 Hey everyone Holy cow. Thanks for coming to hang out with myself and Kathleen Kathleen Smith. I am super duper excited to have you joining me again How've you been? It's been a little bit. What's been going on? What are you been up to? Oh? gosh, so We've done a lot since the last time we talked. I think that We've done a few more virtual conferences. We're doing another one coming up on Saturday Hello to everyone at B-Sides Orlando for putting together just a great conference. We'll be running the career Village for B-Sides Orlando Also, just really gearing up for Veterans Day, which is next week, you know John. Thank you for your service it's It's interesting how we Spend a lot of time Focusing on veterans around you know Veterans Day, but we don't focus on them the rest of the year So I'm excited that we're building content for the next few months that will cover veterans and their transition from cybersecurity and military to cybersecurity and commercial and Really just enjoying the fall. I had a wickedly wonderful Halloween Really got the community together in our neighborhood and had 150 kids get to enjoy a little normalcy by trick or treating at safe distances with masks and Bag treats so then been involved in the community as I always am excellent. Well, that sounds great I'm excited for us to kind of chat and have another conversation because the last talk that we did was all about Hey, our cybersecurity jobs the interview process reviews more and more of that great stuff And this is this is what it is. Is this a round two of that you're feeling? Well, what we really talked about last time was some of the surveys that we have been doing as far as how important community involvement and community volunteering was and for cybersecurity career development you had Chatted a few months ago with my dear friend Christine Winchester. Hi, Christine And you guys did this great survey where you had over 450 people respond like what were their big questions? about job search and everyone had a lot of questions we sort of brought that back and put it down into four key categories because I Hate to tell you have most of us have questions, but their questions that people have had about their careers for Several years. It's also questions that people have had for several decades So I thought we would just sort of go back and focus on that and focus on some of those questions And I know we have one of my team members Ashley in the chat so she can answer any career questions as well, so I Think one of the the first things that I wanted to kick things off with is Really be passionate about this career that you want to have in security Be it cybersecurity be it cloud security information security I feel so badly when I talk to people and I Ask them why they're getting involved in this community and they say because it's a hot topic Rather than having a passion about solving problems or you know, sort of tackling really difficult situations, so Yes, we can talk about what experience you need what Certifications, how do you go about finding a job? But really please this has to be something that you want to be passionate about because any employer That you want to really work with the first thing they're going to want to know is are you passionate about this? Are you going to take the initiative? Are you really going to want to get to the bottom of? The problem and if you can't show that kind of initiative and passion You're not really going to stand out from all the other people who have gotten a cybersecurity degree or or have You know a variety of different certifications because Bottom line the number one question people ask is are you really passionate about this? And is this something you really want to do or are you just doing this because it's the new hot job? Definitely and I and then you know from there it's Understand what you want to do in the community. I had some really painful conversations with people who said I just want to get into cybersecurity and They were standing next to someone who's been in cybersecurity and one of the founders of tenable network security And they asked, you know, well, what what about security? Do you want? Oh, I just want to get into cybersecurity And she kept asking you know, what do you want to do? Oh, I just want to get my degree and I want to do it. That's like and we were both, you know Cringing, you know, do you want to be a pen tester? Do you want to be an ethical hacker? Do you want to go into crypto or forensics? Are you interested in the retail, you know, point of service? Complexes, you know, what is it that what problem do you want to solve? Is it health care? I mean obviously we have some big health care issues going on especially with Riac happening this past week And we have so many hospitals being inflicted with ransomware. So what is the problem that you want to solve? What is something that gets you up in the morning and then we can get into, you know What certifications and how to get into it, but please there are so many other things you can do in the world Please don't, you know, get into this just because it's the hot topic. I mean John, how did you get involved? It's funny. I was gonna mention that It It's it's so spot-on and so right kind of what you were saying that you you have to just have a passion for it and Do it because it's fun and because it's something that you love and something you're interested in And then if you when you get into that Sure, you've established this baseline you've established this foundation And I saw a note in the chat here It says I don't know how long only being passionate is gonna work for getting us a job And it's like, you know what? You're right. There's there's a there's some value in that statement That is just the bottom layer, but right you want to make that something that you Are passionate about and you're willing to get up in the morning and you kind of just want to play and explore After that, like you said, okay, let's find the problem that we want to solve whether or not that's maybe on the defensive side of the house That's on the offensive side of the house when we were seeing that FBI and DHS the whole warning, but the the healthcare side of the house and the Where do we kind of fit in that? Where do we want to be in that? How can we fix that sort of thing? Those are great questions to kind of drive you And and those are questions that you need to be asking all the time. I mean none of us Deciding kindergarten or in graduate school