Welcome to the hacker's cache, the show that decrypts the secrets of cybersecurity one bite at a time. I'm your host, Kyser Clark. And in this episode, I'm going to talk about the honest truth, why your cybersecurity resume is getting ghosted.

And before we dive into why your resume is getting ghosted, I do have an update for you guys. For those of you who've been following my journey from the past few episodes, you know that I've been on a job search. I've been, I have talked about burnout.

I've talked about getting ghosted a little bit in previous episodes, and I have officially accepted a new job. I accepted the role two weeks ago, and I've actually been working in that role for a week now. So my job search is over.

It lasted just under two months. So that is way above the average. Previously in previous years, it was like three to four months to find a job.

And I think that current job market is like six months to find a job. So I'm like way above the average in terms of how long it took me to find a role. So that just proves that what I do for my career actually works.

And if you imitate me in your own style, don't do exactly what I do, because you don't want to, you don't be a copycat. But what I do actually works, what I say actually works. And that's proof finding a job in under two months is very quick in this tough job market.

And I know a lot of you guys are struggling. And that's why we're talking about why your resume is getting ghosted, how to navigate this job market. And as someone who just navigated the job market successfully, I have a lot of feedback for you guys.

And if you're wondering what kind of role it is, it is a cloud security engineer role at a MSP, a managed service provider. So I'm officially going back into blue team. So it's going to be a way different role.

I've never been a cloud security engineer, but here I am. And it's a different kind of role. It's a big learning opportunity for me.

And I'm pretty excited for that opportunity. And pretty thankful because honestly, I was just getting tired of certain work because I'm a workaholic guys. Like I took some time off of work and literally just got tired of twirling my thumbs and I'm ready to get at it.

So I'm excited to start this job. So let's first talk about what I did to land a job in this tough job market. So I would say the main reason why I got this job was through networking was through a LinkedIn connection.

Shout out to the person who referred me to the company and you know who you are if you're watching this. So shout out to you. And this person I've been connected with for little years, like it's been for maybe even five or six years.

Like I've been connected with this person for a while. I've had a lot of LinkedIn DMs with them. Never met them in person until literally my second day on the job.

And so LinkedIn networking is still prime. That is still the best way to land jobs, guys. My last role, my first pen testing role, my first job out of the military, I landed through a LinkedIn connection as well.

So LinkedIn connections really do help guys. You really need to be focusing on your LinkedIn. If you're looking for a job, even if you're not looking for a job, guys, like if you work on your LinkedIn throughout the years, you're going to build those connections.

And when it's time to find a job, like you're going to have more opportunities available to you. And for all the people who have sent me DMs about different job opportunities, I really do appreciate you because there was a lot of you who DM me and say, hey, look, there's a job here. There's a job here.

There's a job here. And I had a lot of opportunities that I wouldn't have had if it wasn't for the LinkedIn connection. Now, granted, my LinkedIn following is pretty substantial.

It's at 46,000 followers now, but that's way above the average. But you can build that over time. Like there's other people in the field that have similar followings.

And all you got to do is just post interesting stuff on LinkedIn, guys, like post valuable content on LinkedIn. You don't have to be like a full fledged content creator or anything. But if you just make some valuable stuff and don't make it AI slop either, make it actually valuable, people are going to start following you.

So that really helps, guys. And I'm not saying so you can apply to jobs and that absolutely can get you interviews. It's gotten me tons of interviews.

This recent job search, I had tons of interviews where I just applied, didn't know anybody at the company. I just applied like anybody else. And I got tons of interviews that way.

Although I did get rejected a lot too. And if you're wondering like what the stats are, honestly, I don't know how many jobs I applied to. Had to have been close to 200, 200 something maybe.

I've got thousands of interviews. I did a handful of a lot of first round interviews. I even did a couple second round interviews.

And with three different companies, I got to the third round and I got rejected from two companies after three interviews. And I'm waiting to hear back from another company after doing a third interview. But we'll see.

My hopes aren't high for that position, but they might offer a job, they might not. So either way, I mean, I'm still good. I got a position I'm currently in.

So not terribly worried about it. But yeah, navigating the job market isn't easy, guys. You're going to get rejected a lot, even someone like me.

And I say someone like me because I would say I'm fairly successful. I have experience, I got the certifications, I got the degrees, pretty much got anything that an employer is going to ask for on a job description. And I still get rejected a lot, guys.

