The Modern .NET Show

Episode 116 - Pivoting into Cybersecurity with John Westgarth

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Episode 116 - Pivoting into Cybersecurity with John Westgarth
The .NET Core Podcast

Episode 116 - Pivoting into Cybersecurity with John Westgarth

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Episode Transcription

Hello everyone and welcome to THE .NET Core Podcast. An award-winning podcast where we reach into the core of the .NET technology stack and, with the help of the .NET community, present you with the information that you need in order to grok the many moving parts of one of the biggest cross-platform, multi-application frameworks on the planet.

I am your host, Jamie “GaProgMan” Taylor. In this episode, I chatted with John Westgarth about how he pivoted from teaching English as a foreign language to cybersecurity - an industry that he knew nothing about - at the start of the 2020 “situation”. We talk about why he decided to take the plunge, and how he got started on this journey.

Along the way we discuss some of the transferable skills that non-technical people have which can be used to help get started in the cybersecurity industry. We also talk about the bootcamp that he attended - CAPSLOCK - and the support he received.

It’s important to note that this episode isn’t an advertisement for CAPSLOCK, just a discussion of John’s experiences with them.

If you know anyone who would like to get into the cybersecurity industry, please consider sending this episode (and the previous one) on to them, as it is a discussion with almost no technical points, and I feel it might help them to take that next step.

So let’s sit back, open up a terminal, type in dotnet new podcast and let the show begin.

Jamie

So, John, first thing I want to say is, thank you so much for spending some time with me this afternoon talking about what we’re about to talk about. I think it’s quite important that people realize that it’s possible to get into the cybersecurity industry and get the training that you may require, without having to go through university, right? Because a lot of people will be sitting here going, “I want to do cybersecurity, but I want to have to go back to university or even go to university and get a four year degree,” right. Because as soon as you start, it’s already out of date, right?

John

Yeah exactly. Yeah. Well, first of all, thank you for having me. But yeah. I think it’s really helpful and really important to break down those barriers of, “oh, no. I’m going to retrain. And so therefore, I’ve got to go to university, can I get into university? Do I have the entry level points and so on,” as well. And getting into cyber, obviously, is something that is constantly evolving and changing. I mean, even during my time of study, we were still keeping an eye on what’s happening, like every day, as well. Yeah, it’s really important. And it’s important to see what options are out there as well. I’m a big fan of that idea.

Jamie

Absolutely. And, yeah, I think you said there about breaking down those barriers, it makes it more inclusive, right. Because if you say to someone, “you can only get this job, if you have a degree,” well, maybe having a degree requires a certain amount of commitment, a certain amount of funding, a certain amount of… I mean, any anyone of any age can go to university, as long as like you say, you hit those those targets. But you know, it’s been proven that maybe as you get a little bit older, it becomes harder to take in that information, it becomes harder to generate that time and that effort. So allowing people to learn to be able to do this, regardless of who they are, how they identify where they come from, what their background is, all that stuff can only be a good thing, right?

John

For sure. This really was geared towards helping people to get into the industry. And Capslock, they were absolutely fantastic. And one of the major things for a lot of people that is a real big uphill is their income share agreement. And the income share agreement actually talks about you taking a loan out essentially. It’s similar to a university loan. But with this loan, I don’t have to pay it back until I have a job, until I’m earning over 27,000. And considering the average in cyber is 32k-32k, as well, it’s gonna be a good start. So they really do encourage anybody and everybody to potentially join that course. They don’t welcome all comers, you have to prove that you have a certain level of aptitude. There’s free course content, which is genuinely for someone who doesn’t have an IT background quite challenging. But it’s challenging, and you force yourself to go through that challenge. And after you’ve done it, you go, “Oh, actually, that was kind of fun.” Then yeah, you’re in the right place, you’re on the right path as well. And the variation of people and backgrounds that they’ve had on previous courses, and my course as well was just staggering, really. It was kind of inspiring to see really. It’s a really, really positive thing to have available to us all.

Jamie

Awesome, awesome. Well, let’s talk about your journey, if you don’t mind.

John

Yeah.