or college that they they want to get into one career I mean when you when you talk to people who are happy in their career and successful They've they've taken many different paths and yes I hear you when you say, you know passion can only take you so far But you have to be constantly be checking in I mean, are you passionate about the people that you work with? Are you do you like the projects? I mean a lot of people They really love pen testing, but they don't like the company that they're working for their dirt They don't like the management style, you know, you have to remember that those questions are questions You have to ask yourself rather than blaming the company or your manager or something that you're not happy and your job This is something I run into a lot with people will send me a request and say find me a job And I'd be like well one. I'm not a headhunter and not a staffing firm I'm a job board and two You are the only one that's can truly find you the job that you should take versus, you know Relying on someone to say here fit into this square hole and and do your job I think the other thing is and what we touched on last time was community involvement and community involvement is important for two reasons One networking no matter what industry you're in no matter if you're in the military out of the military Networking is always going to be your number one way of finding a job Not only finding a job, but finding people who can do referrals for you people who you can do Information interviews with you have to constantly be expanding your network not having the same 10 people But then also getting the experience, you know, whatever survey you look at it's going to say experience certification education those are your trifecta, but Foremost is always going to be what kind of experience and what we touched on last time is your experience setting up a knock for a conference or Any of the competitions being sure that you're keeping, you know notes on what kind of CTFs You're part of and constantly challenging yourself and being part of those CTFs But always taking those notes that what is the CTF is it wireless as an ethical? What what is the parameter? What are your constraints? What is the timeline? What are the team members that you're part of and being sure you're keeping Sort of a notes or a journal of that because then you're able to share In any of your interviews or any of the hiring managers you talked to that Yeah, I might not have experience in the knock, but I actually did set one up for this conference of 2000 people and these are the things that I learned So being involved in the community is a really great way to get experience, but also to be building your network I see some questions being popped up. What do we got John? Well, there's a lot Some are specific to a certification that some are asking. Hey, what about OSCP? What exactly is the premise of the forensic side of cybersecurity? How do I best explore all the different job types to figure out really that answer as to what area of Cybersecurity I want to get into. What would you there's there's so many should I keep rolling them off? so One really great resource that gets overlooked all the time is cyberspeak.org Which has a really great flow chart. I think Ashley is gonna pop that into the chat It's really great sort of flow chart that sort of explains your career paths as you go through the Different thoughts. Do you want to be offensive defensive? Do you want to do pen pen testing? What do you want to do so cyberspeak.org does a really great job of giving sort of a baseline As far as the certifications are concerned and certifications are expensive, you know, there's there's no doubt about it They're very expensive so Really, I would say try the certified ethical hacker and or the security plus first Just because you know, if you're going to get involved in this and you want to get a certification But you don't have the several thousand dollars to do it at least get some of the basic level Certifications to see if you know that will really test you do you not only test you as far as your skills And your knowledge, but is this something you really want to do? I mean I went in and got my nonprofit degree and then got my postgraduate degree in it But having that rigor of going through and taking exams and studying and And having to put the nose to the grindstone really sort of said, yeah, this is I need to get these skills to do those things I want to do well Get some of the baseline Certifications available so that you can say, okay, do I really want to do this or not do this? and then it's following either cyberspeak or the nice workforce plan n i c e nice Being able to follow that to sort of say what is the career path my challenge with Some of the government resources that have been put together is even though they've had commercial input I don't really see a one-for-one comparison between what they've put together To what you see happening across the board commercially There are a lot of companies that do follow those career paths, but it is a good starting point for a lot of people I see some folks are switching up the certification Conversation to the degree and formal education Conversation if I'm a department defense professional for over 10 years, but I don't have a cyber security degree But I have oscp. Am I still an attractive candidate or do I need this education? Do I need the degree? So what's interesting in the dod environment is having a bachelor's degree of any sort of Topic is important. So, you know, be sure you get your degree while you're in, you know, the military Having a cyber security degree, not necessarily having the experience which being part of the dod You will have had that experience and having the certification of oscp. You will have gotten the experience If there is something more particular that you're interested in doing like policy regulation Going more in-depth into health care those would be the things that I would think you would want to get the degree in because Once after you've had that experience and you have that basic line Education they're going to want to look for a little bit more fine-tuning in that information I'm fascinated in the last 18 months. There's been a lot of discussion within employers and educational institutions about people having liberal arts degrees And combining that with their cyber security experience really looking at The diversity of thought in the different ways of looking at