How To Get Into Cybersecurity With No Experience

Opportunities for a career in cybersecurity are on the rise, and this trend seems to have no end in sight. No matter what services a business provides, they have an interest in protecting their own data and the data of their users, and that means employing cybersecurity professionals.

If you’re looking to get into cybersecurity, but don’t have any experience, then it can’t seem daunting to break into the industry. Thankfully, there’s a lot you can do to get up to speed. You just have to follow this five-step guide.

What Does a Cybersecurity Analyst Do?

Cybersecurity analysts build systems designed to protect organizations from cyber attacks of all kinds. This can include aggressive attacks from hackers, more subtle viruses, and other forms of common cybernetic problems. They are also charged with being proactively protective, meaning they must identify potential vulnerabilities before they can be exploited.

What are the Best Ways to Get Into Cybersecurity With No Experience?

Everyone starts somewhere, and that’s true of cybersecurity too. There are a number of notable steps to consider if your end goal is to start a career in cybersecurity. We recommend that you follow these steps:

Learn the Fundamentals of Cybersecurity

The first step in launching a cybersecurity career involves learning the fundamentals. In Cybersecurity, that means establishing an understanding of the underlying systems that you’ll ultimately be tasked with protecting. Knowing how software is developed is an excellent start, as this provides you with the foundation to defend it—knowing the systems themselves means you can more readily familiarize yourself with their potential vulnerabilities.

Similarly, familiarizing yourself with essentially any aspect of programming can go a long way, especially things like coding languages and other methodologies commonly employed in building programs. For example, teaching yourself the basics of Python means you can approach a problem for a program built in that language with greater efficiency, something that prospective employers will love.

Network

Networking is obviously important for landing a job and advancing your career. But it’s doubly important in cybersecurity for the sake of staying up to date, as cybersecurity is a constantly evolving field. Having a network of experts to tap into is an incredible knowledge base.

Gain Practical Experience with Online Resources

There are an endless amount of options when it comes to online cybersecurity resources. They’re often free, and you can use these to gain practical experience. Consider joining a cybersecurity discord server, or reading up on cybersecurity blogs. Depending on the time you have available to devote to educating yourself, you can also find a wide range of cybersecurity tutorials and information on YouTube. 

Showcase Your Work with a Portfolio

While building your knowledge base is excellent, and having access to resources and a network can be helpful, these elements may ultimately amount to nothing if you can’t show some kind of proof of your knowledge. Potential employers want to see the evidence of your learning efforts, so you should absolutely build a portfolio of personal cybersecurity projects. Whether it’s taking the time to program a useful tool, or writing your own blog posts that show your understanding of the industry, having something that you can show to potential employers will give you a substantial advantage over other applicants.

Invest in a Cybersecurity Bootcamp

If you don’t have any experience, and want to launch a career in cybersecurity, then there’s no better way than with a cybersecurity bootcamp. UMass Global’s Cybersecurity Bootcamp gives individuals everything they need to begin a career in cybersecurity. While all of the steps listed above will get you headed in the right direction, the bootcamp experience will allow you to gain an even more comprehensive understanding of the industry while getting the kind of hands-on education that potential employers will value highly. Enrolling today is the best way to jumpstart your career.