Jamie

Because you say as long as you’re able to come at it from a certain certain aptitude level, you can come from thing.

John

Yeah.

Jamie

So how did you get into it?

John

So essentially, so myself a bit of sort of personal background working background really. To paint the picture, before actually joining Capslock I used to do a lot of watersports. And I used to teach sailing, windsurfing, and it’s a very seasonal occupation, where I’d go around the world; kind of grew up a little bit of all, I need more full time work and more steady work. But I still had that desire to travel. So I went into teaching English, and I was teaching English in China for a few years.

Unfortunately, sort of late 2019 I got made redundant out in China and I came back to the UK and I thought, “Okay, I’ve kind of a horrible experience,” but I’ll take the summer and not some of the Christmas sorry, of 2019 and I thought let’s go back to China early 2020. And, obviously, the world caught fire. So during sort of COVID, with everything going on, I was still hunting for work out there, and I even found work and even a job offers. But because of all the various legislation, laws or rules, it was taking forever to get out there. And I was thinking, “is this really the best idea?” I’m sort of waiting month after month. And like just being in stasis, in a way, it was really not a healthy lifestyle tob e going through.

And a good friend of mine who I worked with in the sailing industry, who like me, I guess, was in an industry that suffered, he was a chef in London. And all of his options sort of went south a little bit as well. And he found this course, he sort of disappeared off my radar for a few months. I was like, “where’s he gone?” When he finally popped back up. I was like, “what do you what are you doing? And why the radio silence?” And he’s like, “well, sorry, I’ve been incredibly busy on a cybersecurity course,” and maybe like many others during COVID, when we saw that, that poster or that ballerina, and I think it said, “so-and-so could be in cyber, but she doesn’t know it yet.” I was like shut up, Boris just ignored it. And then, quite funnily enough, I find myself actually doing that. And it’s all based on my friend’s recommendation, where I looked into the course, and looked at the Capslock website. And thought, ooh, this is actually spelled out very clearly. They look very welcoming people. They look like good people as well. Oh, it’s always a good thing to be working with well intended people."

And then I did pre-course, and went, “yeah, actually, there’s some elements of this, I really enjoyed; some elements less so.” But I still sort of enjoyed the challenge of working through them. And then thought, “yup ok. Let’s do this,” because it seems to be an industry that is an industry of growth. It seems to be many opportunities as well. And I thought, going through that company, sort of, from zero to hero almost in a way where they get you up to a certain level, I thought that would be a great way to assist me getting into the industry. And, yeah, here I am. But I think the most important takeaway from this as well: yes, I was an English teacher, yes, I taught sailing. And it has nothing to do with cyber. But there’s so many transferable skills, from all those roles that actually go into cyber, as well. And throughout the course, so many eureka moments where I go, “oh my God, I know this,” and, “oh, my God, I can do this.” It was really eye opening. In that regard.

Jamie

Great stuff, great stuff. Just for the international listeners, the posters that John is referring to is: during the wobbliness, - which is how I prefer to refer to it is - you know, the UK government released a number of big posters that try to drive people out of the industries that were being affected the most, and push them towards IT industries, cybersecurity, programming, things like that. And yeah, the poster, the the sort of canonical one was a picture of a ballerina, and it said something like, “Sarah’s next job could be in cyber, she just doesn’t know it yet. Google for cyber and take a course or whatever,” right? And yeah, there were about hamfisted I think. It was just like, splat, there’s our response; but I’m drifting into politics that I’m gonna stay out of that.

I liked the idea that you were able to just sort of approach this with, “hey, this is something I want to do. This is an industry I want to be in,” and that there was a group of people, a body, a company, whatever, that were there ready to go, “hey, you. Come on in.” Because that’s my whole thing, right? The reason I produced this show, and they do other shows that I do is because I want to be able to help point people in the right direction of, or give people that experience give people that - what’s the word I’m looking for - the advice, that’s the word. So one of the reasons why I produced this show, and the other two shows that I produce, is that I want to be able to give people the poke in the right direction, give them something to Google, give them their direction to travel in, and give that advice. Because, you know, “the old phrase, a journey of 1000 miles starts with a single step,” well you got to be pointing in the right direction before you do, because otherwise, it’s 2000 miles, right.

