Abstract – Everyone asks, Where do I begin?
No matter what stage of your career journey you are in, from entry level, to trying to grow or changing to a completely different discipline - or unexpectedly let go, you can start with imagining exactly where you want to be, and work yourself back from there - ie
Reverse Engineer it.

I’ll provide a frame work for reverse engineering your career search journey with a step by step guide.

The information age arms us with tons of data. Start by searching for the job title you’d like to have. Finding that opportunity is like reverse engineering any other solution. Who else holds that title; where do they work; what did their growth path look like; do you know them or any of their connections; where are they spending their time?

You can apply to that company – but then you reach out or find a mutual connection to do an intro. Its that simple. You just hacked the search! Now what? Lets dive in.

Details:
First, I am certain that the number of available positions available is grossly over stated, and I will explain why. This is important to address as people on the lookout for jobs will see those numbers and feel very defeated when not hearing back.

Reports from CyberSeek and ISC2 say between 480k and 570k cyber jobs are unfilled, but a large number of qualified candidates are still unable to find suitable positions due to skills mismatch or unreasonable expectations from hiring organizations.

We can do a quick live exercise and I’ll prove to you that for every 20 jobs you see, its likely one job posted by 20 different companies, especially in Fed contracting – which affects a ton of us here in DMV.

All that to encourage you and alleviate any feelings of failure you might be experiencing. Jump onto linked in or do a simple Xray search from any browser and you can see who holds the title/s you are targeting for yourself.

If you want to be a solution architect, who else has that title and where do they work? If you look at their profiles, you can see the path they took to get there and explore a similar path. Maybe they started on a helpdesk (like me) and then did NOC monitoring then incident response then pen testing. It’s a natural progression.

There are no gates actually being kept to keep you out of your desired industries and roles – and you can switch into something entirely different at any time. Everyone started somewhere. Pick a few people, now look at their companies.

Not just what the companies say about themselves (compare reliability of dating profiles) – are there news releases? What have they done lately? Are they growing? Winning work? Have they won any awards? Do you see them participating in things you are about? Can you really see yourself belonging there? Now we look at their job openings.

If the description list things not reflected in your resume or that you think you lack, address it, with the recruiter and interviewer. For every description not written well, there’s a resume equally not depicting the actual abilities of the candidate. There is a big difference between what you have not done and what you will not do. Speak to this before assumptions are made.

Don’t forget you may very well have gained the experience they’re looking for while volunteering, such as managing resources; vendors; schedules; supplies and so on.

Every time I speak at a con I ask the audience to look around the room and realize that a) no matter how antisocial you think you are, you’re networking now and b) everyone around you is your valued connection!

A recent study by ClearedJobs.net reported that 53% of the cleared professionals talent pool find their jobs through networking! Where do you want to be next? Who else is already there? How did they get there?

Recap: 1. Don’t be discouraged by inflated job market picture 2. Figure out what you want to do and who else is doing it – and how they got there? 3. Research the companies where they work and address mismatches in descriptions Take that first step.

Your network is all around you right now. Leave this session empowered with the tools and confidence to pursue your dream job—no gatekeeping involved!