For Recent Grads, Cybersecurity Offers Lots of Career Opportunities
June 13, 2022 – Published on Dice
Over the past month, thousands of college and university students throughout the U.S. have graduated with their degrees and are now entering one of the most dynamic job markets ever seen, with record low unemployment and companies and organizations eager to hire for any number of open positions. In addition to other skills, these potential employers are all hungry for cybersecurity experts.
While nearly all private sector firms are looking for skilled workers, cybersecurity remains one area within the tech sector that consistently offers thousands of job openings, ranging from entry-level employment opportunities to high-ranking executive positions.
The Biden administration, which has made cybersecurity one of its top initiatives following a series of ransomware attacks and other threats to the nation’s critical infrastructure over the last three years, estimates that there are around 600,0000 open cybersecurity positions throughout the U.S. This includes jobs in the private sector and open positions at the local, state and federal government level.
While hiring in cybersecurity is wide open, Kevin Woods, the director of the recently launched GuidePoint Security University (part of GuidePoint Security), noted that recent graduates who participated in specialized internships or undertook training focused on cybersecurity during college have an advantage. There are also other options for graduates, especially for those who might consider government work as their first career stop.
“Remember that cybersecurity companies don’t just hire in the summer after college graduation; they hire all year round. Other options are to look into government work, which always has a need for new security analysts, or to consider shift work, as many security operations centers are run 24/7 and it’s difficult to fill all three shifts,” Woods told Dice.
Another consideration for those looking for cybersecurity work is the ability to show a baseline level of understanding of cybersecurity and general computing topics, Woods added: “For example, what are the security implications of DNS? Why do we use encryption? How does SQL injection happen? I’d recommend staying up-to-date on current cyber topics and events and [for graduates] to continue to read and learn about emerging threat groups or newly identified vulnerabilities.”
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