John

Yeah, it’s very true. I think really one of the big things as well. And I think everybody on my course, alluded to this, when we all started, we all kind of went, “this isn’t a scam,” as well. Because very quickly, you realize you’re in a very serious, but welcoming, and I want to say that it’s a genuine into legitimate organization with a proper idea run by doctors of education, who have had years experience in cyber as well. So they’re the perfect people to actually set this course up and deliver it as well.

The fact that they’re a company that allow you to take a loan to enter that course; you don’t, you can’t pay up front if you have the means to do so. Congrats if you can, that’s great to you. Or you can pay it and certain installment out in time. But to be able to take a loan and to have X amount of people all taking loans, and you could have 2/3/4 years to potentially pay bank that loan, I think is a real commitment to the actual cyber industry. Because they’re not checking into that profit straight away. They know it will eventually come to them. But good things come to those who wait.

Jamie

Exactly, exactly. I like the idea of what you’d said about transferable skills. So a lot of people who are looking at IT and Cybersecurity, the cyber industry - whichever area of the cyber industry that may be - they may not realize, like you said about those transferable skills. Things that you’ve learned elsewhere that you can bring with you, right. And, you know, one of the things that I do when I’m mentoring people, and trying to help them to sort of learn what they need to learn or point them in the right direction, is, you know, I try to use metaphors and similes, and analogies because it’s truthy enough that it kind of gets the point across. So I’m not in the industry of trying to teach people the skills like hardcore, you know, 24/7, or whatever. So, yeah, I did do some teacher training, but you know, only a little bit of that skill comes out. Let’s let’s talk about those transferable skills. And have you got any examples, because obviously, you know, people listening in will want to know what they are?

John

There’s really one that comes to the mind quite immediately, actually: during my last couple of years as a water sports manager each center would have an inspection from a national governing body. So the Royal Yachting Association in terms of the UK, and I was out in the middle of Bahrain, in the Middle East, as well. So I’m out in a place where it’s kind of a startup company, essentially. And the place hadn’t been run very well, it was a lot of work to get it up to scratch. And one of the first things I did was - I knew when this is special isn’t coming - well, I thought, well, I need to know where we’re at right now. So I did what could technically be concerned as, as an internal audit: I looked at what we had, what paperwork was in place, who was qualified, who wasn’t qualified, and what skills they had as well. So I took a good snap shot of the company there and then. Then obviously, after that I went, “oh, okay, now I’ve got a plan for this incoming,” it’s called an inspection. But it’s very similar to an audit, I’ve gotta plan for this audit as well. So I did my plan for the audit and folowed it through then when it came to the day of the inspection slash audit are passed with absolutely flying colors. And the person said, “last time I did this, at this location, it was a heck of a lot worse. So you’ve turned it around, by doing all this stuff as well. And then sort of, can we redo it again in the years year’s time for another audit as well.” So there was things like that. Looking at the ISO 27001 qualification, parts of that really felt so weird to me, because all parts of the process planning policy procedures. And so I thought, “actually this is really manageable.” So it was when you found moments like that, it was really surprising. And really, confidence boosting as well.

Jamie

Amazing, amazing. Yeah I’ve often found that it’s mostly the people skills that are some of the most overlooked transferable skills in IT, in cybersecurity, in the cyber industries. Because, you know, a lot of people think, you know - I think I mentioned this in another episode recently - where, you know, if people think cybersecurity, they think someone in a hoodie, hunched over a laptop in dramatic lighting, you know, with some synthwave playing in the background, and maybe a gun that’s placed to their head, right, that’s what they think. Right? Whereas actually, there’s loads more to do with. There’s some folks that I talked to recently, you know, Ashley Burke and friends, where they talked about how they’re in the cybersecurity industry, but they have, they went in from a non technical direction. So, you know, they’re, they’re doing audits, they’re doing policy writing, they’re… I’m greatly reducing the work that they do. But you know, that’s the kind of things that they can be getting on with too. And I feel like those people skills, being able to communicate clearly, which is something I’m failing at doing right now, right? Getting your point across and asking people for the thing that you need, and making sure they understand what it is that you need. They’re often called the soft skills, but I feel like that’s a dreadful name for them, because they’re actually really non trivial. Right?