problems and people are Employers are really now Exploring and adopting having people with business degrees liberal arts degrees More importantly music because music and computer programming seem to be very similar in the way the mind works so There's some really great. There's someone on twitter info sex sherpa and she got her library degree library degree And she has actually had a phenomenal career in security Pentesting and now just having that mindset of how do you catalog? How do you set up indexing systems? That is really you know parlayed into her security career So back to the original question. Do I necessarily have to have a cyber security degree? I would think your experience is going to be a more important your certification And then if there is something that you want to specialize in then get that specialization But yeah, I it's it's fascinating. I've never seen an industry that is so overloaded With the various different certifications. We're seeing a rise in A lot of the aws certifications and also the cloud certifications Again, what do you want to do? Don't chase the certification until you know what you want to do What else have we got popping up there John? Oh boy Can I get into these job roles while I'm still in school? Is a master's degree useful whatsoever? What about computer science? How does that kind of parallel to cyber security? Are any of those feeling like someone you could take a stab at? What was the first one again before The first one was how can I get into these job roles while still being in school? So Again experience. So if you're at school, there's internships. I actually had a friend who Got laid off and she just did a lot of internships at her school as far as cyber security is concerned There are a lot of internships that are available. So you can do those While you're in school also going back to an initial thought as far as Working for various different conferences like the conference is happening this weekend on Saturday Besides Orlando, you know, we have three 400 people who are working on that and they're getting work experience And they're working alongside other executives. They just know them by their handle They don't know that they're you know, the head of security for marriott or something like that There's a lot of people in our industry who Sort of on the weekends and after business hours just put on their handle and take off their title So you never know who you're working alongside with and you can get really good experience there What was the next question? Sorry, my concussion is is kicking in. Oh, no problem I'm seeing our zoom yell at me that hey our meeting will potentially end in 10 minutes So are you cool with just kind of bouncing back in once we get close to that mark? All right, I'm sorry No worries There was something about the master's degree. Yeah Is a master's degree useful in the cyber security field? So I it did a Study and what's interesting is in the united states. We're not seeing As much of an request for master's degree unless you're going into a major academic role Not even in some of the major executive roles However, when you compare jobs in the united states versus europe and the middle east There's more requirements in europe and in middle east for master's and phds in cyber security So it it really depends on which locale you're in It was fascinating to me to see that in the middle east primarily israel and Sorry line drawing blank Um They wanted phd and also at least six to eight years experience doing ctf So competitions are also really very important when you're applying for jobs in the middle east and in europe What else do we have? I just wanted to sneak in and nugget because I always uh, I always swear by capture the flag and of I guess somehow grew A relative community surrounding that um I I always tell people hey go play capture the flag go help Go help host and organize a capture the flag event Um, I have a little rag tag team of hackers or a little tribe where we've been trying to do a little like ctf For hire thing and we've shopped it around to different events. Uh, I remember we were doing I think besides boston the last time You and I had talked. Um, and we're planning and also doing something This month november 13th again for for veterans veterans and cyber security Um, it will be a closed event, but you can register. I think through hacker one and uh, it will be hopefully a lot of fun We've got I think 35 or 40 challenges built out for that. I'm really excited for it, but Driving to the point Play capture the flag help create things for capture the flag I think that is an incredible way to get really hands on and and really on the keyboard doing the good stuff So yeah, there are a lot of recruiters who are now very well versed in which capture the flags are very important And which ones are now don't panic and think that you need to get the black badge or that you need to win The competition It's not the winning that gets you the job It's the fact that you showed up But it's also, you know, you could win but the next day not be able to explain to anyone what you did So please whatever you do write down What were the parameters? What were the constraints? What were the challenges? Who did you have to work with? What did you learn? What did you fail? You know one it's something that you can share in any kind of work experience when someone says, you know When did you learn something the most and you can say in a competition versus, you know when you were Doing something at work and the network went down Um But then it's also a really great way to see are you having a consistent challenge? Or is there a consistent problem that you're not able overcome? And maybe that's an area to do more studying or Or something so I think that's just absolutely fascinating in our community that we have these opportunities To do the competition to be able to say hey This is some place that I can challenge myself This is someplace that I can get work experience and not worry about failing It's a good game. It's a fun thing to play And just so I everyone knows there are policy CTFs as well. So don't just think it's technical The Atlantic council does Cyber 912 they do one in sydney they do one in london. They do one here in washington dc Think it's once a quarter and it's really about cyber policy and you're looking at a challenge and you're looking at it from A business policy standpoint International policy standpoint what recommendations would you