You’ve decided you want to pursue a career in cybersecurity—or maybe you’re already in the field. But, like all of us at some point in our career, you’re stuck on how to grow to the next level, master your craft, or earn more respect in the room. What you need is a mentor, and while mentorships can form organically on their own, many times you need to make the initial request.
Why seek out a mentor?
Whether you’re just graduating from a degree program, new to the professional field of cybersecurity, or need to “plus up” your technical understanding of cybersecurity, mentors are incredibly valuable. They can be veterans in the role you currently work in, subject matter experts, or bring a valuable outside perspective with intimate knowledge that can give you a “shortcut” to success.
There are no easy days or ways to leap over your competition in cybersecurity. But finding and leveraging a mentor at any stage of your career is invaluable. It’s the closest thing we’ll get to a career shortcut.
Why?
Mentors bring a track record of experience—successes and failures—that can help provide the guidelines to your future success.
1) Research the Cybersecurity Vertical You Need Mentorship In
Cybersecurity is extremely broad. It’s transformed from “information security” and the typical IT department into an entire industry. It encompasses everything we do today in a digital world: the financial industry, manufacturing, national security, machine learning, cloud computing, the list goes on. If any of those verticals don’t have proper cybersecurity, they could be out of business within weeks. Small businesses, days.
So pick your overall industry that you’re working in or would like to work in – and focus on a career path that makes the most sense to you. This is important because cybersecurity roles within the financial industry are quite different than cybersecurity for the Department of Defense. Sure, many principles will carry over regardless of industry – but the niche areas of specialization will help the mentorship be most impactful for you.
For example, you may be a networking engineer today focused on on-premises routing, switching, and datacenter operations. But, if you’re looking to get into cloud computing and familiarize yourself with AWS, Azure or Google Cloud Platform, you’ll want to talk to someone who already does cloud computing and is cyber focused.
In this example, maybe you want to know which certifications you should pursue, is an advanced degree worth it, or what programming languages are important to know.
Target a mentor that will help you where you want to go in your career – unless you need very specific help for the role you are trying to be successful in today.
2) Network as wide as possible
Networking is something we all read and talk about, but hardly anyone does it right. Proper networking is a two-way street: give as much as you can and take what is appropriate. Too many of us think selfishly in networking events or opportunities and are just trying to meet someone who can help us.
Bring value to each networking engagement by offering something in exchange – whether it’s a mutually beneficial interest or customer relationship. And most importantly, follow-up and follow-through.
In today’s hyper-connected world, cybersecurity professionals are abundant everywhere on Twitter, LinkedIn, blogs, or professional forums. After doing your research and coming up with a list of a few potential mentors, reach out and authentically introduce yourself, state your intention of looking for a mentor, and compliment the person on their career success thus far in a genuine way. After all, you chose this person for a reason!
Let them know why you admire their career success or accomplishments. It can be as simple as saying,
"Hi, I see you're a manager of engineering at your company! I'm looking to go from an individual contributor on my team to pursuing a management role. I see you've successfully managed a team across an entire continent, and I'd really love to learn from you how you accomplish this and made this career transition. Would this be something you're willing to discuss with me?"
It doesn’t have to be a masterpiece in literature – just be authentic and genuine with your intent and goals of the exchange.
Lastly, don’t be afraid to reach outside your company or professional social circle for a meaningful networking connection. Seeking internal mentors are fantastic for helping learn the success criteria and how to be most impactful in your role and company culture.
But mentors from elsewhere in industry, or even a competitor to your company can be eye opening for many reasons. Does that company approach a problem fundamentally different than your company? Maybe they have a better way than what yours does today. Learn and bring that knowledge and try to insert into your role and company culture.
3) Be flexible and add value back to your mentor
Forming and developing a mentor/mentee relationship is just like any other relationship: it takes work. Communication is vital to keep the mentorship alive and thriving, so be sure to set expectations in the beginning of the mentorship what you, as the mentee, would like to achieve.
Your mentor is graciously taking time out of their day that they can be using to do literally anything else—be with family, friends, or their own job. Respect their time and they will respect yours. Try to agree to a cadence of meeting with your mentor, whether that is twice a month or twice a week. Also agree on more informal appropriate means of communication for quick questions—maybe it’s using text, Slack, or something else.
Don’t forget to ask your mentor how you can help the exchange be valuable for them, too. Maybe it’s a LinkedIn recommendation, a testimonial on their professional blog or website, or positive career feedback on internal company performance reviews.
Final Thoughts
Speaking from a personal perspective, there is no way that I would have achieved in my career what I have without mentors along the way. Starting from a Help Desk Technician years ago to a Cloud Engineer today is a big leap with lots of hard work, successes, failures, mistakes, and opportunities for growth along the way. Having a mentor to confide in and seek guidance makes the process much more manageable and that you are not alone in your professional journey.
Find a mentor, and if you can, one day return the favor and be a mentor. There is always another generation joining the professional ranks and you were once too.
