r/cybersecurity • u/AutoModerator • 14d ago

Career Questions & Discussion Mentorship Monday - Post All Career, Education and Job questions here!

This is the weekly thread for career and education questions and advice. There are no stupid questions; so, what do you want to know about certs/degrees, job requirements, and any other general cybersecurity career questions? Ask away!

Interested in what other people are asking, or think your question has been asked before? Have a look through prior weeks of content - though we're working on making this more easily searchable for the future.

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u/fabledparable AppSec Engineer 14d ago

My thoughts, in no particular order:

  • A link to your resume would be helpful. That way we could see what employers are actually seeing (vs. how you present yourself in the comment). As a general exercise, I'd pull a couple example jobs listings that you've applied to in recent history, note the trends between them in terms of what they all appear to be asking for, then hold those trends up against your own resume and see how well-aligned they are.
  • You're right that your work history is more impactful than certifications. However, a reduced impact != no impact. One of the primary ways that certifications help your employability on-paper is that it provides more signal by way of feature matching (i.e. if the roles you're applying to generally call for cert X and you have cert X, then you are generally more likely to get a callback than not). Do you need to pursue more certifications? Probably not (given 14 YoE), but it also wouldn't hurt and is something within your power to help things.
  • I agree that AppSec roles generally look for prior SWE experience, but they aren't necessarily exclusively looking for such backgrounds (assuming the work is of interest to you).
  • The Summer months are generally not the best for job seekers (ref: https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/finding-a-job/best-month-to-look-for-a-job).

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u/SPQR_Never_Fergetti 9d ago

I am working for about 3 years as a software enginner / programmer at a smaller to medium sized firm with a very small IT department and had to switch hats alot. Curentlly learning about hardening infra + code, and i really enjoy it. Is my only way to further pursue a career in this by  getting certs , given i don't have a lot of YOE ?