make to a government agency? What recommendations would you make to a cto and actually you are presenting to actual Government officials and cto's they really are giving you that real world experience So if cyber policy is an area you're interested in Definitely look at any of those competitions My one caveat with that is that a lot of people just go into cyber policy without having any practical experience And it's just sort of my personal opinion if you're going to make a policy You might want to make sure that it can work on a technical Same point first. So at least having some rudimentary experience with You know some of the cts is something I would recommend doing but that's just me Let me scroll through Some of these questions here Some specific oswe some are the offensive security certifications An associate of applied science. Is that useful? So applied science. Yes in in specific areas We have so many energy labs That are crucial to the national grid here in the united states So applied science would definitely be something critical to that. That's one area that I see A growing field a combination between physical science Excuse me physical security and information security or cyber security So being able to apply the applied science to that would be definitely a way to go again Going back to the first thing even though I know I have my detractor out there that Passion won't take you everywhere If if it's not something that you want to do all the time Find something that you want to do all the time I'm looking through some of our The the survey questions that you had kind of collected I'm also trying to be cognizant of the clock here since zoom might boot us in three minutes It's funny. I have a little remaining meeting time to be 303 minutes, but I'm not Certain if that's really 303 or just three Um, well, I'm just going to touch into something really quickly one thing that we see a lot You know, I do resume review on discord all the time Please remember your resumes make them as simple as possible The one thing that I have seen growing more and more in the community is people making their resumes look pretty Please don't make them look pretty. You don't know what the UI is on the other side that the recruiter is using and all of your grids and Italics and such are just going to get scraped by the applicant tracking system or the ATS So be very clear and very simple also A lot of people have been putting in sort of their skills and they combine their technical skills with their business skills So really just keep your, you know, technical skills there. What are your programming languages? What are the certifications that you have? Too many times I'll see skills and people will put in their languages their certifications And then they'll put in that they're a concise writer or that they're a clear thinker or something like that Those those are subjective. Please don't put that in there A lot of people put in an opening paragraph Realize a recruiter is not going to read a paragraph You're going to want to have three to five bullet points at the top Your three bullet points your first three bullet points are really going to be What are the three strongest skills that you have that you have experience with And then your next two bullet points are going to be whatever you're customizing that resume to that job So if you're really strong pentester and you could talk about You know what you've accomplished with that and the teams that you led But someone is also looking for someone who has customer service experience as far as Relaying to internal customers then that's what I would put as the bottom two bullet points How about let's see what are some of the other questions That came up here Someone did ask about you know, what sort of at-home experience and believe me having a home lab Is very important being able to show That you've built a home lab that you're curious all the time and that you're willing to put things together and Break them apart and put them together talking being able to talk about your home lab from two or three different points of view Is always going to be important when you're in a technical interview But also when you're in some of the final panel interviews I see we have less than one minute. I'm trying to figure out Is it saying one minute on your side because I still see like 300 online It says less than one minute on my side. Alrighty. Uh, well, let's do a quick flop and just bounce out and we can rejoin. Does that work? No problem. Take care. Take care Thanks zoom Welcome everybody. You just got me here apparently All right, we'll uh bump back in in just a moment. I will fire this up on a separate monitor So hopefully none of you can see all that noise, but I'm grateful for all of you hanging out And we'll get back to our good meeting Fun part of zoom, right? Anyone else have zoom fatigue? The remote life This is me awkwardly trying to fill the dead air as I click around Join zoom meeting It's just me Cool, we'll see if we can get Kathleen in here once again That's the fun part of keeping it real, right? That's the fun part of Doing it live Do I have a joke to share? Welcome back Kathleen. Thanks. Thanks for doing the dance with me No problem Some folks that are are cheese and hey, we got to get Cisco Webex. So we got to do a go to meeting, you know Google Hangouts Google Hangouts do people still do that? I know you're on discord, right? We we should do a little discord Oh, please not today Not today Some folks had asked what do I put on a resume if I'm literally a beginner if I don't have a whole lot of job experience And I it sounds like that's again kind of get to our networking and your personal endeavors Is that right or are there any other kind of nuggets for that? That's that's it. Um, you know, it's always the hard You know chicken and the egg, you know, you want the experience but you need the job to get the experience But to get the job you have to have the experience Um, there's always going to be projects that you worked on in school So, uh, it's also going to be, you know, how did you did you start up? The the cyber security club at your school. Did you start some other kind of program because one of the things I was going to touch on is more and more businesses are looking at technical talent that also has business skills So you should be also developing those other Customer service facing roles those marketing Experiences the business experience. What are the other things that you are