned that I'm not looking for the right position. I'm currently a major in the Army (Infantry and not a technical job) but before going full time in the army in 2001 I was in the National Guard and worked as an information security engineer for about 5 years. I have the education needed for a good job but I haven't had any takers yet. I'm constantly working on improving my resume but I find it hard to believe that my resume is that bad; maybe I'm wrong? I realize that if I was willing to move I would probably have no problem but I have a family and uprooting them is not something I want to consider. Besides, Austin Texas is supposed to be a great location for IT jobs. Any thoughts? I've been looking at security analysts/engineer positions. Where can I get back into Cyber Security in the civilian sector?

Credentials: EMBA, B.A. Latin American Studies, A.A.S. Computer Science, CISSP, SSCP, Security+, ITILv3 Foundation, Certified Army Instructor

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Comments

kohr-ah

Maybe post you resume here with all personal information removed to see if people can help take a look and make sure it is properly formatted?

SteveLord

Where are you looking? If you're sticking to Monster, Careerbuilder, etc you're doing it wrong.

City, County and State levels of government

Local schools

Universities

Banks

Hospitals

Major insurance companies

Any other businesses that are native to the area.

Go look on their ACTUAL websites in the careers sections. Can't stress this enough.

Craigsist in the Systems/Network and Technical Support sections.

USAJOBS.com

krucial85

Wow! I obviously didn't get it because I thought that all the sites like indeed, Dice, monster, etc. would cover all the available jobs but I see that I was way off. Thanks for the advice.

krucial85

I might try posting my resume' to be critiqued here. I'm up for almost anything at this point.

crimsonavenger

I would say your current location is still a great spot for what you are trying to get into. Both Dallas and Houston are also huge in the industry, so you might still have to sacrifice a commute. And other than California or the Northeast, any other place would be much harder for job prospects.

as far as IT job sites check out dice.com (edit: nvmd I see your response now), also build and groom your "career" social network on linkedin, find a recruiting agent through there or locally, etc.. get the chains moving along with a contract job or two.

kiki162

Krucial - You live in a great area for IT jobs, and it's possible your resume could need some format/tweaking. You have the preference for Gov't/GS spots as well, so keep that in mind for Internal spots that become open. For me personally, it's taken on average of 6 months of hard looking for me to find the next job, and with a few offers in between. This year, I've had multiple job offers, and the one I took had the best benefits/perks, plus I didn't have to move my family around in any way.

I would say to post your resume up here, and get some ideas. Indeed is a good site to look, but be very careful of contractor/temp agencies. Other thing to keep in mind is that you can look at gov't contractor spots, while waiting for a "better" job. Your clearance and military background would work in your favor, and at least give you some experience. The gov't spots will take a while to get, as I'm sure you are aware. 2-4 months is normal from start to finish depending on the agency.

There are also other IT security companies out there that have position that work from home. Now depending on where you are in your career and what you are looking to do, that may be another option for you.

PM me when you get a chance and I'll send you additional info offline that may be helpful. Would like to know what exactly you would like to get into job wise.

Mike-Mike

SteveLord wrote: »

Craigsist in the Systems/Network and Technical Support sections.

I have not used Craiglist much, but one thing i did notice in the past, the ads on Craiglist frequently list the salary. Sometimes it will be the same job as listed on Dice or whatever, but it shows the salary on Craigslist

Mide

Yeah indeed.com and simplyhired.com are good starting points to get a feel of the companies in your area and who is hiring for what, but the best way afterwards is to apply directly via their websites. You have good credentials...larger companies/HR depts would probably be good targets.

krucial85

Well kohr-ah here's what my resume looks like. I'm looking forward to all the critiques that anybody has.

Krucial85
512-555-1212
9999 Street, Hometown, USA 99999
address@gmail.com
www.linkedin.com/pub/krucial85

Summary
Self-motivated, driven professional with a passion to resume a career as an information security professional and develop and implement strategies that support business and operational objectives. Strong critical thinking, analytical skills and adaptive flexibility with the ability to think fast and make sound decisions. Able to maintain the highest standards of confidentiality in handling and protecting sensitive information.

Knowledge and Experience

Bilingual(English/Spanish)
Strategic Planning
Secret Clearance

SiteMinder
Certified Instructor
Security Administration

WebTrends
User Account Migration
SharePoint Administration

Perl
Javascript
Unix

Certifications

CISSP | ISC2, 2015
SSCP | ISC2, 2015
Security+ | CompTia, 2014
ITILv3 | EXIN, 2015
CEH | 2015 (working)

Education
EMBA | Colorado Technical College, 2007
B.A Latin American Studies | Kansas University, 1988
A.A.S Computer Science | Tarrant County Junior College, 1985
Selected Achievements

 Selected to serve as the G3 Operations advisor ion a 12-man Security Force Advisory Team (SFAT) in Kandahar, Afghanistan for strategic and operational security planning.
 Trained over 150 lieutenants in the Texas Army National Guard Officer Candidate School program as the Senior TAC (Train Advise Counsel) officer.
 Wrote a Visual Basic script that automated table maintenance, reduced processing time by 75% and significantly reduced the input error rate that exceeded the accepted benchmark.
 Supported the migration of 400 user accounts from an acquisition from Puerto Rico by communicating technical issues with my team and the Spanish-speaking end users.

