Learn to communicate in a language that transcends grammar and spoken words
Many refugees arriving in Europe face a wide range of challenges from difficulty learning local languages to struggles finding sustainable employment in a new place. However, there’s one field that holds great promise for helping them transcend both. A career in cybersecurity can transform a person from any background or education level into a sought-after worker with a skillset that nearly every business wants and needs while giving them a deep potential for upward social mobility.
In the U.S., an entry-level cybersecurity analyst can expect to earn between $80,000 and $165,000 USD annually depending on experience level, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor and Statistics. Bonus: Cybersecurity workers, regardless of their native tongue, learn to communicate in a language that transcends grammar and spoken words as they gain the competencies and skills needed to secure an organization’s digital presence and put a stop to the exploitation of sensitive data.
For U.S.-based CyberNow Labs, helping people find opportunities in cybersecurity in both Europe and the U.S. fulfills the ultimate “double bottom line”. It can help individuals integrate into the workforce in their new home country or start a new career, and it can help businesses fill critical skill and competency gaps on their IT security teams.
CyberNow Labs also saw the value that CompTIA solutions could add to its immersive training program, given the platform-agnostic attributes of CompTIA learning materials, the solid learning design that maximizes student engagement, and the industry recognition of the CompTIA credentials, especially Security+. As a CompTIA delivery partner, CyberNow Labs is able to offer refugee communities in Europe CompTIA vouchers to become certified at no individual cost. “The topics that CompTIA Security+ covers are well-known in the industry, and HR folks like to see it on a resume. Not only that but some businesses are also required to employ staff with certain certifications in order to be billable and remain on projects. It definitely helps get you to the interview, no questions. And as for the hands-on component of the learning experience? There’s not much competition out there,” Hasan Eksi (right), co-founder of CyberNow Labs says.
Regardless of whether they are in the U.S. or European cohorts, students work incrementally through the CyberNow Labs program, learning in a synchronous online format, unlocking the basics through CompTIA Security+, and later working on real-world cybersecurity tasks in a real SOC environment with real attacks that test their knowledge at every step. “We give them the same tasks as if they were working at IBM or Cisco,” Omer Arslan (left), co-founder of CyberNow Labs shares.
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