doing? It's going back to extracurricular activities I mean, if you can't get the additional Technical internship, did you gain some business experience? Did you gain your presentation skills? More and more Companies are looking for people to make sure that they know how to write well and they know how to present well because if you're going to gain That the technical experience At some point you're going to be asked To stand in front of an internal team or an external group of customers And explain what the technical situation is and explain what the risk is And if you're not a proficient speaker or a really good writer that is going to hold you back in your career I saw one question that I think might be interesting because we could also take the internship side of it And I don't know if you want to dive into this or not But as a hey, let's give it a try What what is a reasonable salary or and the different tiers of the different ranges? Hey, I I saw your I saw the deer in the headlights. Look should we not touch that one? So since I work in the dod world primarily though, that's where I'm going to know those sort of experiences But there's there's so many resources that are out there Whatever you do don't take your buddy's information that he says yes I'm making 125 and then go back to a hiring manager and say I need to get 125. Yeah. No, sorry That's that's not it Go to salary comm go to indeed comm go to glass door go to any of the resources and be sure that you're cross-referencing The levels of experience what kind of certifications what kind of degree and the locale that you're in I mean, obviously Salaries that are coming from the washington dc area or the silvicon valley are going to be higher than they are going to be somewhere in the midwest It's interesting with the pandemic. We're we're going to start seeing a leveling out Salaries just because people are no longer having to live in those high cost of living areas So what you're what you're getting now might be going down later. So we'll see that's a really interesting thought I guess I hadn't even thought of that. Honestly Well, we're going to have this shoulder period where There's a lot of people who were getting the salaries for Silicon Valley or getting for some of the high areas and then they all of a sudden moved to You know, Kansas or colorettin on the colorado is high cost of living but Iowa or something like that because it's a low cost of living But what's interesting is that opm already has those labor categories and those salaries In a lot of the major employers are starting to look at that. What is a help desk, you know To salary in san francisco versus what it is in st. Louis, Missouri And there is already labor categories for that by opm, but we don't know when The major companies are going to start adopting that or not But we do know, you know that several employers are no longer re-upping their leases in washington dc and san francisco and seattle So we're we're going to be seeing a leveling out. It's going to be interesting over the next two or three years Hmm I guess I would I would put a note in that one because uh We talked about two years Even just this point because we talked about networking earlier and how important that is When I had kind of gotten my first job I was on the phone with So that was a teaching job. That was an instructor with with the with the training academy Um, I had squeezed my foot in the door because an instructor had a student That knew me and that student knew that the instructor in the academy was hiring And they referred me Through the student, uh, so I was having conversations with that Individual teacher, but not hr, but not with the back And That was casual and that was friendly and that was candid. So when I would ask him like, hey, what is a Reasonable or normal salary for this kind of position and he'd give me the number. Okay x through y um, and then when And I guess that gives me a little bit of anklings and like, hey, are you comfortable with you telling me what you make So when I can go to that interview Before for that job, I can actually say, hey, here's my range because I know this is what you already pay The people that are doing the same thing and I'm not I'm not low balling myself. I'm not throwing a number that's insane Networking getting to know people Well, it's networking and doing your research and being reasonable Um, you know, a lot of people don't do an apples to apples comparison. They'll say that somebody Who has 10 years experience has a master's degree has several certifications They get one salary and someone will say, well, I I sort of do the same thing and they try to compare that Really be honest with yourself that when you're trying to compare a job that has a master's requirement several certifications 10 to 15 years of experience and certain You know specialties, you know, do you know specific security regulations, you know gaming industry regulations? I mean, do you have that expertise because we're Too many times we throw these numbers around saying, well, I should make this without even looking at the back story Of what was the experience of the person that had that kind of job? I remember one of my first mentoring sessions Eight years ago at Las Vegas and someone had swore to me that they were getting blackballed in the industry and I said, you know, I I don't know I don't know this industry very well, but I'm more than happy to You know go and talk to a few recruiters and find out exactly what the story is and they're like, oh, they'll never tell you I went and asked them and without a doubt all of them said, you know, he was asking for 45,000 more than he was worth And you know, I finally had to go and tell the person. Sorry. It's it's not that you're getting blackballed You're just asking for too much money And the moment he readjusted his salary requirements. He was fine and has been very successful since then so You know really be clear as to when you're getting some numbers for a salary That you know the back story as to why that person got that money And then also realize that not it, you know Yes, there is a lot of animosity against employers saying, oh, they don't know how to hire They're trying to low ball everybody No, they're not there are going to be some really difficult employers out there. They're going to be some people who were Not going to know what the industry is paying But by and large people have budgets by and large they try to keep them within a range for the