What was "the big cert" that got you a huge bump in salary?

Mike7 · September 2015

Jasiono wrote: »

Oh my God. I'm dying inside at the "purchased CISSP book" lmao

LOL.

Sometimes, I wonder if we are playing some MMORPG certification game. To increase your "level", you need to obtain magical items such as Security+, CCNA, MCSA. To get each magical item, you can either work hard by killing villains (study), be an apprentice (attend course), or steal (aka brain ****). The more items you accumulate, the stronger your power of influence over others.

The big one is "CISSP", getting it will increase your powers 10 X.

Even the CISSP book has magical power, possession of such an item will increase your healing powers.

Back to reality. Let me get back into the game called life.

srabiee · September 2015

"Purchased CISSP Book"

Wow, that's definitely a new one!

Maybe I should go with "Pre-ordered VMware vSphere 6 book on Amazon.com"

Robertf969 · September 2015

beads wrote: »

But business doesn't exactly see the comparable from military experience as you will soon find. Its one thing for a business to be "pro-military"/hire a vet, etc its a completely different thing to apply in the civilian market.

Experience in the field is still worth more than the conversation about any certificate.

- b/eads

I am taking a break from my regularly scheduled resume rewrite to respond to this. I think vets bring more soft skills to the table than the average civilian, such as being deadline driven, organized, disciplined, and resourceful. That being said, I do agree that most companies don't realize this when they are looking at veterans to fill their positions. Experience is key and it should be for a good reason, if you lack the skills to do the job (especially in InfoSec) then how could you possibly expect a company to want to pay you their hard earned dollars. But on the flipside there are veterans with strong experience and strong soft skills, those are the ones companies should be targeting for experienced roles.

I think the problem a lot of veterans are getting into is that they are trying to jump into positions that require years of fundamentals (InfoSec is a great example). I had a guy reach out to me on LinkedIn and ask me how he should go about getting into cybersecurity (like i'm an expert, I fell into my roll in the military). After reviewing his profile I saw absolutely ZERO IT experience, nilch, nada, none! But hey he had a Network + and a Security +. So I told him to try to get an IT job first, develop his skills and knowledge through self study and work experience and eventually, if he is driven, and really wants to do Security he will get his foot in the door somewhere.

On a side note all of these transition courses are not helping the problem, I sat through an IT seminar hosted by Microsoft where a guy stood on stage and told transitioning service members that if they got a CEH they would make 90k+ a year. This wasn't a seminar for transitioning COMMO soldiers, this was a heavily mixed audience filled mostly with Soldiers who wanted to do IT after the Army, they had not previously been in IT MOS's.

And there is something during this whole transition that I have found even more valuable than experience or any cert. Referrals, every single position I have been referred to has landed me at least a phone screen, most of those phone screens are pending in person interviews now. Out of nearly 100 resumes dropped into the black hole (applying online) I am batting about 10 phone screens, and two in person interviews.

Moral of the story, its not always what you know, or what big CERT you have, but who is willing to stick there neck out and refer you to a position.

*Disclaimer* I have yet to start my Private sector career (although I do have offers), this is more based on my opinion from what I have seen so far in dealing with my transition.

*Edit: fixed some of my drunken typos

ArabianKnight · September 2015

I am going to add "MBA in progress" "applied to Carnegie Mellon University" " thinking about Harvard" "Currently reading about CISSP" "subject matter expert...at video games" etc.....got to get those keywords in there:D

jamesp1983 · September 2015

I actually received a 20k increase once I started working towards my CCIE... That has since turned into around 55k over the 4 years of study...

E Double U · September 2015

If someone gets calls because of adding "purchased CISSP book" on their CV, then "thinking about PhD" is definitely going under my education section. Or maybe just add a section to the resume called Keywords To Get Through HR Filters.

Mike7 · September 2015

E Double U wrote: »

If someone gets calls because of adding "purchased CISSP book" on their CV

Maybe they have read Cybersecurity 2015 | Burning Glass Technologies

Or put another way, there were nearly 50,000 postings for workers with a CISSP certification in 2014, the primary credential in cybersecurity work. That amounts to three-quarters of all the people who hold that certification in the United States—and presumably most of them already have jobs

One third (35%) of cybersecurity jobs call for an industry certification, compared to 23% of IT jobs overall.

mallen92 · September 2015

For me it was my CISA. I have been in the profession a while, but it was not until I got this cert that things changed for my career (almost overnight). I am now waiting on my CISM application to be approved by ISACA.

Deathmage · September 2015

Mike7 wrote: »

LOL.

Sometimes, I wonder if we are playing some MMORPG certification game. To increase your "level", you need to obtain magical items such as Security+, CCNA, MCSA. To get each magical item, you can either work hard by killing villains (study), be an apprentice (attend course), or steal (aka brain ****). The more items you accumulate, the stronger your power of influence over others.

