Your Cyber Path: How to Get Your Dream Cybersecurity Job · Kip Boyle

EP 110: Am I too old to work in Cybersecurity

November 24, 2023·34 min·2 clips

Kip says to leave more than 10 years off a resume and remove graduation dates.

1. Your Cyber Path: How to Get Your Dream Cybersecurity Job focuses on whether someone is “too old to work in Cybersecurity.” 2. Kip Boyle hosts with Jason Dion, and both matter because they compare hiring-manager concerns with practical job-search tactics. 3. The episode answers how an older career changer can handle ageism while still getting interviews and offers. 4. Jason describes a listener in the Pacific Northwest, around 60 to 65, who asked whether a cybersecurity career change is still realistic. 5. Kip says ageism is illegal in the United States for people over 40, while Jason notes that younger applicants can also be seen as too young. 6. The hosts connect age bias to salary expectations, productivity worries, and fears that an older hire may retire soon. 7. Jason says the same issue appears in the opposite direction when employers think someone is “too young” for a role. 8. Kip’s first tip is to treat age as secondary and identify as a career changer with transferable skills. 9. Jason gives examples from nursing, bookkeeping, law, police work, security, and marketing as backgrounds that can map into cybersecurity. 10. Kip adds an insurance-company example where he hired someone who understood the business of insurance and made them a business information security officer. 11. Jason points to a recent COO hire with a law degree and 20 years as a practicing lawyer, plus prior operations experience at large law firms. 12. That hiring story shows how a nontraditional background can solve legal and operational needs at the same time. 13. Kip warns that entry-level titles like level one engineer, SOC analyst, or intern usually do not fit a 40-, 50-, or 60-year-old career changer. 14. Jason explains that a $50,000 or $60,000 SOC job may not work for someone with a mortgage, a spouse, or college-bound kids. 15. Kip recommends pulling four to six postings for one job title, then comparing skills, certifications, and training across them. 16. The hosts also tell listeners to isolate industry and company size, because a bank, a fintech, and a government employer recruit differently. 17. Jason says age bias is hard to prove unless someone states it out loud or writes it down. 18. Kip and Jason recommend reverse chronological resumes, no more than 10 years of experience, no graduation dates, and language that avoids exposing age. 19. People who want practical cybersecurity job-search advice will get the most value from this episode. 20. Listeners wanting deep technical training or hands-on labs may skip it.

As heard by us

A practical take on whether cybersecurity has an age limit.

The episode takes a listener's concern about being too old to enter cybersecurity and treats it as a hiring question, not a motivational speech.

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Why you'd press play

If you think you are too old for cyber, start here.

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