IT Field Employment/Job Crisis at 35... What to do?

[Red Squirrel]

At least for US tech corps., that's just a "flag" to disqualify American applicants, so that they can hire H1Bs. ("We advertised the job, we didn't find any qualifying applicants, therefore, we need an H1B visa!")

I don't know if it works the same way in Canada.

We do have something called the "temporary foreign worker" program, so yeah probably same deal. In fact companies are given incentive to use that program, as often they'll layoff entire teams to replace them with these foreign workers. They can pay them less than minimum wage and think they get tax breaks etc. It's actually quite ridiculous. RBC (Royal Bank) did it years back and that's when it revealed the existence of that program as most people did not even know it was a thing. Basically they fired all their IT staff to replace with TFWs. To add insult to injury they had to train their replacements.

 

[VirtualLarry]

We do have something called the "temporary foreign worker" program, so yeah probably same deal. In fact companies are given incentive to use that program, as often they'll layoff entire teams to replace them with these foreign workers. They can pay them less than minimum wage and think they get tax breaks etc. It's actually quite ridiculous. RBC (Royal Bank) did it years back and that's when it revealed the existence of that program as most people did not even know it was a thing. Basically they fired all their IT staff to replace with TFWs. To add insult to injury they had to train their replacements.

From what I understand, that's happening A LOT here in the USA.

 

[compcons]

Considering all the companies that get hacked, I don't think too many bother to hire cybersecurity experts.

I'm sure there is a niche market for it though, like government. NSA, CSIS etc. Those jobs probably pay decent too if you are lucky enough to get in.

That's the point. With more and more high profile incidents, companies will start to hire these people and invest in solutions. Eventually we can expect government regulations. We see it in healthcare and finance. Someone will eventually figure out we are giving trade secrets away too easily and slap down on verticals like manufacturing and services. There is a massive shortage of talent today and it will grow over the next 5 years. Check out what CIOs are focused on for the next 3 to 5 years. Invariably cyber security related items fall near the top.

It's not everyone's cup of tea, but demand is strong and rising. Get CISSP certified and ride the wave.

EH

 

[Red Squirrel]

Yeah if the government actually steps in and starts forcing companies to care about security it would definitely create tons of security jobs.

 

[urvile]

That's the point. With more and more high profile incidents, companies will start to hire these people and invest in solutions. Eventually we can expect government regulations. We see it in healthcare and finance. Someone will eventually figure out we are giving trade secrets away too easily and slap down on verticals like manufacturing and services. There is a massive shortage of talent today and it will grow over the next 5 years. Check out what CIOs are focused on for the next 3 to 5 years. Invariably cyber security related items fall near the top.

It's not everyone's cup of tea, but demand is strong and rising. Get CISSP certified and ride the wave.

EH

One of the things the university I went too was known for was cyber security (security science) and they had a computer security major. They also taught computer security as a compulsory first year unit. The assignment was recovering data from a truecrypt volume (back when truecrypt was a thing) it was interesting and that's the angle they came at it from. What are the vulnerabilities and how do you exploit them? I also did a unit on computer forensics using open source tools on linux. The lecturer freelanced for the state police. So he knew what he was talking about. The unit had a focus on maintaining evidential integrity for example.

They also had a dedicated 60 machine cluster (back in the day that was huge) for research and they also used to borrow CPU cycles from the linux labs. One of the things they did was compute massive rainbow tables and then they were able to rip passwords. Passwords were worthless even back then you just needed a lot more computing power than you do now. Good times. It's a growth sector of the industry that's for sure. We have a document called the information security manual which is produced by the Australian signals directorate. The company I used to work for followed it religiously. So you get certified/educated and understand where to get your information from.