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As "Ask the Headhunter" author Nick Corcodilos said, "I think it's
key to wander around, ask for advice, offer to help 'on the side,' using
some of your skills, and gradually work your way into a new team." He
refers to it as job hunting by wandering around or JHBWA.
Meanwhile, our chief security officer (CSO) was looking for
someone to help with the firm's security awareness program. As with
many CSOs right now, his workload had increased, and there was no
time for him to implement the program without help. Six months aer
I wrote the leer and started on odd projects, the manager took me into
his office and proposed the shi to information security.
Success! This was exactly what I wanted. I had some prior security
skills, having locked down the desktop with group policy, PrivilegeGuard,
WSUS, Shavlik and Symantec EP. But there's more to security than the
desktop, which made the new task a leap — a big leap. As Lisa Yanni, a
technical recruiter at Career Management Associates in New York, put
it: "I think it is common for people to transition roles in IT, but going
from desktop applications to security engineer is a prey big jump, and
I don't think a jump this drastic is very common, at least not that I have
witnessed."
I'm back to where I was 16 years ago… cracking a whole new set
of books and taking on the opportunities that come my way. And it all
started by asking. P2P
How I Made the Leap to Information Security
SMART MOVES
How could I move into information
security while staying where I
worked? As I did 16 years earlier: by
asking.