Professional Experience
OCT 2001 – present | Plans/Operations Officer
Texas Army National Guard | Austin, Texas ()
 Managed user requirements for system access to an information system and ensured signed Acceptable Use Agreement were on file
 Served as the subject matter focal point for the Command's Information Assurance program. Ensured that unit members received initial and annual IA awareness training and reported non-compliance to the Information Assurance Manager (lAM) according to unit policy and procedures.
 SharePoint site administrator managing access rights to site resources and helping design the unit portal.

JUL 1998 – MAY 2001 | Information Security Engineer
The Associates Finance, Inc. | Irving, Texas ()
 Evaluated, tested and installed security software.
 Wrote user installation scripts for new software.
 Performed mainframe and AS/400 user account maintenance.
 Performed Information Assurance Management (IAM) utilizing Webtrends to report usage violations to management.
 Supported the CUID (Customer User ID) and mainframe security administration processes.
 Maintained the CACS+ table maintenance that governed collection accounts and activities for four collection centers.
 Supported the conversion of 400 user accounts in an acquisition from Puerto Rico by communicating technical issues with team members and end users.

DEC 1989 – JUN 1992| System Engineer (System Engineer Development Program)
EDS (Electronic Data Systems) | Plano, Texas ()
 Batch execution, scheduling in CA-7 support of multiple JCL job cycles for the Information Processing Allocation and Costing System (IPACS) billing cycles.
 Supported the MIPS Collection System for the Mainframe Hosting Service.

beads

Since your military with weak security credentials, sorry but you do, I'd look here: https://www.usajobs.gov/

-b/eads

krucial85

Thanks for your candid response. I'll continue to look for opportunities. Maybe some company will take a chance on me.

krucial85

Still looking for any advice. Any more professionals care to chime in?

MrAgent

It would probably be a bit easier to get a job in the Nova/DC area since you have a clearance already.

kiki162

You have a ton of bases down in the San Antonio area or at Ft. Hood in Killeen as that is a shorter drive. You do have your military background working against you to get into the public sector, however you can also look at gov't contractor spots to help fill the void. Just be careful if you do go that route, as you will be limited to the scope of your contract. Meaning if they are looking for Active directory and server 2012 experience, doesn't mean you are going to be allowed to touch a gov't DC. Normally that goes to the civil service folks.

Mr Agent is right too. Nova/DC is a goldmine for IT and gov't jobs.

josephandre

if you're willing to consider San Antonio, I'm turning down jobs left and right. Tons of stuff out here, with similar credentials to yourself.

In Austin, I'd imagine Dell and/or HEB would be the two places I'd scour first.

Robertf969

beads wrote: »

Since your military with weak security credentials, sorry but you do, I'd look here: https://www.usajobs.gov/

-b/eads

From reading these forums, as I understand it you are a former Military Officer, and are now in a Security Director / CISO type role correct? I ask because my experience is quite similar to krucials, with my only added benefit being that I worked IA and C&A. What was the first role you took upon exiting the Military to start building your foundation? I could go the GOVT route but it almost seems like going back to what I am trying to run away from in the first place. I did manage to get a couple interviews for Jr level Security Analyst positions though, hopefully one of them is willing to take me on.

krucial85

I've applied to several jobs in San Antonio but nothing as of yet. I've also applied at Dell and HP. HEB? The grocery store? I'll look now.

paul78

When you apply for a job do you include any type of cover letter or description of the type of job/career that you are seeking. It could help.

As a non-military person, what struck me about your resume is that I would probably pass it over because I really don't understand your accomplishments or your jobs.

For example:

"as the G3 Operations advisor ion a 12-man Security Force Advisory Team" - I don't necessarily know what G3 means and is 12-man mean it's a big team or a specialized team. And I don't know if being select to be part of the team is the accomplishment or whether the team because it is a SFAT is a big deal.

This on the other hand is a good example of an accomplishment - "reduced processing time by 75% and significantly reduced the input error rate" - it describes the benefit of what you did. Unfortunately, it doesn't really say if that's important or not because you don't describe what that benchmark meant. Also VBscript is a fairly old technology so perhaps you may want to leave it off.

I personally would prefer to have seen your resume without the accomplishments section and perhaps you can integrate those accomplishments into each role that you had.

In each of your job sections, I found it difficult to understand what you really did. For example - in your current role as Plans/Operations Officer. If I was to read your description without knowing anymore about you, I would have guessed that you were an administrative assistant in an infosec office. And your description at EDS looks like a batch computer operator.

If there is anyway that you can be a bit more descriptive of the real value that you brought in those jobs, that would help your resume a lot.

Good luck and thank you for your service.

krucial85

Thanks for your candid response. I removed the G3 from the operations advisor description and included that into my experience in my current position. I incorporated the rest of my achievements in the experience section of my resume and removed the VBscipt since it is old. The EDS description is as close as I can get to describing what we did as a team, as I was basically a student in the SED(Systems Engineering Development) program at that time. The more I do this the more I think that my experience is what is keeping me from getting an opportunity. I have the education but lack enough substantial experience to get a chance it seems!

cowill

You're a Major in the army and you can't get the right position??? those are usually enlisted problems.......

krucial85

Maybe I'm just a little impatient because I've only been seriously applying for about two months.