TheGainsWizard

Oh yeah I would love something like this. Like you said I acknowledge the difficulty in producing said content but I feel it would be valued just as much by the community and even more so by the side of the house seeking professional avenues, rather than only having enthusiast/news type content. I watch a lot of LTT and TechQuickie so I can stay fresh and up-to-date about new tech and where the industry is headed but also because I myself am an enthusiast and love seeing cool or fun things. But I think there's a place for this professional content on a sister channel or on the LTT channel itself. Yeah that router situation is sketchy as fuck but I'm not surprised at all. In the military a lot of upper level officers try to get special treatment for them and their guys so I imagine it's just as bad or worse in the private corporate world. I've also heard that like you said the pay jumps between jobs is pretty great. As long as you pick good jobs and do well you tend to only go up and there's always a job for you if you're willing to move.

Just bumping this to maybe get some more readers and replies. Also, on a related note, I've always kind of wished that LTT would dive a bit into this subject as well. The whole IT field and what it takes to work in it, what it's like, challenges, requirements, lectures on principles of IT and cyber security and whatnot. I think it would be really cool and pretty interesting. But I also understand the kind of audience LTT has is probably largely not interested in that stuff. I think a sister channel that covered it would be cool though.

Oh my wife and I are gonna float for a while. Probably will settle down when we are 40. Kids at 32 (my age) is what we're planning for. Contract work in the DoD will never die. I haven't been in long but there is a *constant* demand for bodies who are *actually* qualified in the six figure range. Especially at the MAJCOM level. GS work is also viable as Stroal pointed out so I'm not worried about career prospects too much. The cert maintenance aspect is a valid point that I'm gonna have to do more research on. A lot of the maintenance can be fulfilled with a combination of duty responsibilities, online classes, and refresher courses you take online. Which are all rather easy to blow through. Or writing papers on the subject is also viable for some.

MY MAN. You're the kinda guy I was hoping to find. I was actually a bit unsure of where to go after contracting. I was planning to score big contracts for a while to get some fast cash for aggressive investment and retirement savings and basically seed money to start settling down somewhere. GS does sound appealing to settle into and that sounds like a great career you've had with good benefits. Also I am completely unsurprised at the resume writing class not being great. The Air Force isn't really known for their proficiency in selling accomplishments effectively (dem EPRs tho).

Yeah my friend warned me about that. Said it was very scenario intensive and you had to know very specific terminology very well. Said he was rather nervous taking it cause he only studied for two weeks and read half the book for it. Haha. I'm planning on taking a week for each of the 8 domains and then another 2 review weeks, then signing up for a bootcamp TDY through the Air Force. Also reading the whole book a chapter a night and watching Youtube videos about the exam.

Yeah that's my thinking exactly. Cyber security is a really tough career field to be truly great at because of the wide range of knowledge you need for it. That's the idea of getting CISSP and building upon it with those specific concentration areas. It'll basically knock all that out.

The thing I love about CISSP is that you're IAT and IAM Level III compliant. Also teaches you a lot about the RMF and accreditation process for information systems. Which is really important in the DoD. The networking, CEH, cloud computing, and virtualization are just gravy that play into the management and conceptualization functions of an ISSM very heavily as it'll give me a much broader perspective, understanding, and proficiency. I like to live by the idea that if you're going to lead talented and smart people you need to be just as or more knowledgeable than them to speak at a high level of understanding with mutual respect.

Oh I know about the experience requirement. I'm staying in for 8 years though so my associate will turn into a full certification at the 5 year mark so I'm not worried about it. My contractor buddy also said that from a job requirement and hiring standpoint the Associate is just as good as the real deal in terms of cert power. It's just indicative of a lower experience level (which is obviously a negative in and of itself). Infosec seems neat though. Been doing boot camp research for CISSP for a bit and it looks good.

