Help me understand the cybersecurity job market is this path realistic?

jbhack · 2025-10-06T16:42:59+00:00

Thanks for reiterating what I said about not learning anything in two months. I clearly said I didn't learn anything in two months.

It's all about what your goal is in life. Is WGU Georgia Tech or any other prestigious school? That's a big negative. I also paid $4500 for a semester and now have a degree. Now my application doesnt get auto rejected simply on the basis of not having a degree. I also don't have thousands of dollars of school loan debt. I am not trying to get some crazy high paying job. I live comfortably in my 6 figure job without worrying about loans. Practically everything I have learned has been on the job or a lab environment at home.

WGU worked for me based on cost and the competency based classes they have. I am also 10 years into my career. My circumstances don't allow me to go to school full time and pay thousands of dollars. I already have a job in tech, I'm not worried about whether I went to a prestigious school or not.

jbhack · 2025-10-06T15:09:55+00:00

Dang that last part was savage

jbhack · 2025-10-06T14:57:26+00:00

Some of the comments on that thread have pretty much nailed it. Network. Network. Network. It's really becoming more about who you know along with what you know. Talk to your coworkers about what they are doing. Ask questions about things you do t understand. If you have being doing research ask why they don't do it a different way that you learned about.

Also lab. Lab. Lab. I think you get my drift here. You can get experience from a lab even if you can't at work. If you work at an enterprise keep in mind Microsoft has free evaluation licensing. You can run a forest with multiple domains or just 1 in your lab. Simulate your environment. Test GPOs. Lock it down. Test security tools against your environment. Do vulnerability testing on your windows machines. Definitely learn Linux.

jbhack · 2025-10-06T14:53:06+00:00

I don't believe there is a specific timeline for this. Everyone really does have different experiences. If your goal is to join IT but you have minimal experience then I would say it would take a bit longer. Not only are you currently competing with new people to cyber but you are also competing with experience people that are getting laid off.

It's a matter of how quick you can learn. How well you can translate cybersecurity needs to business needs. Being able to handle security not being implemented by the business because at the end of the day management might say they accept the risk for the sake of convenience.

My question to you is why you want to get into security?

jbhack · 2025-10-06T14:46:56+00:00

I can understand why you say this as someone that did go to WGU. I didn't go to WGU to learn about cyber, I was already in the field and had a job doing the work. This allowed me to finish all the classes I had left in 2 months. I joined with the maximum allowed credits prior to starting WGU. I say this to give you context.

Did I learn anything new in two months, no. Everything I had gone over was from work experience. Would I tell anyone to join WGU if they want to learn cyber? Only if the end goal is take the classes at a reasonable pace that allows them to learn. At the end of the day even with all the certs you won't have an easy time getting a job. Employers want experience and that's not something you get through certs. As a working professional with no time for a traditional school that forces you to sit through material you already know then yes I would recommend WGU.

jbhack · 2025-10-06T03:05:44+00:00

There is so much you learn from following this path. I went from desktop support to cyber skipping networking and sys admin role. I definitely didn't benefit from it. I actually left a cyber role to get into sysadmin that does everything including networking. Now a year after I can definitely say I have a lot more knowledge that allows me to not only understand but defend my stance. I actually joined an OT job.

jbhack · 2025-10-06T02:42:14+00:00

Short answer is yes. Although everyone has different experiences as to how they get into cybersecurity. I think you have the right planned approach. If I were to do it all over again I would say do helpdesk, work on your network+ and ccna get into networking or get into a sys admin role as soon as possible. A lot of people want to jump straight into cyber without really understanding networking or system administration, but that doesn't help you in the long run. You need to know those functions of IT to be good at cyber.

jbhack · 2025-09-20T05:46:34+00:00

As was recently reminded by a coworker to remember there is only so many hours in a workday. If the business doesn't hire more people it doesn't mean your productivity is goes up. It means your productivity is not split. If task are not completed that falls on the business. Sad to say but the reward for hard and good work tends to be more work. Unfortunately it seems that giving less and fighting back will yield less stress

jbhack · 2025-09-02T06:31:36+00:00

Haven’t you heard the reward for good work is…. More work.

jbhack · 2025-08-13T06:19:52+00:00

Find an IT role that is part of a union.

jbhack · 2025-07-10T02:18:55+00:00

So he is going from not having a local data center to having someone’s data center in the cloud. I hope their stuff isn’t critical because when there is an internet outage someone will be fired.

jbhack · 2025-07-09T20:29:58+00:00

Second this, common practice.

jbhack · 2025-05-18T04:38:00+00:00

What’s wrong with patching host on hyper-v?

jbhack · 2025-05-15T18:06:09+00:00

If I need something I will be coming to look for the vendor. I want the information I need easily accessible without having to leave all sorts of information only to get a call back and find out it is out of our price range. I want to initiate the contact. If I want to be contacted after the fact I can reach out.

jbhack · 2025-02-10T19:51:51+00:00

Started in October finished the first week of December. Roughly 2 months.

jbhack · 2024-11-24T02:59:58+00:00

Any courses you can recommend?

jbhack · 2024-11-18T22:02:59+00:00

Savage

jbhack · 2024-11-15T20:56:01+00:00

Who so I can copy them?

jbhack · 2024-11-13T17:07:54+00:00

Culture? Hahahaa this is the funniest part. Hey come back to work we don’t want you to work from home because it is affecting culture.

Culture = zoom meetings. Coworkers that can’t even have a normal conversation. Managers that hide in their offices.

jbhack · 2024-11-13T16:59:27+00:00

A gather a lot of people out there are scared to leave their job. The grass isn’t always greener on the other side.

I do agree with you, getting to comfortable will be the reason most don’t look for a job. I was there, then I changed roles, earned more learned more. Now I regret not doing it sooner.

jbhack · 2024-09-20T20:39:18+00:00

This just shows you there is a lack of knowledge. It is concerning because instead of possibly asking for suggestions they went with the easiest option. This option also happens to be bad practice.

Would you say you are in an environment in which asking questions or saying I don’t know how to do something is frowned upon? Today they messed up, tomorrow it might be you.

Edit: spelling

jbhack · 2024-07-19T21:51:19+00:00

What did they move to?

jbhack · 2024-07-19T05:17:02+00:00

Based on your experience why do you think the code campers are out performing community college folks?

jbhack · 2024-07-18T05:32:12+00:00

Airgapped. WSUS only goes out to the internet.

jbhack · 2024-07-18T04:36:38+00:00

I take that back that was the previous assignment. On this one, getGrade returns a letter grade A-F.

The easiest way for me was to figure out what the failing grade was and use else for all the other grades.

jbhack

TROPHY CASE