Unfortunately, you're like, well, how does a how does a qualified candidate like Kyser get rejected? And we're going to talk about that. But before we dive into like exactly why, I do want to mention like some other things that really helped me out in my job search. So I would say the number one thing, other than the LinkedIn networking, would be willing to relocate, guys, that was huge.

So I accepted a role that is a hybrid role. So that means it is in person some of the time, and it's remote some of the time. And right now, for me, it's like all, all in person, like, I want to make sure I'm like there every day, for at least these few few couple weeks, because I'm the new guy.

And I got a lot to learn. And I just want to meet everybody face to face and want every opportunity to meet people face to face. So I'm showing up to the office every day.

And then over time, I'll probably, you know, take my time and and take some of those days and work from home because you can be more productive at home. Because I tend to talk to my coworkers a lot at work. And it's a little distracting.

So but you got to be willing to do in person work, guys, or hybrid work, right? Everybody wants a remote job. And I'm telling you guys, remote job. So this is gonna be a hot take here.

And this varies by person from person to person. But remote work, honestly, is overrated, is overrated. So I, my life, since I've made my return, for those who've been following me, I've, you know, I took a break from content creation, took a break from from working.

And I talked about burnout, that was the main reason why I had to take a break. And one of the reasons why I got burned out was because I was working from home. And very rarely did I have to go and I had to travel for work, like maybe two to four times a year, I would have to go to like the company meetings in a different state, which is exhausting, because, you know, flying across the country, went on across the country.

Well, I did fly across the country where I lived in Alaska. But now when I moved to Ohio, like it was just like one state down. But yeah, it's still exhausting to travel that much.

And but it was nice to be in person and see your co workers face to face for this company meetings, because we are social creatures, guys, even if you're an introvert, like you do need to be social. And that was one of the reasons why I got burned out talking about burned out. I talked about like never leaving the house.

And I'm telling you, like, if you work from home, and you're remote, like it's going to burn you out. Like, yeah, you don't have to deal with the traffic going into work. Yeah, you're going to save money on gas.

Yeah, you're going to save money on your car bank. Or if you don't have a license, and you're traveling by bus or by train or whatever, like you're going to save money and time traveling. Yes.

But the social aspect is so important. And it's not to be ignored. Right.

And I would, I would say remote work, in my opinion, are for people who are later in their career, and people who like have a family, like if you have a family, like I can understand that. But like for me as a single individual, and like I live, I literally live by myself. No roommates, I just have two cats.

And it gets lonely, dude. So that was one of the main reasons why I got burned out badly in my last pentesting job. And like now I'm going into the office.

And like, yeah, I don't like battling traffic to and from work. But when I'm in the office, I'm like, wow, I feel like a part of a team. You know what I mean? You know, I'm already getting people asking me questions.

They're like, and I'm the new guy. I'm the newest guy in the company. But people are already asking me questions.

So I feel part of the team. And it's great. So my advice to you, if you're early in your career, or if you're single, or if you live by yourself, then you want to take a remote job or hybrid job.

And if you're in a where there's no in person jobs for you, then I would highly recommend being willing to relocate. Now, I didn't have to move too far. I moved about two and a half hours away from my hometown.

But I moved to a bigger city in a tech city. I live in the Columbus, Ohio area. It's the fastest growing city in America.

It's going to be one of the biggest tech cities in America over the next decade or so. It's growing and the tech jobs are coming here. And that's there's a reason why I did that was because I knew that this place is going to grow.

And I moved here not knowing anybody like I literally don't know anybody in this area of the state, except for my co workers now. So and a couple people that I'm meeting along the way. But yeah, I took a huge risk over coming over here just coming here by myself.

And that's one of the reasons why I got burned out because like, I don't know anybody here. There's like no one to hang out with at their work. It's just, you know, it just gets boring.

But, you know, it's important to get out and network. And this is I mentioned, like, I'm taking, you know, personal relationships seriously now. And like, that's one of the things I've been I've been focusing on in my free time is just like, like actually having a social life outside of work.

So that's, that's really important. So if you're in one of those areas that don't have a lot of tech jobs, be willing to relocate. And like, if it means like, you're like, yeah, you got to move out your parents house or like, yeah, you got to live an hour away from grandma's house.

Or, you know, you got to leave your sister or your brother behind like, like, it's worth it. I'm telling you it is 100% worth it. Don't be afraid to move if you are really trying to break into this field because if you if you because if you are applying those in person jobs, the the competition is significantly lower because you're only competing against the people in that local area.

