Ep7: Creating Your Own Real-World Experience
Introduction
- Reflection on a recent episode and a LinkedIn quote about the importance of hands-on experience.
- The universal applicability of the quote: "Never underestimate the importance of hands-on experience when it comes to securing your dream job."
The Power of Certifications and Classes
- The value of studying for certifications and taking classes in your desired field.
- Benefits include understanding industry jargon and verbiage.
- The importance of creating projects during study to simulate real-world experiences.
Gaining Hands-On Experience
- Personal anecdote: Starting a cybersecurity business and offering free services.
- The significance of creating content like forums, newsletters, and podcasts relevant to the area of study.
Real-World Experience vs. Book Knowledge
- The difference between reading a book and applying its knowledge.
- How real-world experiences create talking points for interviews and resumes.
- The challenge of bridging the experience gap, especially when making a lateral transfer in industries.
Creating Your Own Path
- Personal journey: Transitioning from IT architecture to cybersecurity.
- The combination of studying and real-world application.
- The metaphor of creating your own path: Waiting for someone to pave the way vs. taking initiative and building it yourself.
Conclusion
- The importance of proactivity in gaining experience.
- Encouragement to create your own real-world experiences and not rely on others.
- The quickest way to bridge the experience gap is to take charge and create opportunities for yourself.
Takeaway:
Remember, when it comes to bridging the experience gap, the power lies within you to create, innovate, and pave your own path to success.
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Transcript
I want to take a second to add to the Bridging the Experience Gap
Marc:podcast that I recently did because I saw something interesting on LinkedIn.
Marc:There's a quote and it says, never underestimate the
Marc:importance of hands on experience.
Marc:When it comes to securing your dream job in cybersecurity and you could change
Marc:cybersecurity to whatever you wanted.
Marc:Got a lot of comments, a lot of reposts and a lot of likes.
Marc:It wasn't mine, it was somebody else's.
Marc:But it was interesting because my comment was when I was studying
Marc:for those certifications, so in the previous podcast, and you've
Marc:heard on the hire drive, one of the things I encourage you to do is.
Marc:Study for some type of a certification or take classes in the area that
Marc:you're interested in going into.
Marc:Because it not only helps you with the jargon and the, and the verbiage,
Marc:but when you're studying for those certifications, what you can do is create
Marc:projects to create those real world experiences for yourself and your clients.
Marc:So one of the things is, Our question somebody asked is, what are you
Marc:doing to gain hands-on experience?
Marc:And I said, well, I'm doing, when I was doing cybersecurity stuff,
Marc:a, I created my own business.
Marc:Doesn't matter if I have any clients.
Marc:I created my own business and I gave free work to organizations, family, friends,
Marc:creating content and forums, newsletters, podcasts, very relevant to the area study.
Marc:When you're doing that, you are creating a real world experience.
Marc:So it goes beyond, Hey, I got all these certifications.
Marc:Hey, I'm taking all these classes.
Marc:Hey, by the way, I also did a onsite vulnerability assessment,
Marc:penetration testing or physical security analysis for a law firm,
Marc:or I've created, I create, you know, podcasts based on cybersecurity and I.
Marc:Talk to industry leaders and things like that, that's real world
Marc:experience because companies are gonna ask you, what have you done?
Marc:Or tell me about your latest, whatever.
Marc:And if you've created your own business and you've got that in LinkedIn and
Marc:you've got that in your resume, you can, those are talking points now, right?
Marc:So it doesn't matter what your area of industry, if you've
Marc:helped friends find jobs.
Marc:And you've coordinated or you've updated their LinkedIn profiles for
Marc:them and you've helped them to start posting, being more active on LinkedIn,
Marc:getting out there, uh, teaching them how to use AI to update their
Marc:resumes and to submit it to companies.
Marc:That's talent acquisition.
Marc:You're doing what recruiters are doing, right?
Marc:You're scanning, you're looking at people, you're helping them, you're
Marc:trying to place people in different jobs.
Marc:You're doing it for your own business and you might be doing
Marc:it for just family and friends, but that is real world experience.
Marc:If I'm just reading a book, that's just me reading a book, that's me learning.
Marc:That's me taking certification tests.
Marc:That's me demonstrating that I understand the material, but if I take something from
Marc:that book or those lessons, or the classes or YouTube or whatever, I start to do it.
Marc:That creates real world experiences, that creates a bullet point,
Marc:that creates a talking point.
Marc:And that's something that you absolutely can and should use in
Marc:an interview session because it is very difficult to bridge the gap.
Marc:And I think I see a lot of people saying, Hey, I'm in this particular area, and.
Marc:I would like to do similar work, but I wanna go into a
Marc:slightly different industry.
Marc:So you wanna do a lateral transfer?
Marc:In my own experiences, I've had tons of experience with it and
Marc:architecture, all those type of things.
Marc:Windows, active directory, you name it, right?
Marc:But I wanted to bridge that gap into cybersecurity.
Marc:I had to look back to what was I currently doing that made sense to bridge that?
Marc:Should I start my own business?
Marc:And then start to do, like I said, this free work and pro bono and
Marc:start to do things so that I could get hands-on experience to do that.
Marc:Those created talking points, studying that helped.
Marc:And so it was a combination of studying and actually doing that real world.
Marc:So I think in this particular episode, we'll just keep it short here.
Marc:You can bridge that gap, and you can do it simply by creating your
Marc:own real world experiences, right?
Marc:So you're trying to get to something else.
Marc:You're trying to do something else.
Marc:You're trying to transition into another job, another field, another area.
Marc:How do you get real world experience?
Marc:You create it, you pave the path.
Marc:There's two ways.
Marc:I'm looking at a field.
Marc:I can wait for someone to come along with a mower or a crew or a team and
Marc:build me a path, and I can walk to the other side and that that would be akin
Marc:to waiting for a manager, waiting for a company to give you a helping hand to
Marc:just give you that start, give you that one chance that you really need to see
Marc:beyond that, Hey, I know this person could do it, but I'm gonna help 'em out here.
Marc:That can happen, or, You can get a little weed whacker or a shovel, and
Marc:you can knock down those weeds, right?
Marc:You can mow that lawn.
Marc:You can do whatever it is that you're doing and build your own
Marc:path to get to the other side.
Marc:At the end of the day, when you're on the other side, it was real world experience.
Marc:Either way, you do it, but you're gonna have to start creating that
Marc:for yourself if you wanna move on.
Marc:You don't want to rely on others to do that for you.
Marc:So when you're trying to bridge that gap, think about what it is in your day, what
Marc:it is in your life that you can do, that you can learn from a course or a class
Marc:or anything to create some real world experience and not rely on something
Marc:or somebody else to do it for you.
Marc:And that is the quickest way to bridge the gap.