Navigating the Cybersecurity Career Path

CHAPTER 11How Can I Progress?

Summary

• Keep learning: Think of your career like an apprenticeship: apprentice, journeyperson, and expert. Know which stage you are in.
• Be an opportunist: Stay current with security trends, network with others, and formalize your learning with certifications or degrees.
• Be intentional, but stay flexible: If you know what you want to do next, research what is needed, and make sure your work experience and learning give you those things. Find people who are in the next role you want and ask them for advice.
• Stay curious: Keep learning about people and things that will take you to the next step in your career — skills, experiences, and contacts.
• Communicate well and often: Promote your work, particularly to your network, manager, and sponsor.

When we are children in school, we inevitably meet the kid who knows exactly what they want to be when they grow up. They are unwavering in their pursuit of whatever that is. They take all the right classes, do all the right summer camps, get relevant internships, and generally move intentionally through their career. Then there are the rest of us who have no clear idea of what we want to do for a job, how to move from one phase to another, or how to know that we're on the right path — if there even is a path.

When it comes to chasing a successful security career, most people are still in one of these camps. Some people know early that they want to be an ethical hacker. Some know that running a compliance ...