How Do I Go from IT to Cybersecurity?

Summary:

Millions of IT professionals across the globe perform their best to ensure proper working of
technologies that companies rely on for productivity. But how satisfied are these technical-savvy
professionals in their line of work? Are they truly inspired by their daily tasks or are they looking for a
better career opportunity in other industries? In this paper, we will understand the career challenges
faced by IT professionals and how they can make a change in their careers without losing their
existing skills and experience.

EC-Council Cyber Research

This paper is from EC-Council’s site. Reposting is not
permitted without express written permission.
TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. Introduction 01

2. What Makes a Successful Career Development Plan? 01

2.1 Factors Contributing to Career Development 02

2.2 Growth Path and Salary Structure For Experienced IT Professionals 04

2.3 Career Development Gap 05

3. IT and ITES - What’s the Difference? 07

3.1 The Negative Impacts of IT are Converting More People to ITES 07

3.2 Why IT Professionals are Changing Their Career 07

4. From IT to Cybersecurity – How an IT Background Can Help 08

5. As an IT Professional, How Do I Shift into the Cybersecurity Industry? 09

6. Conclusion: From IT to CS a great career move 10

Introduction
Though the IT industry continues to improve after a tough recession, professionals at various levels
are still facing challenges, some new and some hidden. At the same time, career development has
become a synonym to new opportunities in other industries. Will this inspire techies to shift to new
prosperous roles, and if yes, why should they do it? This whitepaper will serve as advice to all those IT
professionals who are seeking a change and wondering what’s next.

What Makes a Successful Career Development Plan?

A career development plan is a must-do activity to extract the maximum outcome from the amount
of time that you invest in your job. You probably invest 40 hours per week in your work, during which
you enhance your productivity by obtaining new skills, experiences, and capabilities. You may have
potential but unless you develop that potential, it will be almost impossible to grow in your career.

The purpose of a career development plan is to set realistic goals based on a pre-set timeframe and
identify areas of improvement or skills to develop that can contribute to the success of your career.

The success of a career development plan is based on formulating a realistic plan in accordance with
the following processs.

Self-Assessment

Skill Career Career

Development Management Awareness

Goal-Setting

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a. Self-assessment:
The first step in career development is to analyze yourself with respect to your educational
qualifications, experience, salary, job role, and skills. Assess your skills and draft a plan based on them.
Are your skills in line with your goals? Do you need to invest in new classes or certifications?

b. Career Awareness:
Do you know which direction you are heading? The growth pattern of every job role need not end
at the C-level. It is important that you remain aware of the opportunities for growth in your industry
and particular job role. Are there opportunities to specialize? If so, do you know enough about each
speciality to know which you are best suited for? .

c. Goal-setting:
Goals can be short term and long term. Your goals ought to be in line with the reality of your industry.
Short term goals should concentrate on enhancing your skills, making a valuable contribution to
your job, and embracing training, if necessary.

d. Skill Development:
“It is possible to fly without motors, but not without knowledge and skill.” – Wilbur Wright

Skill development should be a continuous activity on your career growth plan. Acquiring new skills
and strengthening them will help keep you one step ahead of the competition.

Factors Contributing to Career Development

There are a lot of factors that influence your career development plan, both directly or indirectly, such
as personal changes, i.e., related to self or family, or they can be professional changes, i.e., related to
superiors, company policies, job availability, and more.

a. Personality:
Your personality should match your job role; it is a prerequisite for career development. Your interests,
preferences, attitude, values, traits, etc. motivate you to pursue a certain profession and excel in it.
Your choices can make or break your career growth. There are many individuals struggling to grow
in the information technology industry as they lack the potential to excel beyond their current job
role. This is mainly because their personality and traits do not match the IT job role. This leads to them
looking for subsidiary roles which can bring their career to a halt.

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b. Education and Training:
Adequate education and training are the basic factors that contribute to your career development
plan. Your experience and your education should go hand-in-hand, otherwise, you will face stagnation.
Research shows that a full 40% of employees who don’t receive the necessary job training to become
effective will leave their positions within the first year.[1] This impacts career growth in the first year
itself.

There exists a wide gap among IT education and the job assigned. Many employers are finding
difficulty in hiring engineers based on their qualification and hence, they prefer trained and certified
people exposed to real-time job scenarios.“94% of engineering graduates are not fit for hiring”, says
IT stalwart, CEO & MD of Tech Mahindra. [2]

c. Earnings:
The ultimate goal of the career development plan is to improve your rewards. Your career growth l
defines your earning potential. Many non-technical individuals try their hands at IT for this reason –
high paying jobs. Entry-level IT jobs pay well compared to many other industries. IT salaries are 44%
higher than the national average, according to Tech Nation’s 2017 report. [3] Even though the salaries
are high, the inside story of the industry is different. According to Computerworld’s annual IT Salary
Survey, average total IT compensation grew 3% for the year 2017.

d. Availability of Jobs:
To a large extent, many factors that contribute to career planning can be controlled and managed,
except for a few external influences. The IT industry seems to have ample job opportunities, but some
jobs do include very specific requirements, so finding an exact match can be very difficult.