Right? And you're not competing against the entire world. So those local jobs is hybrid in those in person jobs, always have less competition always have less candidates. And when you're in person, guys, you learn way more, you learn so much more.

So don't be afraid to do that remote work like it sounds cool. And I'm telling I'm here to tell you guys it's not that cool. It's really not like on paper, it looks good.

It looks good on the on the budget. It looks it sounds cool. Like, oh, I can just, you know, work in my pajamas at home.

Like, it sounds cool. I'm telling you right now. It's really not cool.

And this is coming from someone who's an introvert, guys. I am an introvert. Like I literally get headaches if I talk too much to people.

And I do get I do usually go home. Like if I'm working in person, I usually go home with a headache because I do. I am an introvert.

It drains my energy. But it's that's why hybrids probably the sweet spot, you know, going off a couple times a week or a couple times a week. Like, I think it's a sweet spot working or remote.

Not the way to go working all on site. I would say is better than working all remote. But ideally, a hybrid role is where you're at.

And most jobs are hybrid nowadays. Even if they say in person, like you might learn like, oh, yeah, especially if you get settled in, you might go to work from home on certain days of the week. But yeah, in person really, really helpful.

And I'll, I'll have more of an opinion on it. And once I get out of my new role, because I'm very new to this new role, and I'm still learning a lot. So I've never had a hybrid role before.

My all my Air Force experience was in person. So so I've only had in person jobs, and I've only had remote one remote job. So this hybrid thing is new to me, but it probably is probably going to be a sweet spot.

I'm pretty excited about that. So that's, that's another thing. So I was willing to relocate to a place where tech jobs work.

And you know, I didn't move out here just for that, because I moved out here when I had my last job. But my philosophy was, if anything happens to this company, like if it goes under, I get laid off, I get fired. If I just get tired of it, all the above, I can take a job in a pinch.

And it's kind of what happened, like, I moved here, and boom, I got a job here. And I wouldn't be able to take the job, I would still be looking for a job right now if I didn't make that move. So there's that.

What else did I do? So I'll just be on I'm very transparent, guys. So I don't want to say the exact amount of money that I'm making now. But it is, I did take a pay cut, I did take a little bit of a pay cut to get in this role.

And that's okay. Because this amount of money is still a fair amount of money. It's still I can still live comfortably.

Because I've lived, I live way below my means. And I can still save money. But it is quite a bit of a pay cut compared to my last role.

But that's okay. Because I can learn new things. So there's a saying like you either earn or you learn.

And, you know, I might not be earning as much as I did my last role. But guess what, I'm learning new stuff, right? I'm learning new stuff. And it's gonna and there's room for growth in this company, and maybe even some other companies down the road.

So it's okay to take a pay cut. I it took me a long time to because I accepted this job over over two weeks ago now, and I was hesitant on because the salary was a little bit lower than I wanted, wanted. But I think it's gonna be it's the right move in the long run.

So don't be afraid to take a pay cut. If it can if as long as it pays your bills, like that's all that matters. And yeah, you might be able to save less money.

But like I said, I'm going to be learning a lot of stuff. So I've talked about taking pay cuts before and when you're getting started, that absolutely makes sense. But like, even if you're a mid career professional, like myself, taking a pay cut does it stings a little bit, but I think in the long run, it's going to be for the best, which is why I said the position.

So there's that. So that's another reason why I was able to land a role. Okay, so why Why does your resume get ghosted? So after doing dozens of interviews, I've kind of boiled it down to a few different things.

I think the number one reason why your resume gets ghosted, guys, is because you don't have the experience they're looking for. Now, that's sounds cliche. And everyone kind of knows you have to have experience in these jobs.

But like, what does that actually mean? So let me give you a practical example of this. So on my resume, I have two years of penetration testing experience under my belt. And I applied to every pen testing position that I could.

And on one particular interview, their interviewer literally said, Hey, this job requires three years of pen testing experience. I noticed that you don't have three years of experience. And I said, Yeah, but I have two years of experience in pen testing.

And I have six years of cyber defense operation experience in the United States Air Force. And I have 20 certifications. I have a bachelor's and a master's degree.

I have 125 hack the box machine solved. And I have 270 plus tracking rooms completed. Surely, all that other stuff makes up for the one year I'm missing.

And she was like, Yeah, we're really looking for at least three years of experience. I'm like, that's crazy. Because I've been hacking for a long time.

