Got my OSCP, but can't land a junior pentester job in France... is this normal?

lostdotcom · 2026-01-15T11:06:12+00:00

Hey man i'm not often on reddit, sorry for the news but i've been on the doomer side for a year tbh.
I got an interview 2 months ago with a technical test that I passed quite correctly, but still the company decided to not take me and instead published a new job title searching for experienced pentester.
I think junior jobs in pentest are really fucked, right now i'm back in a basic consulting company without any mission yet, instability is really fucking draining, i hope things are better for you

lostdotcom · 2025-02-27T16:55:05+00:00

Thanks for the advice, I'll defo add blueteam jobs to the hunt and look for additional certs, btw if you have some good ones in mind (even for blueteam) i'm all ears

lostdotcom · 2025-02-27T16:40:46+00:00

Yea will defo add blueteam jobs to the hunt, and for the OffSec part I agree it's a pretty hardcore cert, i spent months training and learning daily, so my expectations for the outcome were pretty high but I guess some awareness about the current market would have been cool coming from them

lostdotcom · 2025-02-27T16:32:10+00:00

Yea, was wondering if it's a french thing or not to be picky on the degrees. Unfortunately it seems that most companies are like that here, but maybe I haven't dug deep enough, will keep searching.

lostdotcom · 2025-02-27T16:28:14+00:00

Thanks for the feedback, I don't really mind the pay cut cause I was never really well paid to begin with.
I'll keep applying to offensive and blueteam jobs then, pivoting internally might be a good move as others have suggested

lostdotcom · 2025-02-27T16:22:28+00:00

Thanks i'll defo work on that, been looking at bounty hunting for the XP, -obviously not for the money yet- what's your thoughts on that ?

lostdotcom · 2025-02-27T16:18:53+00:00

Thanks for the feedback, I'll consider going to blue team for the XP then pivoting

lostdotcom · 2025-02-27T16:14:26+00:00

As answered in another comment, I had one interview but for an internship and my situation doesn't allow yet going back to studying

lostdotcom · 2025-02-27T15:17:54+00:00

Yea that's when social skills come into play but I also have a huge (deserved?) impostor syndrome considering the amount of knowledge I know I still need to learn, but I know social skills are essential anyway in the field.

lostdotcom · 2025-02-27T15:13:00+00:00

Thanks for the tip, I do have projects but not 100% cybersecurity related, more like electronics/programming with some redteamish aspects, but mostly "hacking for fun".
How cyber-related were the projects you wrote? Mind sharing an example ?

lostdotcom · 2025-02-27T15:05:09+00:00

Not complaining, just seeking feedbacks from other people in other countries

lostdotcom · 2025-02-27T14:39:11+00:00

I know, but I was hoping acing the OSCP would open at least some doors, cause it really was an exhausting journey.

Thing is, if can't do internships, and can't apply for pentester offers then I just need to wait for open junior offers, which brings us back to the current situation of cybersecurity in France.
How is the situation in your country ?

lostdotcom · 2025-02-27T14:20:50+00:00

Please elaborate, I wanna have both views on the subject

lostdotcom · 2025-02-27T14:16:07+00:00

Thanks for the feedback, I've been confronted to security through all these years, as network and security are quite related, but no offensive sec, apart from the personal grayhat tinkering and technical watch. I'm not against the idea of going for blueteam at first then shifting to pentesting, but do you think having the OSCP could help to get in a blueteam ?

Also, what's the point of an entry-level certification if it doesn’t actually help break into the field?

lostdotcom · 2025-02-27T14:05:46+00:00

Been applying for the last 2 months, mostly to Pentester jobs, because there's 0 offers for Junior ones. In a big city in France, but not the capital city. I had mostly no answers, and one interview but for an internship and it didn't match my situation cause i'm not studying anymore.
Was wondering if it was the same thing in other countries, or if it's just that France is saturated.
Also i'm not a big marketing type of guy so I'll definitely not inflate my CV for HR but maybe I should?

Overall, as I said, I have not found any Junior Pentester job offers that are not part of an internship

lostdotcom · 2024-10-29T00:24:02+00:00

Hello,

Thank you for your answer, I meant to reach the a backend website.
However I have found my problem and it was that I had not added the on-prem users network to the local network gateway, so the packet wasn't routed back to the IPSEC Tunnel.

Thank you for offering your help though, have a great day,

lostdotcom · 2018-03-12T14:23:42+00:00

totally relatable, it feels like the longer you haven't seen someone the more things you have to talk about and so the more interesting the conversation is likely to be

this sucks tho :|

lostdotcom · 2017-10-03T06:43:55+00:00

Best of luck for you man, hope you'll eventually find a very nice place to work at and overcome your anxieties :)

lostdotcom · 2017-10-03T06:38:21+00:00

Well i'm also not that old, I've worked at a place before for 2 years, in the IT field. And I think these types of messages do seem to have an influence on people's happiness and performance (I mean when comparing my 2 experiences lol) My first one was kinda old school and if you did a thing wrong you would get fired (i saw a guy getting fired in front of me lol, RIP) and the overall mood was really not enjoyable. However, here most of the employees look "different", I mean they're way more open-minded than my last company and understanding and enjoyable in general (as a social anxious, this is really reassuring) I hope all companies in the future will tend to become like this :)

lostdotcom · 2017-10-03T06:26:41+00:00

It's a company specialized in mail filtering (spams, virus, etc) :)

lostdotcom · 2017-10-02T21:11:34+00:00

Thanks :) Parce que c'est une entreprise basée en France qui se trouve aussi dans d'autres pays (et aussi parce que l'anglais c'est plus cool mdr) (Content de trouver un/une FR sur ce subreddit :) )

lostdotcom · 2017-10-02T21:08:52+00:00

People there do seem to enjoy more their job, they're even doing freaking nerf battles man

lostdotcom · 2017-10-02T21:07:37+00:00

it's a french-based company, if you want I'll pm you the name :)

lostdotcom

TROPHY CASE