When your skills don’t match the requirements for the particular jobs available, it can feel very difficult
to grow your career. . Many people even relocate or change professions due to the lack of suitable
jobs available to them.

e. Industry Fluctuations:
Though it has been expected, the impact of the fluctuating industry has left many IT professionals with
compromised careers, moving to other ITES sectors. By 2021, HfS Research says that the IT industry
will see a net decrease of 9% in headcount, about 1.4 million jobs, in countries like the Philippines, the
United Kingdom, and the United States. [5]

The fluctuations in the industry due to upcoming technologies, economic changes, political issues,
etc. can influence your career development plan.

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Growth Path and Salary Structure For Experienced IT Professionals
The IT industry is making a huge impact in the U.S. economy, adding $1.14 trillion overall, supporting
more than 10 million jobs, and propelling the economy in all 50 states. [6]

There is no doubt that the IT industry is on the rise, as is the demand for IT professionals. [7]

According to the US Department of Labor, the number of jobs in IT is expected to grow 24% in
between 2016 and 2026.

However, while the industry is evolving, the salaries are stagnant. [8]

Average Entry-Level and Senior Software Developer Salaries in the World

Switzerland $83,688 $115,649

USA $64,650 $115,593
Israel $61,020 $100,093
Norway $67,301 $85,360
Denmark $64,277 $77,563
Germany $53,810 $73,422
Australia $47,719 $78,539
Canada $47,175 $70,986
Sweden $49,158 $68,210
Netherlands $46,431 $67,277
New Zealand $42,421 $68,944
Finland $44,740 $65,031
UK $40,426 $64,852
France $42,784 $61,679

Entry-level Senior

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In the above graph, the average salaries of entry-level and senior software development professionals
are presented side-by-side.

“Becoming a Senior Software Engineer is hard. It takes a lot of time and commitment. Different
people learn at different speeds, but on an average, it takes about 10 years to become a solid senior
dev.” Alex Tamoykin, Founder, CTO at the Right Balance. [9]

Based on the above statistics, the salary increments during this shift is less than 50%. Despite their
vast knowledge, IT professionals are facing salary stagnation after reaching the higher levels.

Career Development Gap

Too many people are passive about their career growth and don’t have a plan they stick to aggressively
to reach their goals.

In one study, only 26% of employees surveyed felt that they had adequate opportunities for career
growth. The managers of these employees were far more optimistic: 50% of managers surveyed felt
there was adequate opportunity for professional development at their organizations.” [10]

The adverse impact of factors on career growth will result in a career gap too. Apart from this,
information technology professionals are badly hit with unexpected lay-offs by leading IT enterprises.

Here is a summary of job cuts in the year 2018. The reasons are varied, but the impact remains the
same.

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Name of the Company No. of job-cuts (approx.)

Ericsson 10,000

Siemens 7,000

Deutesche Telekom 10,000

Tesla 9% of its workforce

Microsoft A few hundred (figure not revealed)

BT 13,000

Verizon 1,000

Qualcomm 1,000

HTC 1,500

HP Inc 5,000

Lava 4,000

Hike 25% of its workforce

Huawei 30% of its workforce

CISCO Systems 460

Xerox 350

Broadcom 1,100

AT&T 4,600

Cognizant 200

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IT and ITES - What’s the Difference?
IT stands for ‘Information Technology,’ while ITES means ‘Information Technology Enabled Services.’
ITES requires the aid of IT but not hardcore IT skills. The growth in IT services has improved the
infrastructure of ITES and has widened employment opportunities to a large extent. Non-IT graduates
with a little training in IT can easily hop into the ITES industry. ITES professionals are not specific to
any domain and hence, they can change their career track to other, better opportunities within the
industry. This has made the ITES industry attractive to those looking to grow their careers.

The Negative Impacts of IT are Converting

More People to ITES
Despite the lucrative career opportunities, offshore travel, and various other perks, IT professionals
are switching from IT to ITES.

Why IT Professionals are Changing Their Career

1. Stress:
It is a completely wrong notion to believe that IT is ‘easy money. It is not! The stress level in the IT
industry is quite high, making it difficult to cope with. The aggressive deadlines, escalating client
requirements, almost impossible targets, etc. bring on various levels of stress.

2. No Role in Decision Making:

Employees feel important and valued when they are involved in the decision making process of an
organisation. The IT team can be treated as a service center instead of an equal partner in business
decisions, leading to low employee satisfaction.

3. Neglected Work-life Balance:

GFI Software commissioned an independent survey, which started in 2012 and ran for four consecutive
years. It found that of 78% of the IT workers surveyed consider their job stressful. “Everybody gets a
work-life balance except for the poor IT guy,” said Sergio Galindo, general manager at GFI Software.
[11]

Techies often find themselves overburdened with work and their desire to spend quality time with
their families often drives them to look for jobs beyond IT.