talent And if they're low falling you just say, hey, do you know that you're below the industry? They might not even know And you could just say thank you, but no, thank you. I I know that I'm worth more This is what you know, this salary is like in this industry and you might want to do some research Don't don't burn that bridge. Just try to be the consultant there and and leave the door open for them to come back to you Gotcha I I see some stuff in our chat kind of specific to On the keyboard tech training hack the box. Drag me will I be an expert by practicing some of these? I will Poke that because I don't think you will know the the answer is no You will not be an an expert master of your craft with hack the box and try hack me alone I've recently used a phrase that might not be good But I've said like if you want to learn how to exploit Off the shelf wordpress server with some vulnerable plugins Intentionally there and expose credentials like on the public facing website Those things are good try hack me might guide you through some stuff like that hack the box might showcase some things like that But that's not going to be the cool covert high flying Leet cyber ninja warrior stuff that okay Extreme senior penetration tester might might have no no I don't know. I don't know if you want to touch that one Kedling Well, I was going to ask you. What's your feeling on bug bounties? I think I and I had a conversation with a nomsack recently Ben said Aguport and I might butcher his last name forgive me Ben if you happen to see this And I had said like dude I have incredible respect for bug bounty hunters because a lot of times I feel like you're going to be looking at a real world application like real software put out by a real company And you don't know if there's a vulnerability in there With a capture the flag, you know that they're specifically designed to be a gimmick and a flaw and a bug Right, right for a bug bounty hunters. You are taking a guess and there's probably going to be some Potential legitimate security protections in place there. So When you craft an exploit right or a payload That's got to be able to bypass a lot of their Filtering mechanisms and their whitelists and their blacklist. So that's got to be a very very well crafted sort So I I think bug bounty is crazy cool I I do too. I haven't seen them pop up yet in recruitment and job search Um, but you know because I'm I'm not really quite sure how an employer is going to feel having a bug bounty, you know And again, I I don't know how they would feel most of them. I think the recruiters who handle You know this kind of community would be totally cool with what it is I'm not quite sure if they're upper management like well, wait a minute. Wait a minute. So, you know, it really depends on the maturity The security maturity of the company understanding what a bug bounty is you had a previous question. Sorry member brain networking No, I think that was really my wrapped up answer is that you you won't be an expert by the online war games alone But see again, it's you know, the online ctfc online games. It's expanding your network and expanding your experience You know Yeah, you may be just down, you know 1am on any night of the week these days now in the pandemic And playing with game, but if you solved a problem if you found A vulnerability You know keep tabs on it keep a log I think that that's the number one thing that people in the community do a disservice to themselves is that they're They're constantly tinkering and they're constantly Playing these games, but they're not keeping a diary or journal of what they're doing. I mean, I think it's it's almost like Finding the breadcrumbs if you sort of find that there is a specific vulnerability that you're really good at finding Or a specific challenge that you're really good at doing You might find it boring But you have a really great skill and you deserve to like hey, what is this? Is this part of forensics? Is this part of crypto? Should I look at this more? You know, we have so many avenues available to us in this community to find out more about ourselves And about our skill sets and where we want to go That we're overlooking those all the time. So I I feel badly for people who say that they're They're stumped in their careers and they don't know how to do the introspection of what really makes them tick Sorry It's cool because I did see one question and if we're willing to go to the philosophical somewhat meta Let's let's talk talk to the Dao of poo here I don't know if this will be something you kind of want to touch on but uh, see some people folks are saying that There's a lot. There's a lot of stuff. There's a lot of Articles news headlines their job posts and it's a little overwhelming sometimes How do you deal with? Burnout or imposter syndrome and those really just kind of stifle you Yeah, yeah, it's So imposter syndrome is really big in many communities. It's very big in our community because we worship our rock stars We worship our social media stars. We Think that they're really great. Um, I mean, I'm not even talking about all of the rock stars or the people who are really cool in You know the red channels and such, you know, just the people, you know, elissa miller and Miss bat and a few others. Sorry naming all the women. Um We are all unique. We all have value We should not be comparing ourselves Um, you know to quote something comparison is the thief of joy So understanding what you're really good at and what value you bring is What you should be focusing on not Measuring yourself up to somebody else because they've had a completely different path of challenges and opportunities than you have had So Be happy for their success Help them in their success and they will help you in your success Um, so one imposter syndrome. Everybody has it. I have it. I I get up on stage I get out and I talk to people and I just think I'm gonna follow my face and and not do well I've only done that once but I I have that fear every single time I get up on stage The other is burnout. We're trying to do too much. We're trying to Be too many things too many people um, and I think the pandemic has really exposed us all to our vulnerabilities of Wanting to be connected. We don't have control over our environment. So we try to have control over things that really don't fulfill as we try to have control over the social media the election results the Pandemic numbers we're trying to have control over anything and the only