John

They are so essential, as well, I think, for me, personally, the soft skills, I think, really help you with opening doors. And even if you come to a very technical area and say, “ah, I don’t understand this, I’m struggling with this.” If you don’t know how to approach somebody and say, “hey, can you please help me with this?” then you’re in trouble. And it’s having that confidence, having that people skills to say, “I need some assistance with this,” or knowing maybe someone else is struggling and talking with them and helping get them sort of through an issue, as well. I mean, I worked in a team for four months, online, every day, in quite time pressured, intense situations. So we really got to know each other very quickly. And we got to know each other’s quirks and sometimes knowing how to push each other’s buttons, or knowing when to back off a little bit as well. And it really, soft skills is something that really, really, really, you’ll be shooting yourself in the foot if you overlooked it as well. Even going down to report writing, and giving presentations as well. If you can’t write a good report, and if you can’t give a good presentation, with a good delivery, then you’re going to struggle, surely. If you need to speak to the board members, and you need to translate technical issues into more manageable bite sized pieces of information, then you need to know how to do that translation. And you need to know how to give that delivery as well. If you can’t do that, you need to work on getting here better.

Jamie

Sure, sure. And I feel like, like I said, they’re the non trivial skills, right? They’re things that some people find really quite difficult to do. Like, if you’re low on confidence, if you’re more of an introvert, you’re not likely to want to stand up a roomful of industry peers and try and teach them something, right. And I’m not trying to - I mean, I’m an introvert, and I’m quite low on confidence myself. So you know, I’m not trying to say that that is in any way a bad thing. And not being able to do that is also not a bad thing. But if you’re going for a job in an industry where you have to be able to communicate with lots of people, maybe there’s some skills that can be learned, and some coping mechanisms were actually being able to do that.

John

And yeah, they, they actually gave us a really good learning platform and environment for that as well, because you had opportunities to give presentations, and you had opportunity to fail as well. And you’d get your feedback, or you’d get your feedback immediately from your teammates, as well. Sometimes, the feedback is not so nice to hear, but you take it on board, and you learn and you develop from it. And even sort of going from that week one to like week 16 [the] differences from everybody was staggering, really, in terms of the progress and development that we made within just a period of four months. So yeah, it’s, it’s essential.

Jamie

Totally what I try to do in the companies that I work alongside of - because I’m a longtime listeners will know I’m a contractor. But the companies that I work alongside of I try to bring about this idea of like a lunch and learn or sharing of knowledge. Lunch and Learns are super easy to set up. I mean, it requires someone to have the confidence to stand up in a room full of their peers and try and teach something. But the goal is you’ve got 15 minutes, give people in the room enough knowledge that they can go and Google to learn more. And you’re all sitting around eating your lunch.

John

Yeah, it’s ability to learn, or learning how to learn, I think. And that’s one of the biggest takeaways I took from this course. Is I appreciate that I know some stuff now. And I appreciate it that I know, or I appreciate that I know that I don’t know it and a heavy hitters as well, the more you know, the more you realize it that you don’t know, I think it’s already the case as well. So, but then I now know how to go ahead, where to go to, who to speak to, what to Google. And that gives you a world of confidence to be on that path.

Jamie

It does it does. I think it’s Donald Rumsfeld who said, “there are known knowns, known unknowns and unknown unknowns,” right.

John

Yeah, that sounds familiar.

Jamie

Yeah, and you know, what he was saying is, you know, you know, the known knowns because you’ve studied them, right? Where you have the gaps in your knowledge, you have the known unknowns, those are the things that you know, that you don’t know about, or you don’t know much about. So you’re going away, and you’re Googling. And the unknown unknowns are things that are completely, they’re completely off your radar, right? You have no idea. But then somebody comes along and says, “hey, Google this for his, and it’ll tell you all about it.” And then that shifts from an unknown unknown to a known unknown.