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From IT to Cybersecurity – How an IT Background Can Help
a) Cybersecurity has no single path
Many people hailing from different backgrounds like computer science, mathematics, philosophy,
accounting, etc. enter the cybersecurity industry and have successful careers. People from non-IT
backgrounds often curious about technology and security leaders find this critical. Security gurus are
of the opinion that you must know exactly why something is not secure and what you are protecting
from.

b) You already know the basics

In cybersecurity, it is critical to understand how each process works: the critical data storage points,
the possibility of vulnerabilities, and most importantly, how to overcome the weaknesses in a system.
With a background in IT, the basics of IT processes, secure coding, database maintenance, transaction
handling, and much more are not new to you. These concepts which you have acquired or learned
in your previous job will prove to be handy. To become an expert it is important that you first remain
aware of all the basics and discover how to apply them to the security situations you encounter.

c) Can contribute to designing and management

The job of cybersecurity professional is not confined to configuring routers, fixing system failures, or
dealing with vulnerabilities, but it equally involves designing. The cybersecurity design includes new
concepts of designing for filtering schemes, crafting tools, security mechanisms, setting up APIs,
architecting access control, and more.

d) Cybersecurity has many diverse specialized career options

Cybersecurity is not limited to any process or skill, but it relates to the protection of assets at large.
Every organization deal with either computer systems, smartphones, or any digital medium that
supports the huge business data. Cybersecurity personnel is needed in small start-ups and large
businesses. Businesses like retail, hospitality, education, health, printing, or non-profit organizations
are not IT service providers but require security experts. Based on your skill, you can adapt to various
job roles and grow vertically.

e) A Wide Range of Activities that Require an Background in IT

The cybersecurity role involves finding the requirement, crafting and updating security policies,
implementing at the floor level, educating every user involved, and accomplishing the ultimate
security standards of the organization. The cybersecurity process forms part of the production as well
as deployment. The personnel will be involves at various production, development, and deployment
stages for backup, restoration, functional testing, incidence response, configuration, integration,
secure coding, safe deployment, and much more. Such processes can be handled efficiently when
the professional possesses prior IT experience.

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f) Create Your Own New Job Title
The world of information technology is fast-paced, as is ITES. Many jobs that exist today did not
exist a couple of years ago and they may not exist after a few years too. New jobs and titles keep
evolving based on IT developments such as self-driven car technicians, private air traffic controllers,
autonomous vehicle specialists, and drone managers which don’t exist as yet, but may come up with
technology enhancements.

As an IT Professional, How Do I Shift into the Cybersecurity Industry?

As an IT professional, you understand the importance of cybersecurity and how lucrative and
beneficial the industry is. Here is a simple multi-step approach to enter this flourishing industry:

First, list out your IT experience and certifications and analyze them with respect to information
security. You may be working in a specific job role in IT which will be considered in cybersecurity with
an upgradation of related skill. For example, if you are a software developer at the moment, you can
transform into an application security engineer.

Secondly, acquire cybersecurity degree or certification. The degree or certified programs in

cybersecurity plays a vital role in your career growth. The employers prefer skilled and educated
personnel rather than self-learned. While you already have exposure to networking, having completed
a recognized certified training will add value to your portfolio.

Finally, gain basic experience. Wherever or whenever you switch your career, experience counts.
Similarly, to grow your potential in cybersecurity, you must also have entry-level experience which
you can obtain via internship program or on-the-job training.

Getting any job in any field can be challenging but with a right credential of qualification and
experience, you can go a long way.

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Conclusion: From IT to CS a great career move
A career in cybersecurity is rewarding and promising irrespective of the experience, expertise, or
interest. Career shifting from IT to cybersecurity is not much of a transition task as it appears. The shift
when adapted can open your career path to broader, deeper and ever-evolving industry. The role that
you begin your career journey may not exist forever and therefore, you must constantly focus your
efforts as the realm of IT security changes. This field may not be for everyone. The IT professionals
dealing with the internet, systems, smartphones, IoTs, or any technical specialty, and those having
interest in information security, can consider self as a prime candidate for a cybersecurity career.

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References
1. https://www.shiftelearning.com/blog/statistics-value-of-employee-training-and-development

2. https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/jobs/only-6-of-those-passing-out-of-indias-engineering-
colleges-are-fit-for-a-job/articleshow/64446292.cms

3. https://targetjobs.co.uk/career-sectors/it-and-technology/advice/438446-the-benefits-of-
working-in-information-technology

4. https://www.computerworld.com/article/3182268/it-salary-watch/it-salary-survey-2017-tech-pay-
holds-tight-for-now.html

5. https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/jobs/it-sector-to-lose-6-4-lakh-low-skilled-jobs-to-
automation-by-2021-hfs-research/articleshow/53052040.cms

6. https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170926005389/en/Software-Industry-Growth-
Outpaces-Economy-Hits-1.14

7. https://www.bls.gov/ooh/computer-and-information-technology/software-developers.htm

8. https://www.daxx.com/article/it-salaries-software-developer-trends-2018

9. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/10-steps-become-senior-software-engineer-alexander-
tamoykin/

10. https://people-equation.com/the-career-development-gap-why-employees-think-theres-no-
growth-opportunity/

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