thing you can control is How much you sleep how much you eat If you do your laundry or not and it's you know a great way to get around burnout is really just go back to the basics Don't try to save the world try to make sure that you have a clean laundry every day um And then really taking time off the computer. Uh, I think I just got three messages from somebody who said You know, I had to coach them and like get off the computer. You know, you need time away and I think also when we're talking about our careers, there is so much validation that we get from Our careers there's so much validation. We get doing our jobs And the fact that we don't have that one-on-one interaction right now, especially face-to-face We're missing that validation that we normally get And so we're having a really hard time considering what our value is because we're not having external validation In face-to-face or in-person interactions, and we are not set up this way We can say in the security world that we are all about being online But we have meet-ups. We have conferences. We have times when we get together and we can Feel part of the community and and that kind of burnout is really catching up with us So yes, I I went off on the the philosophical rant a little bit there imposters the new one burnout really Really is here, but just put it in a box and and put it away Everyone has it, but we don't need to compare who has more burnout or more imposter syndrome than the other and then to do your laundry three Eat not only cheetos um And just be thankful that you're in a community that there are people you can reach out to find one or two people that you can reach out to and just don't try to reach out to 20 just reach out to two and really just Be part of those relationships. Um A lot of people talk about how many followers am I going to have how many people are in my community? I've I've got lots of followers But I can tell you there are five people that I check in with every month and that's all i'm doing because I don't have the bandwidth none of us have that bandwidth at this point Sorry, I went off on my rant No, I mean it's a good rant How many complaints have I got in the chat? You actually had a really very sweet one. They said hey, this was a really wonderful motherly care and I and I really needed that So thank you. That was that was great virtual hugs Yeah, no take care of yourself really, um I listen to meditation music Every time I get on a webinar right beforehand to center myself I do a three mile walk every morning at 5 a.m. Or 6 a.m Um, I get off the computer at 7 every night. I know heaven forbid. I'm off the computer at 7 And I stretch and meditate every night. It's the only way I've gotten through the last few months. Um, so I know there's tons of virtual meet-ups cocktail con and you know being able to play Scrabble online and that If you're in an area To get out and walk just get out and walk really just sort of ground yourself because we're we're all going to be locked down during the winter Get out as much as you can right now You brought up something that I thought was kind of interesting when you said hey, I have a An x amount of followers, but I only try and keep up with five or Maybe even less very close people that I that I really care about like at one point in my life, I had made a list of The people that I really really wanted to Keep in touch with and stay in the know with just to build and foster a great relationship And I realized this is a This is a long list And what's funny is that you don't need to go through that entire list right now It's really more about how much Time and space do you have right now to connect with people and and you can only really give quality time to four or five at a moment And those other people on the list if if I I truly believe what's meant to be is meant to be So if they're supposed to be there, you'll you'll see them I was really fortunate and I'm going to do a shout out to Laura Lawyer Liz Liz Wharton. Yes She came up to me out besides Augusta We're both from you know the washington vc area, but she was like you're somebody I want to get to know No, not everyone can do that because I usually sort of back off, but She she got my attention when she pulled out her traveling tiara And uh when you have a traveling tiara and you come up to me in a hacker conference I I understand you're definitely somebody you want to get to know I met her at um at Bryson Bort's birthday party Yeah, and that was an absolute blast. I mean obviously Bryson's in his little unicorn suit, but uh Lawyer Liz was I don't know. She was super sweet. She was a lot of fun to chat and hang out with so A lot of fantastic and incredible people in our community. So Yeah, we're we're so fortunate. I mean lawyers and doctors and retail people and engineers I mean jack daniel started as an auto mechanic Um, I mean we have people from so many different backgrounds that we can all carve our own path It's not like we need to definitely follow You know certifications and degrees and things like that. Yeah, they're nice um, but I mean jack daniel is He was an auto mechanic and somebody asked him to do a computer update He liked solving that problem and lo and behold he created his career Unfortunately. Yeah these days we do need to have A few more qualifiers to our degrees to our certifications But you know Sorry to keep saying it. What are you passionate about? What do you want to do? um There are so many The one thing that's great about our community is that we touch so many parts of everyone's life from ordering on toast to grubhub to submitting any information for our covid test to Checking in on zoom with our parents I mean, there are so many ways that people can be vulnerable and people can be protected and we can make an impact on any of that Um, and not you know other than doctors and nurses. I don't think many people can say that about their career This has been super nice. This has been a good breath of fresh air. I think It's november. It's the month of gratitude and thankfulness and and you know taking care of others so I I know the viewers probably didn't you know tune in for Mormon Mormon fuzzies, but I'm glad we got to do it Well, it's it's it's interesting because I mean we we talk a lot and we chat about Jobs and career interviews and resumes and certs and degrees But I feel like sometimes it really boils down to some good fundamentals and basics and we covered that right? And then we need to get a little bit