John

I mean, I can give you a wonderful example of this situation. And this is why I’ve been quite busy recently. Last week, I actually got invited to a cybersecurity cluster meeting here in Scarborough. And it was set with local big business, I think the council, and there was a number of small businesses, there was a few cyber companies there; there was a company called Plexal. There was a company, an American company known as Misi - so “mi-si”. And they apparently done some work with the NSA and the head of the NSA in America. So they were fairly big dogs, I guess, over there. And it turned out to be a presentation, or a series of presentations, on operational technologies, and how important it was and how investment in operational technology and cyber sort of training and awareness could be very key to sort of national infrastructure, as well. And to to be able to sit there for nearly two hours straight and pretty much understand 95% of presentations and conversations, and then to be able to go away after the presentations and network with people I’ve never met before and talk about various seams, various issues, and bits of software; I’ve sort of if I was another person looking at me, I’d by like, “who is this guy you?” I was absolutely gobsmacked to it was very validating for the actual education and training experience. I had to sort of be in that environment and be okay to be there.

Jamie

I love when the very first programming conference I ever went to, I had a very similar experience. I’m walking in, and I’m quaking in my boots, I’m like, “I don’t know any of these people here. I don’t know what the talks are about. I don’t know what’s going on. I shouldn’t be here,” I got impostor syndrome really badly. And I was like, “I shouldn’t be here. I’ve snuck in somehow. I’ve fooled them into letting me come to this free event. Like somehow I’ve got some bad things to happen. And I’m here.” And then the first person I talked to after like getting in, you know, you get in, you get your pass, or whatever. You say who you are. The first person that I talked to who wasn’t there, just to get us through the door was like, “oh, hey. So what do you do?” [I was like,] “oh, well, you know, my graduate program, or I do X, Y, and Zed.” And they’re like, “oh, cool. Tell me more about that. Have you done this? If you use this technology, have you done that?” and I just became part of the group immediately. Right.

John

Yeah.

Jamie

And one of the things that I’ve started doing when I do go to conferences, and I’ve been doing it for a while now for I mean, since well, before the world went wobbly is sometimes you find people standing around in circles, right? There’s a couple of people having a chat. If I join that group, what I do is I step slightly back and to the side, that way it leaves a little gap for someone else to come in. Right. So if you’re standing around in a perfect circle, there’s no way for anyone to sort of get into that circle. If I try and leave even half a person’s worth a gap. They can sort of turn in sideways and go, “hey, I’d like to be part of this conversation, too,” and then sort of your take a bit of a step back and provided another gap, right? Yeah, just being able to just fit in is amazing.

John

It was good to actually chat with someone from like I said, that American company and we talked about using I think piece of software called QRadar. And I remember during my training, suddenly hating it because it was so difficult to do. But for someone with no prior knowledge of it, then to say, “okay, we’re going to work on this for the afternoon.” And it was a hard hard afternoon. But then to actually caht to someone with experience in the industry and to here them go, “oh yeah, I don’t like that. It’s very difficult to use.” I was like, “yes! Not just me.”


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Jamie

So let’s talk about the training that you went through, right. We discussed ahead of time. And, you know, you’ve mentioned it a few times. Now, it’s kind of like a bootcamp-like experience, right. And, you know, I’ve been through university where you’re “supposed to” - there were the bunny quotes - spend a lot of your time studying, but most of the time is spent down the pub. Whereas I feel like

John

Guilty as charged.

Jamie

Yeah, right.

Whereas I feel like, bootcamps are like the opposite, right? It feels like you go from nought to 60 on the first day, and have to keep that up. I’ve never been to a bootcamp from from what I’ve been told…

John

Maybe day two, day three. Day one was quite friendly and welcoming. So me personally, if I go in, like shaky hands, good idea, I’m gonna go fully in on it as well. I really committed to this bootcamp, I took it very, very seriously, even to the point of redecorating, the area that I’m studying in ordering new chairs, new desk, a second screen. I thought, “I’m not going to put this like, in the bare minimum, I wanted to do what I’m going to do comfortably as well,” that was important to me.