The big one is "CISSP", getting it will increase your powers 10 X.
Even the CISSP book has magical power, possession of such an item will increase your healing powers.

Back to reality. Let me get back into the game called life.

**** you found my purple ilvl 900 item I'm going for!!!! ... you better pop you CD I'm going to polymorph you and then portal you to a floating rock above Hellfire Peninsula with your hearthstone deleted and unstuck button broken.

I traded one addiction for another, 7+ years of hard-core raiding for 5 toons in World of Warcraft (World 1st for Lich king in Heroic 25 man ICC before nerf) for the last 3 years of studying for my next kind of purples, the life achievement, and my more recent achievement.... marriage to my Asian princess, whom has some uber magical n' mystical powers.

Pupil · September 2015

None yet but I'm hoping OSCP does it for me.

OctalDump · September 2015

E Double U wrote: »

If someone gets calls because of adding "purchased CISSP book" on their CV, then "thinking about PhD" is definitely going under my education section. Or maybe just add a section to the resume called Keywords To Get Through HR Filters.

What you do, I've been told, is use a tiny font and make it white on white and spam every keyword you can think of. "Recruiters hate him"

SaSkiller · September 2015

I'm not even mad, i'm impressed.

As for me, I will say my military experience DID help. When I got out I was able to get a part time job outside of IT and the manager was big on my military experience in a non-related field. But I was able to sell him. I can see how it could have been the other way because I almost got my first IT job based on certs and desire alone. I was in a bookstore, in the IT section and caught a guy's attention. Even with no IT on my resume he was impressed with the certs I had gotten, and my knowledge.

On the other side, I got a small bump leaving the service to work on a help desk, but my big bump came when I transitioned to ITSec as a contractor. My certs were the primary motivators for my resume catching the recruiters eye. I asked for and received a nice promotion within 6 months.

I took a cut to take my current position, and that along with some other things is causing me to look elsewhere. Nothing has been determined yet, but I may look back to contracting. There still is real good money for overseas contracts. As for what might provide the biggest ROI, i'm not certain. CISSP might help, but I have no desire to take it. I'm fairly close to GSE territory, but i'm honestly not sure it will have the ROI I might expect. Even among security pros who have GIAC certs they don't seem to recognize the GSE.

IIIMaster · September 2015

No cert in general but some actual job experience.

Codyy · September 2015

I guess the CISSP keywords are becoming pretty popular. My resume says certified and had my license # and during a phone interview the other day a guy asked "you do actually have cissp right, as in the certification?". I was like uhm, yeah. He said I had to ask, because we always see people list it and then not actually have it and be like "oh I took a class".

AlexL · September 2015

earlier this year I lost my full time job and I had alot of time for exams and certs.

I decided to take VCP-DCV exam. It went pretty smooth - took only 1/3 of allowed time since I work with vmware products last 5 years. When I was leaving the test facility I was offered a project contract by manager of that test facility.Weird

Verities · September 2015

paul78 wrote: »

I often wonder about the cause-effect of certs. Was it really the cert that helps or the fact that any sufficiently motivated individual who happens to want a cert is someone that also is motivated to perform better at his/her job and will be noticed to get a higher paying job.

Me - never had a cert until recently and no cert ever helped me get a job or a bump in salary.

I just went through this thread and read all the posts, which makes me inclined to agree with you. Most of the people in this thread are motivated to better themselves by learning new technologies or mastering ones they already know. Supervisors, managers, and HR personnel notice hard work.

spaat · October 2015

My MCSE and VCP combined got me a nice jump in pay. But my Bachelors degree got me the biggest jump. I went from Systems Engineer to Solutions Architect after graduating with my BS.

Dakinggamer87 · October 2015

spaat wrote: »

My MCSE and VCP combined got me a nice jump in pay. But my Bachelors degree got me the biggest jump. I went from Systems Engineer to Solutions Architect after graduating with my BS.

That's awesome hopefully it was 10k or higher.

dustervoice · November 2015

Just updated Education and Certification section of my resume to get pass HR bots:

* Dreamed of PHD in Computer Science from Harvard
* Wished I was CRISC & CGEIT
* Considered CISA
* Downloaded MCSE book
* Think highly of OSCP
* Heard of Sabsa

philz1982 · November 2015

You guys suck, no pay bumps with any of my certs. I'm about done with MCSD Web Apps, then Moving on to MCSD Azure SA. I've thought about CCNP/CCDP but those exams are pricey as I don't get the school discount and double-shot I get with MS exams.

joshmadakor · November 2015

Getting CISSP caused a lot of contractors to email me about unrelated IT jobs, $50k-$70k range in the Seattle area. Not sure if it was a coincidence or not. I think they were Microsoft contractors since the job location has always been Redmond, WA

LionelTeo · November 2015

Every two GIAC certs get me a huge bump in salary, I am going to aim for GSE in 2017.

What was "the big cert" that got you a huge bump in salary?

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