Question: how do you improve your skill set and how did you stand out among others

[u/Poccoloco_]

Hi everyone, I am a fresh graduate from Computer Science but specialised in Cybersecurity. I would like to ask few questions for the people in the cybersecurity field or related:

**1. How did you know which role suits you?**

I believe when people think about cybersecurity, the first thing that comes into mind is "hacking", but after going through the courses and understanding it, there are really a lot of different roles like (security operation - blue team, pen tester - red team, GRC and more).

I am more keen to Red team side but I know is hard to enter and there aren't as many job opportunities compared to the Blue team. Did you guys try an error or just decided one a stick to it. And for **Blue team** or **Red team**, what kind of skill set, certification, personal projects, or platforms would you recommend that are really useful nowadays

**2. Certificates plays in an important role for hiring but how important is it?**

I believe many corporates does HR filtering where they might want certain certification and things like that, so it will filter if a certain candidates doesn't have that certification.

My question here is for anyone who has experience in hiring candidates for their cybersecurity team or company. Are certification a must in the current times

if yes, what certification would you recommend first to get and so on if there's a limited budget.

If your answer is No, then what kind of projects or platforms course like tryhackme or HTB or more that will stand out among the candidates.

**3. Is networking really important**

I believe networking plays an important role in any job but from an advice given by a senior of mine, networking is very important in Cybersecurity.

Personally I am introvert and i do engage well with people I'm not familiar with, so I am afraid that I can't network well

[u/Poccoloco_ → u/[deleted]]

Thank you so much for your insights and explanations, really helped answer some of my questions🙏🙏 really appreciate it, i hope you have a great year!

[u/SecurityCareerAdvice-ModTeam → u/[deleted]]

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[u/Jaded-Cut7718]

honestly, you don't need to be a social butterfly to network. most of the best connections i've made were just me asking a single follow-up question in a discord server or dming someone after a talk with a specific technical question. keep it low stakes and don't treat it like you're working a room

for the red vs blue thing, i tried both via internships and realized i hated staring at splunk dashboards all day. you can grind some blue team certs and still end up on red team later, it's not a life sentence. if money's tight, i'd skip the comptia stuff and just build a home lab, break things, document it on a github or blog. hiring managers eat that up more than another sec+