And obviously, I stopped work as well. So not doing any work. I didn’t want any distractions, or any anything else that could take my energy away, because I wanted to give all my energy to the course. And yes, it was intensive. And yes, it was quite hard to be honest. There’s no point is saying that it was all singing and rainbows and happy happy all the time; it was something that you need to be fully committed to do. And you need to have a good support network around you. as well. You need to have someone that you could talk to and vent your frustrations with, or share your concerns or your worries, or even share your wins with as well. You do need that external support network. But they do give - Capslock as well did actually give a very good support network throughout the course, because they appreciate how difficult it is. There’s a number of coaching - we we’re talking about it like the soft skills - there’s a number of coaching materials. All the staff are mental health first aid trained as well. So they can see if people are struggling as well. They were various times where you could chat with people, there were various social events within the actual bootcamp as well. You could chat to sort of qualified doctors. You really have this sort of unique opportunity to actually… I likened a lot the senior staff to, the analogy was in my booking an AirBnb with a Ferrari in the garage, you’re not going to leave that Ferrari sitting in the garage, you’re going to go right, “let’s take this out and use it.” And to have that opportunity to speak to these highly qualified, well educated people about pretty much anything was a wonderful opportunity.

Jamie

Awesome, awesome. So you talked about the support during the course, right? You’ve got all this support around you. You said there’s trained professionals there to help with looking for signs of I’m guessing things like impostor syndrome, and worry, and stress, and things like that. But what about like you finish the course, you’re out into the real world, all the stress has gone right? There’s no more stress. It’s all fine. It’s all singing and dancing. And it’s all smelling like roses, and it’s all coming up Millhouse right.

John

Obviously, actually, this period has been very difficult. It’s been quite a challenge to adjust to; but, even, it’s funny you bring it bring us up, after we finished the day later on this afternoon, I’m actually going to chat to one of these coaches as well. It’s not, “you’ve done the course, get out! Get away from us.” They’re still there. They’re still reaching out as well. One of the hardest things for me personally was [that] you’re going through days, or two, three days a week, I would probably be coming here into my little office at about nine in the morning. And then sometimes I’ve been looking at the office about nine at night, and you’re putting in long, long days, and you’re putting in a lot of work and you go to bed, and you would be dead, you’d actually be done in. And to go from that sort of level and intensity to, “oh, you don’t have anything to do anymore, you don’t have anywhere to be,” obviously, there’s still job hunting to do, which I am doing. But the pressure is a lot, lot less. And that’s actually been quite a challenge to deal with. And there’s been like, sort of almost after the first week or so we’re like recovered from the course, it’s sort of second week, like, I have maybe a little bit too much excess energy in certain ways. So there’s been a few bad night’s sleep and so on. So I’m going to talk to this coach about some of these issues. And they did actually say, they did give us some talks very much right at the end of the couse saying this might happen to you over the next couple of weeks. So they were 110% on it. My friend who recommended the course to me as well, he said, “the first two or three weeks after the course was very strange and very difficult to get through. Because it is quite a dramatic change of pace and quite an upheaval, as well.” So yeah, the truth for me, honestly, it’s been a challenge.

Jamie

Okay. So you say there’s, is there support there for you, when you finished? You said you’re gonna meet up with them today.

John

Yeah, like, this week, I’m going to talk to a coach later this afternoon. And then on Thursday, I have an appointment with the head of careers, as well. So it’s a one-on-one, half hour session where we’re just looking at where I currently am in terms of my job search. And we’re also meeting up as a group as my team with that careers to have another talk, as well. So there’s just this week alone I think there’s even a workshop on interview questions. And this workshop is one I’ve not done yet, actually. And it’s about that question of, “what salary do you expect?” and then how to answer that. It’s great, really, I mean, they’re putting on enough stuff to sort of fill my week, even if I decided not to do any job hunting and just lay around watching cartoons, or something.

Jamie

Guilty as charged.

