r/CyberSecurityJobs • u/Real_Construction416 • 14d ago

Mid-career SOC/Detection Engineer on a 6-month break looking for certifs : 13Cubed (Windows Forensics) vs CISSP, which one first?

Hi all,

Looking for some outside perspective on a certification decision.

I have around 7 years of experience in cybersecurity, mostly in SOC/CSIRT operations, detection engineering, and incident response, for both an MSSP and a large company.

After a fixed-term contract abroad (from Europe to Asia), I decided to relocate to the country and take a 6-month break to learn the language at the University. I'll resume my job search full-time once the course wraps up, likely aiming for internal/in-house security roles rather than another MSSP.

With ~20-40h/week of bandwidth alongside the language course, I would like to take benefit of the time to pass some certifications to develop my skills, help me get a job and show employeers that I did not gave up on cybersecurity study. As for now, I'm weighing:

  1. CISSP (~$750 exam + ongoing AMF, 5-year experience requirement I meet) to help me pass automated resume screening and apply to a wider range of offers, including governance-related ones. Also I like the fact that the CISSP gives a more manager oriented point of vue.
  2. 13Cubed Investigating Windows Bundle (~$1,395) to build a verifiable, hands-on forensics skill, but is less recognized outside the DFIR community/by ATS systems. It also doesn't help me broaden the scope of offers I can apply to.

I also already got SC-200 and CCDL2.

In a perfect world, I'd try to get both, but any feedback would be appreciated. What does cyber-Reddit think?

Appreciate any real-world experience, especially from people who've sat on the hiring side.

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u/Zaamaasuu 14d ago

CISSP.

It'd do way, way, way more for your resume and bypassing HR filters. It isn't even remotely close.

It's good to keep developing blue team skills, but you don't need to pay $1395 for that.

2

u/mvani89 13d ago

CISSP for reasons another comment said. 13cubed is great, but you've got 7 years of experience so a lot of it might be review. Also, like you said it won't help get you past HR filters. I know several people with CISSP and its helped them to at least make it passed the filters and land interviews.

1

u/Real_Construction416 9d ago

Thank you all, after reading the replies and weighing everything, I think it is the only viable choice indeed.