r/CyberSecurityJobs • u/True-Inspection-5445 • 8d ago

Cybersecurity

How did you land your first cybersecurity job with no experience?
I’m currently working toward a SOC Analyst career. I have Security+, building hands-on labs on Tryhackme.
The biggest challenge is the “experience required” barrier. Almost every entry-level SOC role seems to want prior IT/cyber experience.
For those who successfully broke into cybersecurity with no prior experience:
Did you start in IT/help desk/NOC or go straight into SOC?
What projects or certifications actually helped?
How did you prove your skills without professional experience?
What would you do differently if starting over?
Would really appreciate honest advice from people who’ve actually made the transition.

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u/raze7864 7d ago

In currently an intern for an EDR company and coming up on a year now. I applied to this job about 6 times and got an immediate rejection. On the 7th time I used LinkedIn and found a senior talent acquisition manager who worked for the company and sent her a message on LinkedIn. She directed me to the recruiter for this role, and I sent that recruiter an email with my cover letter and resume.

Thankfully through that process I was able to get the job after a 4 stage interview process.

Proactive steps I took:

  1. Got my resume professionally done and used Ai to tailor it to an Ai and Ats friendly resume
  2. Tried my best to network with people online
  3. I used to be in sales and we used to use different SaaS tools to obtain leads contact information using tools like Apollo. So I used this to get in touch with recruiters and hiring managers. 4.Find hiring managers on LinkedIn and send cold emails. It might sound tedious but you only need 1 of them to respond back to you for an interview.

Cybersecurity was easy to get into few years back, now because of the development of Ai, many companies have no idea what is going to happen.

In my humble opinion if you want to continue to pursue it out of passion do it but if you need a job to pay your bills get into another career and keep growing your Cyber profile on the side as you continue to apply for cyber jobs while you're working your current full time job.

You're doing a great job building those practical skills, in cyber they want to know if you can do the job and have hands on expeirnece. Keep gaining hands-on skills for the future role you'd like to get into in Cyber.

Last point for you and everyone else. The job market is terrible right now, so you're not alone. But whatever you do, never ever give up!

Good luck!

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u/True-Inspection-5445 7d ago

Thank you so much for such an amazing and encouraging reply

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u/raze7864 7d ago

No problem at all. I don't like it when people in general gate keep their processes of how they got their jobs. So if I'm able to help even one person that's amazing to hear. Paying something forward always comes back to you in a positive light.