I'm like, I was like, when I was the United States Air Force, like, I started my hacking journey, like seven years ago. But no, that doesn't matter to them. Like if you don't, if you're not getting paid for that role, they do not care.

So employers, I don't know, for some reason, and I'm not a hiring manager, I'm not a recruiter. But it seems like they have a hard time like, like reading between the lines on a resume. I had to point things out on my resume that they didn't see.

Even though it's pretty obvious, if you just read it, they don't really read your resume that much guys. They literally just look at the job title. And then they look how long you did it.

That's it. That's all they do. They don't.

It seems like they don't even read the bullets. Unfortunately, the bullets are more for the ATS systems, the applicant tracking systems, the things that's the AI that scans your resume, and then they reject you nine times out of 10, before you even get a chance before you even sees it. But yeah, they just look at the job title.

And then they look at the, the years, years you put into that job title. So you can't really add years to your experience. But you can take you can change your job title to reasonable extent.

Obviously, like for example, like if I was applying to a offensive security engineer position, if they titled it that, like I could change pen tester to office security engineer, because it's, it's very similar, right? Because pen testing is offensive, offensive security. So you could do something like that. Like my role that I accepted, like the offer letter says, cloud security consultant.

But when I update my LinkedIn, I'm going to change it to a cloud security engineer, because cloud security engineer, it's a little, it sounds a little bit better. So you can fudge a little bit, I wouldn't do it too much. But you can change the job title a little bit, like you don't have to put the job title that the company tells you.

So keep that in mind. You can't lie about the years, unfortunately. I mean, you can, but I don't do it.

I don't recommend it, especially because when I accepted my job, they actually called my employer, my previous employer to, to confirm that I worked there for as long as I did do the background check. So not only did it do a criminal background check on me, but they did a job background check on me. So now they didn't have to call, they could have been like, they were like, they wanted to see what either my pay subs or they want to call contact them, I couldn't get my pay sub.

So I was like, I was like, just call my previous company. And I've confirmed that I worked there for that to that time, like I'm not lying about it, you know, and then for my Air Force experience, I just showed him a DD 214, which is the form they give you when you separate out of the military, but they don't know. So they didn't have to call the Air Force.

Cause that'd be a hassle if they didn't have to call the Air Force. But yeah, that, that confirmed my Air Force experience. So these, these background checks, they are going to confirm how many years you worked for these employers, guys.

So they're, you can't fudge it. You cannot lie about it because even if you do a live and you do get the offer, they're going to, they're most likely going to do a background check on you. And part of that background check, maybe not all companies, but like I said, this last position, like they did, they did validate my previous employment.

So that's, that's the hardest part was like, how do you get the experience if no one's going to give you a shot? And that's the hardest thing to do in cybersecurity, like breaking in is the hardest thing to do in security. And I mean, I got kind of lucky because I don't have, I don't have a cloud security engineer on my resume. Like there's nowhere on my resume.

It doesn't say cloud security engineer, but I had, I got referred to by the company from LinkedIn networking. So that's why LinkedIn networking is so important because the person who referred me wasn't the hiring manager, but they respected my work. Like they know I I've, I've done a lot of good things for the community and I've just been hustling and I got a lot of certifications and he also has a lot of certifications.

So like he knows that like I have the foundational knowledge to go out and execute the job. So for some reason, hiring managers can't, most hiring managers and recruiters can't do that for some reason. They can't be like, Oh, he's got 20 certs.

Like clearly he's got the foundational knowledge. I don't know what it is with hiring managers. I don't, I mean, obviously my hiring manager, they, they're very smart and hired me, but a lot of them aren't sorry.

All the ones that rejected me, I'm sorry. Like you can't see like all the work I put into this field. And like, I know the fundamentals laid back my hand, but it's just, it's so frustrating guys.

There's really no way to get around it. The way to get around it is LinkedIn networking. Now, I did, like I said, I did get a lot of interviews without the LinkedIn networking.

I did apply to a lot of positions to like standard job applications, but ultimately all of them have rejected me or not just ghosted me altogether. Or the, a lot of these job postings aren't even intended to be filled. And then one of the, one of the jobs I'd mentioned getting ghosted by a company that I did three interviews for, they actually filled that job internally.

So you got to understand that's also a factor. Like they'll open up a position and they already know who they're going to hire. But for legal or compliance reasons, they have to have a job opening and they have to interview several people.

