Cybersecurity is definitely one of the higher paying technology fields, according to ziprecruiter in the united states the average cybersecurity salary is anywhere from $82,936 – $125,664 depending on which state you are in. This is around 2-2.5 times the national average and in addition to high pay cybersecurity also offers some of the most diverse ways of making money. You can make good money as a standard employee, freelancer, entrepreneur or as an investor.
The average online job posting receives about 250 resumes with only 2-3% of people that apply for a job getting a job interview. The odds are heavily stacked against you, so when you do get a job interview you want to do the best you can. From the job interview about 20% of people will get a job offer, roughly 1 in 5. While this is a much better conversion rate, it’s still a fairly low percentage chance for any individual job.
Cybersecurity bootcamps can be very useful for people that want to make a career change or don’t want to go the traditional route of college. Canada was ranked as the fourth largest innovation hub for cybersecurity in 2016 and that makes it a good place for people that want to start a cybersecurity career. If you’re someone that’s interested in doing a cybersecurity bootcamp in Toronto, here are three good bootcamps to consider.
One common question for people that are learning about cybersecurity is, “Is Cybersecurity hard?”. Some people equate cybersecurity to fields like programming, software engineering or other very technical fields that can be very intimidating for people that don’t know a lot about computers. However, this isn’t the reality, while it’s true that there are some people that make their living as top class computer hackers and that requires extreme technical knowledge. Most careers in cybersecurity don’t require you to have an extraordinary level of technical knowledge or a super high IQ. Many people that work in Cybersecurity are normal people with normal IQs.
Most people that want to get into Cybersecurity think of working for a business, while working in the private sector does offer higher wages you shouldn’t overlook working in the armed forces, especially early in your career. The military can be a good way to jumpstart your cybersecurity career, they have a huge demand for cybersecurity professionals and they have a massive budget for training and education reimbursement. Some people think of the military as an oppressive establishment, other people think its extremely honorable to serve your country in any capacity. I’m not going to get into the moral aspect here but I do believe that there are a lot of benefits to working within the military especially when you’re young (18-24).
Cybersecurity bootcamps are a relatively new concept, the idea is that you condense a huge amount of learning into a short period (4-8 weeks typically) in order to get your candidates up to speed and at a certain level of proficiency in a short amount of time. Cybersecurity bootcamps have gotten more popular as people have realized the huge demand for Cybersecurity professionals globally. However, these bootcamps can be very expensive and you don’t want to waste money on something that doesn’t put you in a good position to get into the industry.
Cybersecurity is a growing industry and many people want to find ways to invest in it. One way to invest is through individual cybersecurity stocks, however some people find individual stocks too risky and would prefer a safer way of investing their money. One way to do this is to buy ETFs. An ETF stands for exchange traded fund and it is a type of security that tracks an index of stocks rather than individual stocks.
This is a list of the best cybersecurity and information security books for a computer programmer in the 21st century. These books teach programmers how to build secure software applications, secure the software development lifecycle (SDLC) and how to create python scripts for security testing.
Cybersecurity is one of the most profitable technology fields of the 21st Century. As it continues to grow there are many people that want to get a job and start careers within the field. However, a 9-5 job isn’t everyone’s cup of tea and even for those that are working many people want to have a side hustle for a little extra money and financial security. If you’re someone that has worked in the field previously or just someone that has an interest in Cybersecurity there are ways you can make money from the field without being directly involved. To help with this I’ve put together a list of ways that you can make money from the Cybersecurity field without having a full time job.
One of the biggest benefits of being an ethical hacker is your ability to work independently. Many companies need one-time assessments done or need them on an infrequent basis like annually or semi-annually. Platforms like bugcrowd for example make it so you can sign up as an independent researcher and make money finding security bugs without any need for a job interview or even a phone call. Here I go over some of the best places to make money as a hacker outside of a regular 9-5 job.
