The TRUTH about Cyber Security Salaries

you can get a really high salary working in cyber security but it's not as easy as some people make it out to be in this video I will share with you the truth about cyber security salaries years ago I was in a cyber security conference and I was part of a panel where we were answering questions about cyber security career and one individual asked me a few questions and after the panel was over he came up to me and we had a conversation about salaries so he has been working in marketing for a while and he was well compensated for his work so his salary was good it wasn't great but it was good but he wanted to work in something that he was passionate about that has better career opportunities that has higher salary ceilings but also he was sick of working in contract and temporary jobs and I think that's the nature of a lot of marketing jobs so cyber security was his career choice so he started looking for the best way to get into cyber security and he was actually studying for his Security Plus but once he started applying for jobs in cyber security he found that the salaries that were on offer were lower than his current salary in marketing and that was confusing for him because at the moment there is so much hype on cyber security and the focus is on salaries and some people seem to be under the impression that you can just walk into a six-figure salary and that simply is not true so he really needed to understand why are the cellular law if cyber security as a whole has a higher salary threshold and what he can do to actually get to those salaries so I grabbed my phone and I went to a job search website and I looked at some cyber security salaries and I filtered for higher salaries I think from memory I felt that for 200k but what we found is most of these jobs actually want you to have about 10 years of experience or they were Senior Management trolls they weren't actually technical cyber security roles his main dilemma was also that like part of the reason why he wanted to work in cyber security was to get a higher salary but he didn't really want to take a pickup to move to cyber security he wanted to move to cyber security to get a higher salary so what I did with him is I tried to focus his mindset I tried to shift his Focus from focusing on the money to focusing on the skills because what he was really focusing on is a difference of 10 and 15K well I was thinking big picture in that if he spends enough time building his skills through certifications through work experience through lab he will acquire those skills that will later on lead him to those higher paying salaries and he will eventually get paid so much more than what he was getting in marketing but he really needed to understand delayed gratification and the other hidden thing that he wasn't paying attention to is some of those jobs that pay so much money were actually contract jobs they were temporary jobs so there were six months project or a contract role with a high daily rate which is exactly what he was running away from in marketing so he only looked at the salary but he didn't really look at the detail the other thing is he was really passionate about stopping cyber attacks about being a security analyst and potentially working in cyber forensics some of these roles that he was looking at were actually managing your roles where where you need to deal with a lot of people and a lot of Dramas in fact I showed him my calendar and it was fully booked with meetings most of the work I do nowadays is not even technical which is precisely what he was running away from in marketing while he worked in marketing he was sick of dealing with customers day to day and he just wanted to put his mind and his heart into the technicalities of cyber security into the cyber attacks and how to stop them the last thing he want to do is get into management now I'm not saying you can't get high salaries working in a technical job you definitely can but you need to focus on that you cannot be distracted by the new shiny object if you see a cyber security manager role that pays a little bit more than a technical role don't be distracted because you may not be happy doing that managerial role trust me I know I've been there I've done that so with him I really had to hone in on what he really cares about He does care about the money and we will get the money but in order to get there I wanted to shift his focus into building those skills so he was interested in becoming a cyber analyst so to be a cyber analyst I showed him what certifications he need to do what training he needs to do I've talked about some of those certifications here in this video when you become a junior cyber analyst you may get paid less than your current marketing role or Finance role but five years down the line and even three down down the line once you become an expert in your field once you become good at what you do then you will get paid more and I'd like to think that he understood that lesson he understood that instead of focusing on that flashy salary that's flashy job the focus should be on gaining skills on gaining experience because the money will then follow can't just jump from a high-paying marketing job or an okay paying marketing job to a highly paid cyber security job you need to earn that you need to work your way up towards that and I find myself having a very similar conversation with the people I mentor and sometimes with my colleague who have experience in this field and I always like to ask this question I ask them do you think that you're good at what you do and if the answer is yes I always respond with the same statement I tell them if you're good at what you do now go and try to be great at what you do and this right there is what will make the most difference in your life it's one thing to be a cyber analyst to be a good cyber analyst it's another to be a great cyber analyst you know sometimes they say it takes 10 000 hours to be an expert at something I disagree with that hypothesis I think it takes 10 years to be an expert at something it takes 10 years of consistent gradual learning and getting better every day and not being distracted by the minutia not being distracted by the next shiny thing not being distracted by a job that pays 10K more or 5K more yes that might be important to you now but trust me in the long run it will mean nothing and this is the mindset of a winner this is the difference between someone who's ordinary and someone who's extraordinary while the ordinary person is constantly distracted by social media by the next flashy Thing by the next cool thing the extraordinary person is a little bit boring they just learn a little bit every day they get better every day but 10 years later that boring person becomes the expert becomes the sort after person and trust me money will follow and whether he realized it or not we all have the same Journey so yes I might be a little bit ahead of him in terms of cyber security career but my day is very similar to his day I'm still learning something every day I'm still aiming to be just a little bit better today than I was yesterday whether it is through certification or through a university course or even through networking with my colleagues or reading something online this is how we grow and this is how then we earn the big money this is how we get those ridiculous salaries whether it's 200k or 300K it will come if you want to know a little bit more about my journey and the challenges that I went through I talked about them in detail in this video I explained how I wanted to be an ethical hacker but then I understood what I really valued more than just titles and fancy salaries I'll see you then

Channel: UnixGuy | Cyber Security Career

Views: 57,837

Keywords: Cyber Secuity, Cyber, CyberSecurity, Information Security, cyber security career, interview, penetration testing, GRC, information security analyst

Id: gQuv5mzc-mA

Length: 6min 44sec (404 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 03 2023