And even though they know who they want to hire, like that's kind of what happened to me. Like they're like, yeah, we just decided to hire someone internally. So like they probably already knew they were going to hire that guy from the start and they just wasted my time.

That's going to happen. That's really annoying. But again, like, what can you do? LinkedIn networking.

The certifications do, like my certification have 20 of them do help. And then my eight years experience obviously helps. But some, a lot of, a lot of employers, like I said, even though, like, for example, like if I'm hired, if I'm applying to a pen test and gather requires five year experience, like they don't even give me a time of day because I only have two years experience.

Like, like they won't even, they won't even bring me in for an interview if it, now the one job I did have, they're like, well, they wanted three years experience. I have two years experience. They did bring me in for an interview, but I don't think they're going to bring me in for a second interview, especially since I kind of, kind of ruffled her feathers the wrong way.

Cause I was like, I literally was like, what do you mean? Like I'm, I'm missing one year experience. I got all these little stuff. I was like, it's honestly kind of insulting that you don't think I could do the job.

So probably she's probably not going to call me back. Cause I kind of, I kind of yelled at her a little bit, but it is what it is. Cause my ego is extremely high.

I don't, I'm not the kind of guy to like beg for work, you know? And another reason why I think I got rejected. Um, I can't really confirm this, but I have a hunch is that a lot of employers don't like me being a content creator. You think being a content creator would help you.

And it does in some way, because I'd have a lot of connections and I've made a lot of friends along the way, but most of the people I'm connected with aren't hiring managers. They are just other, other individuals. Um, I want to say other individuals, I'm talking about peers who are working in the field as engineers, technicians, pen testers, et cetera, et cetera.

That are, you know, around the same level as me in terms of experience and knowledge. A lot, I've made a lot of connections to this podcast, all my guests, a lot of, a lot of the guests I'm in contact with still, and that the content creation has opened up doors for me. But at the same time, it hurts in the way, the reason why it hurts is because employers do not like having employees with side hustles.

Like they don't. And my YouTube channel technically is a side hustle, even though I really don't make that much money off of it. Like I'm starting to make some ad revenue, but like, it's obviously not enough to like quit my job and go full-time content creator.

And I work on it my free time, right? This is the thing. It costs a lot of my free time guys. And employers don't like you having side hustles.

Like they just don't, they do not want you having a side hustle. So I would avoid talking about side hustles. And in the future, if I ever see myself doing a job search again, I'll probably take the YouTube off my content off my resume.

Cause right now I do have a bullet point that says content creation. Talks about me having 1.3 million views, 70 something episodes of a podcast, 600 plus videos. Like, yeah, it shows passion.

It does show that I have high passion in this field. And you know, that's another thing that I think is a big myth when it comes to this field. People are always talking about like employers and hiring managers.

They want to see you having passion. I don't, I don't think they care about how much passion you have in this field. I mean, they want to see your passion in the interview, but like, they don't want to see you having side hustles guys.

They don't want to see you having a business on the side. Like I know there's, there's a lot of people in this field who work full time and they got like a business on the side. Like they're doing, um, I don't know, pen tests on the side, or they're doing coaching on the side.

They're doing me. I do YouTube on the side. They don't want to see that because they just want someone to work for just them.

And that's, that's the core of our reality. Employers, uh, don't take us the wrong way, but employers, all they want is an obedient wage slave. That's all they want.

They just want to make sure you, they just want to make sure you can do the work and they don't want you. They really don't want people who ruffle feathers. They don't want people who have strong opinions.

And I am someone who ruffles feathers and have strong opinions in the field, right? I mean, I don't get on here talking about politics or religion or like world events, but I do have some strong opinions about this field. And that's a for some employers. I actually had someone hit me up and said, Hey man, your content is kind of hurting you because you're a PR risk.

He literally like you are a PR risk because you talk too much about your job. And what makes my content good is because I'm transparent and I tell you the raw, honest, real deal truth about this field. And because I show not the not so glamorous sides of the work guys, it doesn't sit well with employers.

I even had a recruiter tell me, and I'm not even kidding when I say this, I had a recruiter say, do you think hiring managers and recruiters actually watch your videos? But he straight up told me that. And I was like, me being cocky. I was like, well, I think they do.

I mean, I got 1.1 million views, so I'm sure some of them do. Cause I'm, I just, you know, that's the only thing about me guys. If you, if you insult me or if a, um, recruiter or like an interviewer insults me, like I have no problem, like having a backbone.