Ayy boyo. Thanks for the reply. I'm familiar with the structure of the WGU programs and that the cert tests are your passing grades. I actually like that though. I've always done very well on tests and have little interest in coursework. I know they have a cyber security geared course for WGU but my philosophy and the lynch pin of my idea is that I want to be a very high level yet diversified IT professional. That's why I'm looking at a cyber security concentration with networking, virtualization, and cloud computing certs. Currently I'm an Information Systems Security Technician. Trying to be a big ISSM and move into being a large Program Manager. So having a broad overarching understanding of the entire IT field is something I feel is important.

Oh that's alright. I appreciate the time and responses regardless. I figured these forums would be more geared toward the "I have this problem with X hardware/software please help." type of topics so I'm not really surprised if this is a departure from that for a lot of people. This is basically a shot in the dark but I'm hoping with such a diverse and active tech community there's a number of professionals willing to share their perspective.

Well I've spoken with him about it at length and currently the only thing he has is a wealth of job experience (a little north of 10 years) and CISSP. He's also going to do that same WGU course. The other certifications are my idea and he's also looking for similar avenues of professional development but he's also fairly comfortable just cruising making a shitload of money. We're mutually looking into how to further our careers and have similar levels of aptitude with an experience gap. So we have in-depth discussions on how to go about doing this and what certifications would augment salary potential and job offerings the most. I'm mainly coming here to see if there's anyone who has a lot of knowledge on career progression and what the industry values most right now. I've done some online research and that's how I came up with the above outlined game plan. I just like to cover my bases and tossed this idea out to what I expect to be the best sample audience possible.

Well currently I can do the WGU thing and bag all these certs for free. The military provides tuition assistance and offers training TDYs for certification training seminars and exams that I'm trying to take advantage of to do as much as possible for free. I'm not necessarily worried about crafting the resume itself because I'm familiar with these services you mentioned that will help me throw it all together and make it sound awesome. I'm more concerned with what my concentrations should be on professionally so I can draw from very powerful experience and certifications to make it very easy to craft an incredible resume. I'll put it this way - I want to be able to walk into a job interview at a fortune 500 company with a high 6 figure salary offering, take a 30 minute shit while maintaining full eye contact on the interviewer's desk, and still be begged to work for them.

So I'm a long time viewer of LTT and TechQuickie but this is my first time on the forums and I've always heard of how helpful and thorough this legendary web forum is so I'd like to bounce some ideas off you guys and get feedback. *Background you're more than welcome to skip.* So I've been in the Air Force for 3 years as a Cyber Systems Operator (3D0X2). It's a fairly general IT career field with a wide range of applications. You tend to get thrown into technically specific shops that specialize in a handful of things, but you're basically a jack-of-all-trades IT type. Currently I find myself in a rather special position (rather secretive and diverse in responsibility) and I work with a contractor who is a friend of mine. My original plan was to go for a full 20 years and retire to get them dank ol' benefits. However, this man was in for 8 years, has CISSP, and does DoD contracting work making almost 200K (tax free) annually - at the age of 28. I am currently 25 and needless to say I am rather compelled to follow in his footsteps. I want to do just as well or better than him and be prepared to end active duty service in 5 years time, when I hit my 8 year mark. Which leads me to this question: What certs should I get for my resume so that I can walk into a job with a similar salary? I currently have a TS-SCI clearance, Security+, 3 years experience working in diverse networking environments on multiple networks servicing thousands of users with - database management and creation, risk management framework creation, server management and creation (physical and virtual), vulnerability mitigation and enterprise security configuration, hardware and software troubleshooting, defense-in-depth security protocol creation and enforcement, and several other strength areas. My current thinking is to bag a B.S. from WGU online that comes with CompTIA A+, CompTIA Cloud Essentials, CompTIA Network+, CompTIA Project+, CompTIA IT Operations Specialist, CompTIA Secure Infrastructure Specialist, Axelos ITIL®1 Foundation, LPI Linux Essentials, CIW-SDA, CCNA, CCNA Security, CCDA, and CCENT. From there I'm planning to aim for CISSP, CEH, AWS, and vSphere certifications. I am hoping to have a higher clearance by the time I leave the Air Force with 8 years and even more experience and wild card certs from my job under my belt. Does this sound like a solid plan or am I missing something? I know it's a long read but thanks for anyone who takes the time.