How I Helped A Retired 60-Year-Old Maths Teacher Get Into Cybersecurity
His story should inspire anyone who feels getting into Cybersecurity is difficult.
“Hi Taimur ! Can you help me ? I am a retired Maths teacher and am really interested in Cybersecurity. I want to start a career in it”
Let me tell you a story about a guy I know .. Let’s call him Tom
Tom is a happily retired Maths teacher in the U.S. .. all his children have graduated, leaving him and his wife enjoying the retired life
BUT .. Tom is one of those guys who doesn’t know how to sit still and always wants to be working
He read about all the recent data breaches that got him interested in cybersecurity.
I am not sure how he found me, but he knew that I offered Cybersecurity Career Coaching, which is how I got the above message.
To say I was impressed would be an understatement!
I was blown away by Tom’s energy and enthusiasm to get into Cybersecurity
Unfortunately he was not getting any responses from employers even when telling them it was not about the money
Most were not willing to give him a chance due to his age and the biases they subconsciously held
This is how I helped Tom out
Step 1 — Finding His Niche
The first mistake Tom was making was applying to every job under the sun
His point was that one of those people would be willing to take a chance on him
He had taken a few cybersecurity courses, but his profile was still very generic when it came to his skills
We narrowed down and discussed what career or job interested him the MOST in Cybersecurity
It turns out he was fascinated by Incident Response / Forensics (must be that Maths background !) .. and becoming a Level 1 SOC Analyst was where he wanted to start
This gave us a clear goal and roadmap
Tip 1 : ALWAYS avoid the shiny path syndrome i.e. applying to whatever cybersecurity path you think will pay the most or seems the most popular. Find out what appeals to you the most after doing research and then pursue the skills necessary for that path.
Step 2 — Created An Upskilling Program
The next step was helping him upskill in Cybersecurity FAST
I am not a fan of going away for 12 months to learn Cybersecurity
Get the basics right and try to get your foot into the door
You can make mistakes and learn on the job as you go along
I used the same steps to get him up and running that I have outlined in the article below
STEP 3 — Getting Inventive with Experience
The hard part was getting experience in incident response and forensics.
Companies typically are not willing to take a chance on hiring consultants or people who do not have that cold, hard experience.
This is where Tom and I brainstormed ways to get him incident response experience
Freelancing Websites like Fiverr and Upwork proved to be invaluable at this stage.
Why wait for corporate customers to give you a chance when you can reach out to people yourself?
We looked at what sorts of problems people were facing where they needed someone to do basic levels of incident response and investigations.
We saw a MASSIVE amount of people worried about their Facebook / Instagram profiles being hacked + people in Tom’s age group worried that their computers had been compromised.
Tom started reaching out to these people on Facebook and Upwork and volunteered to help them in return for testimonials.
After helping a few people recover their profiles and clean workstations of that pesky malware, more than a few were willing to write shiny testimonials for him on his LinkedIn profile.
He even contacted a few small business owners to do a free security review of their websites.
You will be surprised by how many people in your network are more than happy to help when you want testimonials for your skills!
Tip 2 : Do not get demotivated when your lack of experience stops you from getting into cybersecurity. Find other ways and leverage your network. There are always other ways of getting people to vouch for your experience !
I am happy to inform you that Tom is now employed in a contract position as an L1 SOC for a medium-sized Tech company. The pay is just okay, but he could not be happier, given that he is doing what he loves !
I hope his story motivates you if you are feeling behind in Cybersecurity and not getting that job you feel you deserve !