Um, and like I said, if you, you gotta, they kind of want to be wait slaves. So if you push back on, on what they say, or if you have a backbone or like you hurt their ego by talking to them, um, it's not going to help you out. You know what I mean? So that that hurts me a lot.

Um, because I, I can't, I don't like to take crap from anybody, even in the interview process, even if I'm looking for a job, like I'm not that desperate for a job. Like my, my pride and my ego is more important than this job. Maybe that's not the case for you.

And if that's not the case for you, you can swallow your pride and swallow your ego in those interviews. Um, because sometimes they are going to make you look dumb. Um, and me, I'm like, you know, like I said, that one, that one interview, you don't have three years experience.

And you know, the proper thing might be like, well, well, I don't have three years experience, but I also have this. I'm just like, are you kidding me? I was like, I have all this other stuff. How can you not see how this makes up for one year? You know what I mean? Like I'm very blunt and direct.

Obviously that didn't help me. I didn't get a second interview. Cause I, I would really push back on that, on that interview.

And like, I, I ruffled feathers in the interview. So don't recommend that, but as just the kind of person I am. So yeah, the content creation does hurt me now.

And not everyone's gonna, not everyone's like me, but you know, you can make some content that's just like all technical. You don't, maybe you're not having a strong opinions on, on the job market or like, you know, one of the strong opinions I have is, you know, AI certain replace jobs. You know, um, not everybody agrees with that or like, um, you know, I have strong, I mean, I have a whole podcast.

So you guys have been listening, like you've, you've heard all the strong opinions I've had. Um, and not everybody agrees with them and that's okay. I really, I'm not trying to please everybody.

Um, but in the same light though, like that's why you guys that you're been following me for a while. That's why you like me. And I'm sure there's some hiring managers that actually like that, but I would say more times than not, not so much.

So, um, I, I, if you're looking for a job, I would avoid ruffling feathers and I would avoid having strong opinions on I'm doing air quotes for the listeners controversial, um, topics right now. Like I said, I don't touch politics or religion on my content, but I do talk about some, you know, controversial stuff as far as like our field goes and everybody agrees with me and I'm okay. I'm okay with being disagreeable and some hiring managers probably more, the majority of hiring managers, they want to agree agreeable wage slaves.

So keep that in mind. What else? I mean, yeah, it's a tough job market guys is not. So when I was coming out of the military two and a half years ago, there was way more pen testing positions out there, guys.

I interviewed for pen testing positions, left and right, left and right, left and right. And I ended up landing one, actually landed two. I landed one, they revoked the job offer because it got canceled.

And then I landed another one, like a couple of weeks later. So there was a lot more pen testing positions available back then. There is now, and there's just not that many pen testing positions available, which is one of the reasons why I had to take, go to the blue team because there's way more blue team position.

I've been talking about this a lot. Like there's more blue team cyber defense positions out there then then often security red team pen testing positions. So if you're trying to break in the field, I would highly advise lean on the blue team, right? Because there's more work.

And in the longterm, the pay ceiling is higher. I've talked about this. Actually, no, I don't think I did talk about that.

I think I deleted that podcast. So the pay ceiling on a blue team is higher, but the entry level, the, the salary is lower. So there, while the salaries are lower starting out in the long run, you will make more than office security professional, if that makes sense.

So will I go back to pen testing? I don't know. I mean, I'm just going to sit in this role until whenever you're right. I will see what happens, but I always thought there would be a chance of me going to the blue team and going more back in a defensive cyber.

So keep that in mind, guys, blue team positions are where it's at. And then my position specifically is cloud security engineer. There are a lot of cloud positions guys.

And I talked about this in the last episode, how cloud is kind of like underrated for defense and security. And if you are versed in the cloud, then that's going to set you apart because cloud skills are in very high demand, very high demand. And I only have one cloud cert.

And now that I'm in a cloud security engineer role, specifically working in Azure, I don't have that much Azure experience experience. And I straight up told, told the interviewer that they're like, I was like, I don't have an Azure experience. They still hired me because this company can actually see the value.

Like, Hey, he's smart. He's he was a pen tester. Like, like he's got all these foundational certifications.

He's got some expert, not expert level, but he's got some middle level certifications. And, you know, I was very knowledgeable on a lot of the things that we're talking about, even without the Azure experience. So now that I'm in this role, like I'm going to start getting some Azure certs to help me be successful in this role.

