Do not become a Cyber Security Certification factory
This habit will kill your Cyber Security career
I once interviewed a candidate for a junior Cybersecurity role and was confused as to why his CV was over 6 pages long
This guy barely had 4 years experience !
It become clear once I started reading his cyber security certifications section
This person had done literally EVERY cert hat had ever existed
I actually asked him why he did and his response was “I want to show how competent I am in Cyber Security”
The problem came when I started asking him real-world, scenario-based questions and he could not answer them
In fact, most of his knowledge was theoretical only
This person could have saved the time (and money) on most of his certifications and focused that on getting some hands-on experience
This brings me to today’s problem which I commonly see amongst cyber security professionals which is .. becoming a Cyber security certification factory
This means you think Career growth = Doing the next certification
Dont get me wrong.
Cyber security certifications are essential for getting your foot in the door and validating your knowledge
But how many is too many
Once you cross 5 or 6 .. does it really matter if get 5 or 6 more ?
The Cybersecurity Certification Factory Trap
Getting into this habit and just blindly doing cert after cert without expanding your practical knowledge can be a HUGE mistake
Here is why
1️⃣ Practical experience is essential while most certifications focus on the theoretical side of things. They will NOT teach you how to handle stress during incidents, how to make quick decision on the fly and how to communicate during an incident. These skills only come through cold, hard experience
2️⃣ Sacrificing Depth for Breadth. Instead of getting a deep understanding of a particular topic you get a surface level understanding of everything becoming a “master of none”. This might be good if you are a CISO but a huge problem if you are just starting out and need to prove your expertise
3️⃣ Cyber security Burn Out is real. Doing cert after cert can lead to actual burnout and fatigue. The worst part is that you will actually forget most of the stuff you crammed as you will not the opportunity to apply it practically !
So instead of going the factory route .. consider this:
🔹 Get hands-on. Instead of setting a new certification goal .. set down a goal for getting practical hands on experience with a new tool or environment. Nothing beats getting hands on a new unfamiliar environment !
🔹 Go in-depth. Choose a particular area like Cloud Security or AI risk and dive deep into it. Become the go-to guy on this topic and the person people think about whenever they encounter a problem in this domain.
🔹 Give back to the community. Instead of passively ingesting information.. give back ! Go out and speak or write or teach ! Believe me that nothing will grow you more in your career than mentoring or teaching.
I hope this was useful to you ! Good luck in your Cybersecurity journey !