more personal because yeah We there's stuff we could all improve on absolutely Definitely Any last questions out there? Someone want me to get back to the Oh, oh, I see Our people skills important. Uh, what did you do if you don't have any connections at all? And we see some people in chat saying linkedin and twitter and all of them So so when people skills definitely so that is something obviously that you Learn during volunteering, but you also learn during cts Because you are thrown together with other people that communicate different react differently So you learn those people skills you learn which kind of personalities really piss you off And what kind of people that you really like working with and and that is really great people skills understanding that Making sure that you can take that mindset and bring it into the workplace. What was the other one? Sorry um That was uh, what if you don't have any connections or you haven't built that network So I'm sure everyone is Maybe putting in their twitter or their linkedin. I am really surprised at how many people Are on both twitter and linkedin after being in the community for eight years Twitter and linkedin really seem to be the number one and number two way of connecting with people I never see people in disc order slack saying hey connect with me here But if you're on twitter or linkedin, I mean as we've seen the evolution of social media and people sort of move from one to the other I thought that twitter and linkedin would go away, but they haven't So, you know follow with people On twitter If there's someone who's an influencer that you would really like to connect with be respectful and ask them You know connect with john. I'm teasing. I'm teasing. Yeah, absolutely Yeah, connect with me. Um, no more marriage proposals. Please. I'm married. Thank you But definitely connect with me on linkedin connect with john Um, and from there, there's a whole bunch of people will then be your second degree connections Do you realize when you connect with someone the next question to them about is not about finding a job You know connect with someone be connected with them for a while Then if you really have something in specific that they can help you with be Respectful and then say I would really like to connect with someone so in your network because I am interested in an informational interview for a job that they have at their company Don't say Can you find me a job? No one's people want to help you But you have to give them something very tangible and attainable To be able to provide you if you just contact me and say find me a job I can't because I don't know what you're good at your skills. What kind of job you want where you live nothing But if there's someone in my network that you would like to be connected with and I know them well enough that I can Connect to you because remember I've got a lot of connections, but I may not know Really know everyone in my linkedin network Totally agree. I think I've accepted a lot of linkedin connections and I'm Just trying to spread the wealth just trying to just trying to help everyone learn and Share the knowledge. So yeah another way. I mean follow chris robert Um, you know, he gets a lot of really good conversations going on linkedin And I always try to connect with other people who comment in his uh comment in on his blog post Renee small is really great on that. Um, chloe Uh, you never pronounced her last name correctly. Can you oh mess doggy chloe mess doggy? Yes I mean, there's there's a lot of really great people who are posting on linkedin And it really thought provoking issues And if there's a good conversation going on in there like their comments and then connect with them That is primarily my connection. Um Strategy is if someone's having a really good conversation and there's other people in that conversation Those are the people I connect with Cool Well, hey, I know we are uh wrapping up towards the end of our hour here Is there any Last calls or kind of any any messages or signal stuff you want to send from Like hey clear job side or cyber sec job side or kathleen side So one I'm I'm glad I could bring a little warm and fuzzy to everyone. That's great. That that makes my day Um, yes, I have two job boards clear jobs dot net and cyber sec jobs dot com So, you know, we do have information on there on job search. So, you know, please feel free to look at the articles um Keep an eye on my twitter. It's yes, it's kathleen. I any of conferences that were involved in I will share the Uh presentation requests the volunteer requests anything like that. So those are always ways to get involved in community and Always happy to come back and chat. Thank you so much. It's always great to have you and and the breath of fresh air, right? Thank you. Thank you And thank you, ashley for being the backup. Thanks so much, ashley as well. I know you're you're listening in. Um I and the conversation and topic of jobs and careers know that my company huntress is hiring Um, so if anyone has any interest in that, uh, we are heavily heavily looking for an australian Security analyst so we can get a little bit more coverage kind of across the pond. So I will share the That's not across the pond. That's not what I I thought the pond was just over to london. It's not the pacific It's the atlantic You're probably right. You're probably right I don't know what it's called when it's across the pacific Does anyone know And yeah throw it in the chat if for whatever reason, you know Uh, but I mean that is to say we are trying to help grow an incredible team and we're we love to have some folks That are fascinated and love this sort of culture. So I will share Hey, uh, if anyone has any interest there's a general application there and it's cool security good good stuff to fight that kind of right you grant somewhere and the whole Security advisory stuff that we were getting into earlier. So I would love to uh chat with anyone about that and don't don't hesitate to uh, I don't know hit me up hit Kathleen up. Hit us up. We're we're great besides Besides mellburn is uh, very active and they've got a really big community down there cool Well, hey, I know I will let you get back to your day, but thank you. Thank you. Thank you for My pleasure. Let us hang out and chat for a little bit. So I thanks everyone for listening Thanks everyone for hanging out with us and this has been a great conversation. Thanks so much Kathleen. We'll tune out Take care. Bye. Bye. Bye all