I like that, because like, I remember - so this may not be the experience of everyone. But when I did my degree [between] 2004 to 2008 it felt very much like you went through the degree ceremony, they - I’m going to use this phrase that my brother uses so I apologize, everyone - they tap you on the butt and say, “get out.” Right? That’s kind of what the experience felt like, to me. There was no sort of after support. But I really like that you’ve had this system where they’re still sort of helping you out along the way. That’s brilliant. Because I mean, from their point of view, it’s in their best interest as well as your best interest. Right.

John

Yeah. there’s two aspects for from their side of things. It’s one is the reputation as well. They are, I think two year, maybe three year old companies. So they’re still in a startup phase. But I think they’ve recently had a new group of students start today. And they’re gonna have another new group group of students start next week as well. So this is like the busiest they’ve ever been, as well. And that’s so that’s one key thing. But then obviously, as you say, I’ve mentioned before as well, I’ve took out a loan, I need to get that job. So I need to start paying back that loan. So it is important that we get the right job, and the job we’re we’re flourishing, and then obviously we can settle our debts.

Jamie

Exactly. I like it. So would you say, having gone through this experience, that cybersecurity or the cyber industries whichever part of it people go for; Would you say that it’s kind of almost anyone can do it? As long as they have the support around them to help them learn the stuff, or would you say that - obviously, putting aside things like you require a certain type of mind or whatever, or that kind of thing maybe you don’t have any skills yet there are transferrable - do you think that, from what you’ve experienced, if you get the right support and the right materials, anyone can learn it? Right.

John

It’s plausible. Yeah. I think as long as you have that willingness to learn, and that willingness to listen, as well. Maybe sort of don’t go in with preconceived expectations as well. I mean, from my personal experience, the training was delivered in a certain manner, which was quite unique, and quite different and quite fresh to a lot of people’s previous experiences. So that was a challenge to overcome in itself. But we’ve had just in my course, I think we had people who were chefs, we had shop workers, we had a director, I think, I think we’ve had dancers. In my group alone, we had a hairdressing sort of mom, we had a guy who does wedding DJs, and sort of the background is for everybody in anybody, as long as you’re willing to commit. It’s definitely possible.

Jamie

Cool, cool. I like that. That sort of reinforces that idea that anyone can do it, right? You just need the drive. And like you say, the ability to sort of… the willingness to learn, and the ability to sort of just drop those preconceived notions of you’re not sitting around in hoodies, staring at laptops with dramatic lighting, and, you know, all that kind of stuff. All those examples I gave earlier on. It’s not Mr. Robot and Johnny Mnemonic. They’re two that come to mind

John

Nothing wrong with a good hoodie though.

Oh, no, totally. Yeah.

Jamie

Okay. So what about the community itself? So like the community of cyber experts, did you get introduced to them…

John

Yeah.

Jamie

During the course, after the course?

John

Both really; various degrees of success, I think. Because obviously, you get introduced to a lot of people. And some people have certain expertise in certain areas, and those areas might not be of interest to you. And then obviously, if they’re not of interest to you, sometimes you can struggle to have that natural connect, there’s maybe more of a respectable level that connect. But you’re not going to be in their DMs every day, chatting away to them. But there are some other people obviously, where you think, “oh, this area’s for me,” you might start leaning towards them a little bit as well.

And there was good mentorship team, in our time, where we did had sort of out of class meetings with various people. I mean, I’ve met SOC Analysts, SOC Managers, cloud sort of expertise, I’ve met consultants, people from all sorts of different backgrounds and different skill sets, as well. And then even via LinkedIn,. I’ve sort of started to become… I think there’s Capture the Talent as well, they have a website and a discord. And they do various events. And they’re very supportive as well. And they’re really encouraging getting people into the cyber industry. So they were good, guys.

I certainly see that. And then obviously, maybe this is just me, and on social media being relevant, I think we can see on LinkedIn where people can move, you shouldn’t be doing that you should go away and learn X Y, Zed, these typical gatekeeper type personalities, really. I think that’s a little unfair, because there might be some types of bootcamps that maybe are not the best, as well. But going through what I’ve gone through, and the effort that I’ve put in, it sort of feels a little bit dismissive really. And I think if I could go from what I’ve learned from week one to week 16, I think that shows the commitment and the willingness to work and learn within the industry as well. So yeah, that’s a good mix of there are some, a lot of positives are definitely the positives from who I’ve met outweigh the negative for sure.

