• 3 Posts
  • 259 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 5th, 2023

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  • AFallingAnvil@lemmy.cato196@lemmy.blahaj.zonePanruledemic
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    18 days ago

    No hate, that’s a fair question.

    In this specific case, it’s advice geared to what I know about the person soliciting my advice. Because I don’t know what they know, it’s a case where it’s just good to start at the ground floor. Some of my classmates were international students from India with only the slightest idea what the difference between a tower and a montior were so having this knowledge never hurts. Also at 44 there may be some stigma that they encounter if they use older terminology or don’t know the cutting edge in an interview.

    If a cert is useless to you then by all means skip it after doing a practice exam. Talking about your cert goals in an interview is a good way to bring up what you know/are learning on your own.

    Certs are there to serve you, not the other way around, so ideally study them until you land a job, then get the job to pay for them if you can.


  • It’s never too late! I started at 24, I’m 28 now. Your not much older than one of my peer-turned-dear-friends. Truth is that as long as you nail the learning the rest will just be a matter of time. It took me almost a year of job hunting to get this gig, but it’s municipal government work in a union in Canada.

    I’ll warn you however that cybersecurity isn’t entry level stuff. I’d been working as a whatever-they-want-me-to-do solo IT guy for two years for a college before I made the transition. For what it’s worth I was also customer service and you can definitely leverage that when looking at the (very crowded) entry level IT market of helpdesk roles. Helpdesk sucks, but unlike retail the suck doesn’t last forever. Do a year, study certs while you do, then get out. Never. Stop. Applying.

    I recommend looking into the compTIA certifications like A+, Networking+, and naturally Security+. Those are good fundamentals to have down, and combined with classes you shouldn’t have too hard a time.

    Hope this helps a bit.


  • AFallingAnvil@lemmy.cato196@lemmy.blahaj.zonePanruledemic
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    19 days ago

    I worked in retail too! In March of 2020, I got laid off, took a couple weeks to have my first vacation in years, then after some introspection about how id been working for a decade and was still making minimum wage I realized ten years had been worthless. It was rough but I went back to college and now have a cushy cybersecurity job in government.

    I don’t miss retail one bit. Hope you’re doing better and building an exit plan