Couch to Career - Follow up

First of all, here is my slide deck from DojoSec with a couple added slides, words, and slight modifications:

I have put this article off quite a few times due to some very cool and interesting things happening in our field as it applies to getting a job. That, and Matt Johansen beat me to it with his blog post titled: “A lot of Information Security Career Advice”, which I highly recommend you check out and add to your RSS reader.  So instead of rewriting things that other people have already covered I’ll just post the links to them:

We start our journey as any real hacker would, with the “Hacker Handle Generator".  And since I am more of an Audio/Visual Leaner  let’s start off with “Exotic Liability Episode 10: Advice” Where Ryan Jones, DJ Jackalope, and Chris Nickerson, of “Tiger Team” fame, fortune and power,  call back Michigan Justin and talk at length about how to start out in the community. We also have Don Donzal from EthicalHacker.net who talks about “DIY Career in Ethical Hacking” (MP3 / SLIDES), and about 16 tips from “Ugly Resumes get Jobs!” on Slideshare. But this A/V setup wouldn’t be complete if I didn’t tell you guys where you can get all kinds of videos actually teaching you security so that you can have a leg up on everyone else. Head on over to TheAcademyPro.com where you can watch 1-5 minute videos on everything from configuring Snort and exploiting systems with Metasploit, to configuring Sourcefire 3D and destroying the world with Core Impact. Another site to bookmark is SecurityTube.net. The guys there work their fingers to the bone to locate security videos across the net and put them all in one central pace for you to access.

Now on for those people who like to do all that “reading” stuff.  First head on over to the Security Catalyst for Part 1 and Part 2 of “Career Advice for Security Geeks” and Paul Asadoorian’s post titled “Getting Started In Information Security How-To” and Kees Leune’s post titled “Tips for Getting Started in Information Security”, and if you are really feeling froggy, read all 4+ years (only 6 or so pages don’t worry too much) of the discussion on the Defcon forums: “Getting started in the security field”

Finally, sticking with the theme that I try to keep going on this blog I want to give you something new to digest:

James Arlen (aka myrcurial) does a talk at Notacon about going from BlackHat to BlackSuit

LifeHacker’s “Top 10 Tools for landing a better job”

Aaron Crowe writes about “How to avoid being scammed in a job hunt”

Lee Kushner writes about “Wanting a Job Too Much”

Two Mashable articles: “How to find a Job on Twitter” and “How to exchange Biz cards on Twitter”

But I wanted to close with some advice that a lot of people have a hard time with. And that is how to talk dollars, and how to do it well.  And Jack Chapman is certainly the guy to learn from. Check out a write-up on him on GetRichSlowly.org titled “Negotiating Your Salary: How to Make $1,000 a Minute” (which is the title of Chapman’s book). And Chapman’s site where he has tons of YouTube videos of tips that he describes in the book.

Sorry this is a bunch of links, and if you guys would like me to explain each slide in my Couch to Career deck I’ll make another post about it.