So getting, getting AWS and Azure certs. I did a tier list not too long ago. For those of you guys watch my YouTube channel, my videos, I did rate all the certifications and I did have Azure and AWS.

If I had to redo that, I'd probably put them up with here. Now, after doing a job search, like I seen cloud technologies, like on so many job posing. So cloud positions are kind of the, probably the easiest way in, in my opinion, right now, like I said, I got a little lucky that I had all this other experience that wasn't directly cloud related cloud is a kind of a weakness of mine, but I do have the cloud plus.

So I'm not completely oblivious to the cloud. And I do have experience in so many other domains of cybersecurity that especially pen testing and system administration that, that they saw that, that I could do the work and, you know, taking a little bit of a chance on me because I literally, I got hired in for Azure role and I've never been an Azure administrator. So I got a lot of learning to do and that's exciting because it's something new.

It's something new. And that's, you know, that's one of the reasons I got burned out being a pen tester. Like it was just the same thing week after week, after week, after week.

I was like, man, like the only thing I am learning now at this point is like the certifications. Like I'm not really learning on the job. I mean, I am learning on a job a little bit here and there, but the same vulnerabilities kept popping up and I was pen testing the same vulnerability, same vulnerability, same vulnerabilities.

And that's one of the reasons I got burned out and I wasn't learning as much. So, but now that I'm learning, I'm literally learning on a job, a lot on job nowadays and in this new role, I'm excited about that. So that's another reason why I took that particular position because it gives me more experience in a different area that I never had before.

And I have all the foundational information that I can build off of and I'm excited for that. So that's it guys. I mean, that's, I mean, that's how I navigated this tough job market.

I have been successful. I'm excited to get this new job. Let's start working this new job.

And I think what I've been talking about over the past couple, few years, even when I had my last role, what I talk about really works, right? Cause like I said, I've only been looking for a job. It took me less than two months, less than two months from the time I started looking for a job to signing an offer letter and start working. So what I do works.

And I think the key to success, the biggest key is LinkedIn networking. And then another thing that helped me out was willing to relocate to a place that actually has in-person cybersecurity jobs. Because if I didn't do, if I didn't make that move, I'd probably still be looking for a job right now because remote work, there's a lot of competition guys, and there's thousands of people applying for the same jobs.

And I mean, you literally got to beat out thousands of people. That's very difficult to do, very difficult to do. But if you are applying for a job that is local to your city, you might be competing against, maybe a dozen it's it's your chance of success is so much higher.

And then if you, if you're the type of person who wants remote work, like, like, yeah, you can get remote work, but like later in your career. So remote works like a, like a mid to late career. I am mid career, but it's a tough job market.

So I didn't really have too many options to choose from because there is no one's, I don't want to say no one's hiring, but there isn't as many job openings that as there was in the previous years. And there's a lot more people who are unemployed because AI is taking over the jobs and people are getting laid off. So it's a tough job market guys, but follow my advice.

It'll work out for you. If you're persistent, you keep learning, get your certifications, do your networking, don't ruffle too many feathers, like I do, you'll find success. So, and I'm proof of that.

This is a job search. I've both my job searches, the one coming out of the military and the one that I just did, like it didn't last long. Like neither one of them last long, a couple months tops.

That's very, that's below the average. Like I said, I think previous years it was three to four months. And I think right now it's like six months to find a job.

And that's, you know, if I find one in two months, that's far below the average. So it just goes to show you, it proves that what I do actually works. And my advice is sound and hopefully helps you out.

All right. If you have any questions, guys, feel free to drop them. And I kind of rambled a lot in here.

I didn't really plan. I didn't script this out. I'm just kind of like talking about my job, my job planning experience.

And I'm talking about how you can learn from that and be successful yourself. I'd love to hear you guys' stories. Like what's your, what's your issues in a job market? I know a lot of you guys getting ghosted.

I know a lot of you guys are having a hard time and I talked about why that might be the case. Like you do got to have a lot of, a lot of certifications and experience and even maybe some degrees. But yeah, let me know if you have any questions and if they're good, then I'll feature my next Q and A episode, which will be in a couple episodes.

So hope you got value out of this guys. If you did, if you're on audio rate the show five stars, if you're on Spotify or Apple podcasts, if you're on YouTube, hit the like button and hit the subscribe button for more cybersecurity content. Hopefully I see you on the next episode.

Until then, this is Kyser signing off. Thank you so much for watching. Thanks for listening.