Jamie

Oh, good, good. Yeah, personally, I completely abhor any kind of gatekeeping at all. I can’t stand it when somebody says, “oh, you’re not a real,” or, “you should have done,” I’m like, “no, I am a real and I have done it’s that simple. Because I don’t fit your preconceived,” and it’s those preconceived notions again. I usually don’t…

John

Yeah.

Jamie

Just because they don’t fit that preconceived notion. Doesn’t mean that I’m not a and I haven’t done a.

John

I mean, like I said: one of the people in my team, she’s a mother of three. She does part time hairdressing as well. And in fact, if you think about it, this goes back to our conversation on transferable skills: talk about threat analysis, and keeping things secure. Well, she’s a mother of three who has to work very hard for a living as well. She’s an absolute inspiration. At times, I think she suffered from imposter syndrome. And she’d be, “oh, am I doing the right thing?” and I’m thinking, “for sure you can you just brought up three kids, and you’re doing your job, and you’re during this course, and you’re managing to find time to go off and do fun things as well.” Absolutely staggered about how she actually managed herself and what she looked after throughout this course as well. I was very, very impressed in that regard. And as someone that you would, at first glance, you go, “no way. That’s not your typical hoodie, dark room types, cyber preconceived notion,” completely breaks the mold and completely sort of disrupt that standard expectation of geek behind a computer, or whatever, you know, it’s, I think it’s a wonderful example.

Jamie

Excellent, excellent. So a couple of quick questions as we wrap up, then, John. If you could have one or two key takeaway points from your experience so far, in the training you’ve received and the networking that you’ve had, and the experience so far, what would those couple of key takeaway points be? So I’ve got some silly examples, right. Silly examples to start you off. Would it be something like, “believe in yourself,” go after what you want," ditch your Google and Facebook accounts," What would your key piece of thing be?

John

Don’t compare to your previous expectations as well come in with an open mind. If you’re connected to what you think you’ve done in the past, it’s going to be a heck of a lot harder to learn new things. That would be a big, big thing for me as well. Go in there, be willing to listen and show that you’ve listened as well. I think that’s a difference, that’s a key difference. Actually showing that you’ve listened to somebody is a really big skill.

Jamie

Awesome, awesome. And are there any, like socials or websites or things that you would recommend people check out? Some places where they can go to learn a little bit more?

John

Yeah, I mean, obviously, there is Capslock themself. It literally is all caps, and then it’s dot ac. But then obviously, for myself, really, I’m just very connected with people on LinkedIn as well. If you’re looking into this sort of stuff, there are various different names and characters that always pop up on LinkedIn sharing good content, and good stuff, and good discussions as well. I also, personally, from time to time will hop on to Try Hack Me and rainforests and do a few labs just to keep skills up to date really, and keep them there. I mean, I’m still learning. So and I think maybe this is another takeaway as well. Just don’t expect to stop learning. If you’re of that mindset of just being a constant learner, then you’ll do okay.

Jamie

Awesome. Awesome. Well, thanks for joining us, John, I really appreciate you sharing your experience with us because I feel like this is something that we can do to try and make technology, cyber, all that kind of stuff more accessible to folks, right, by sharing our experiences or sharing our thoughts.

John

It definitely needs to be more humanized, I guess, in a way and taking off that hoodie, turning on the lights, opening the window, letting in the fresh air, so to speak. So yeah, thank you for the opportunity and the platform to share some of these experiences with as well. I appreciate it.

No worries. Thank you very much.

Wrapping Up

That was my discussion with John Westgarth about getting into the cybersecurity industry. Be sure to check out the show notes for a bunch of links to some of the stuff that we covered, and full transcription of the interview. The show notes, as always, can be found at dotnetcore.show, and there will be a link directly to them in your podcatcher.

And don’t forget to spread the word, leave a rating or review on your podcatcher of choice - head over to dotnetcore.show/review for ways to do that - reach out via out contact page, and to come back next time for more .NET goodness.

I will see you again real soon. See you later folks.

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