Certifications

Once you wanna go beyond IT support jobs, having a certification might help you. They help you pass the HR filter. Your certifications can be keywords on a resume that'll get you a call back for an interview. You should not lie about having one because it can be verified. You need to make sure you pick the right one, by researching.

Here's an interactive certification roadmap made by Paul Jerimy, it's divided by field (horizontally) and level (vertically). You can see the name and price by hovering over it. If you click on it, it takes you to the page of the certification on the organization's official website.

You can plan out your cybersecurity career with this interactive map on CyberSeek from entry-level, mid-level, to advanced-level. When you click on the job title, you get the salary, skills needed, certifications needed, job openings, and the other job titles associated... Or you can look at the jobs you can apply to by certification.

Factors to take into consideration:

• cost. In certain cases, the employer can pay for it, this is likely for intermediate to advanced certifications. If you're paying for it, make sure that you can afford it and add the cost of a retake in your budget (if it's not included in your package) in case you fail the first time. Also include the cost of other platforms used for training.

• has to be related to your field and relevant to the job you want. Do your research, look for relevant job offers, and look at what certs are in demand in the job market. Also, look at profiles on LinkedIn to see what certs the people with that job have.

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• your needs and what you wanna achieve. Are you satisfied with only learning theory, or do you want a more practical certification?

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• time. You need to look at your schedule, your time management skills, and the duration of the access you have to the learning platform of the organization. Some exams last more than a day, and you might have to take days off to pass them and complete reports. You can also schedule them during the weekend. Schedule it at least 2-3 weeks in advance otherwise, you might not be able to pass it on the specific date and time you want.

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• reviews. You can look at other people's experiences with the organization, training, passing the exam, and how it helped them get a job. You can find reviews in forums (ex. Reddit), on social media (ex. X), on YouTube, on blogs, or you can directly ask people in cybersecurity-related Discord servers there is usually a job channel.

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• preparation and basics. See if other people had to learn about other topics in advance, and look at the resources they used. If they did, learn about it if it's foreign to you. It will save you time and money.

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• difficulty. This goes with the basics and prep. You need to be realistic. If you're new to cybersecurity and you have not studied the basics, do not aim for an advanced certification. It would be a waste of money and time. Sure, certifications are not easy to get in the first place, it takes hard work, but you should have the basics. Otherwise, you'll go back and forth between learning the basics and the cert course.