Fulfillment and Making A Difference
Solving the cybersecurity workforce gap starts with helping people with diverse backgrounds to envision themselves as capable, regardless of their technical background. Not to use a buzzword here, however, diversity is also about the inclusion of various ways of thinking and problem solving to make a team stronger and more dynamic.
Results from the CyberNow Labs poll of 125,000 prospective trainees about what attracted them to this career path show that making more money isn’t at the top of the list while feeling fulfilled and making a difference rank very highly. This isn’t really shocking considering the #greatresignation is real. In fact, 4.53 million workers quit their jobs in March 2022, beating the previous series high of 4.51 million in November 2021, according to the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) released by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Being able to support your family and live above poverty is clearly still important to anyone, and the Cybersecurity Analyst role does command an annual salary of anywhere from $65,000 – $150,000+ USD according to the US Department of Labor and Statistics Statics. Pair this with the reported nearly 2-million unfilled cybersecurity jobs and it’s a recipe for a win/win opportunity.
But here are a few more interesting motivations for getting into cybersecurity and choosing the right learning path to ensure you can hit the ground running on day one on the job.
- Anzalla graduated with a degree in IS but started his first job in consulting and software sales (boring according to Anzalla). He was then laid off in 2020 during the height of the COVID-19 impact. Anzalla began looking at how to get into the cybersecurity field because it’s always interesting and there’s never a dull moment. After graduating from the CyberNow Labs Academy, he got a job as an Incident Responder for Black Kite.
- A hardworking former stay-at-home mom to 4 children, Pinar struggled to leverage her Engineering background and started down a path toward a Master’s in Public Education when she came to the U.S. She gained interest in this field when one of her kids got involved in a Cyber Patriot Program teaching kids basic security rules while online. A CyberNow Labs graduate, Pinar is now a cybersecurity specialist at Deloitte, which has the largest SOC globally.
Side note, have you noticed the many different job titles for a Cybersecurity Analyst role?
- Information Security Analyst
- Cyber Analyst
- SOC Analyst
- Security Analyst
- Incident Responder
(And 50 more, seriously, but that’s another blog post…)
Learn more about the CyberNow Labs ‘un’bootcamp Academy to become a Cybersecurity Analyst. Click here for details on the next live, online info session, June 18, 1 pm EST