WEBVTT 00:03.700 --> 00:04.360 Hey! 00:04.360 --> 00:06.940 Hey, so this is Kathleen. 00:06.940 --> 00:28.000 We're back at the Career Hacking Village, and I'm so excited to invite my friend Chris Rice to talk about resumes, because Chris and I have done resume reviewing for the last six or seven years at several of the Las Vegas cons, and we can tell you that resumes really are, 00:28.000 --> 00:43.460 one, very important to finding your next job, but two, they can be really screwed up if you don't do them right, and three, people will tell you to pay someone to do your resume when they really shouldn't. 00:43.460 --> 00:51.140 So I'm going to turn it over to my friend Chris Rice, and he's going to talk to you about doing your resume. 00:51.140 --> 00:52.540 Chris, take it away. 00:52.580 --> 00:54.520 Thank you so much, Kathleen. 00:55.140 --> 00:58.940 So I'm still getting used to presenting over video. 00:58.940 --> 01:12.460 It's kind of one of those... I prefer talks in person, because I like a little bit of audience interaction, and that way I can usually see if my terrible jokes are, like, getting a laugh, or like normal, you know, just falling a bit flat. 01:12.540 --> 01:17.440 It's a good reminder of why I ended up in recruitment and not in comedy. 01:17.740 --> 01:23.520 So let's talk about my... my talk's going to be called Owning Your Resume. 01:24.800 --> 01:27.060 I'll tell you a little bit about me, first of all. 01:27.060 --> 01:38.300 So I've been for a bloody long time now in tech recruitment, and the last eight years have been dedicated specifically to cybersecurity recruitment. 01:38.620 --> 01:50.080 Eight years ago, I co-founded Tyro Security, which is a cybersecurity staffing and professional services company based out of Los Angeles, and covering really the whole of the US. 01:50.600 --> 01:58.420 I also co-founded a company called Commute.io, which we were looking to launch properly Q2 this year. 01:58.880 --> 02:04.060 Much like jokes are all about timing, start-ups often are as well. 02:04.060 --> 02:13.480 Commute was focused on retaining your staff, and doing that by looking at the horrible commutes that people had, and how that affected their happiness. 02:13.840 --> 02:25.400 Clearly, while we're in this... this time where we're in the crazy experiment of COVID, where everybody's working from home, and we're kind of figuring that out, commutes aren't much of an issue right now. 02:25.400 --> 02:27.320 So who knows what's going to happen with that one. 02:27.540 --> 02:41.420 Now, I'm also founding board member and president of the Cloud Security Alliance Southern California chapter, and I'm an advisory board member for the National Cybersecurity Training and Education Center. 02:41.820 --> 02:46.700 And just a little bit about me, I absolutely love diving with sharks. 02:47.600 --> 02:50.040 Don't get to do it much anymore. 02:50.180 --> 02:53.220 I've got a little daughter, wife thinks it's too dangerous. 02:54.240 --> 02:56.480 Yep, this is one of my pictures. 02:57.280 --> 03:03.600 And I was hanging out, I wasn't a cage, don't worry, but I was actually hanging out of the cage with my camera like this. 03:04.160 --> 03:07.820 So I guess there's an element of danger, that's probably why I enjoy doing it. 03:08.200 --> 03:11.320 But anyway, I'm on a band now, wife says I can't do this anymore. 03:11.320 --> 03:14.520 But I am allowed to go to cybersecurity conferences. 03:15.300 --> 03:21.960 And the great thing about that is there must be some cybersecurity people that are scuba divers, right? 03:22.220 --> 03:32.280 So if you are, you need to connect with me on LinkedIn, we need to organize a conference that's on a scuba diving boat, because I'm sure I can get the approval for that. 03:32.400 --> 03:34.200 So let's combine the two. 03:34.200 --> 03:35.680 Totally up for that. 03:36.240 --> 03:38.480 Right, so what am I talking about? 03:38.980 --> 03:44.260 So I'm going to be talking about writing the actual best resume for you. 03:44.640 --> 03:48.360 We're going to look at avoiding common mistakes. 03:48.800 --> 03:53.040 We're also going to look at what most hiring managers want to read. 03:53.040 --> 03:57.840 And I say most because every person is different. 03:58.080 --> 04:02.960 We've got to work for the majority and we've got to put together a resume that works for the majority. 04:02.960 --> 04:05.440 And that's where my experience comes in. 04:05.440 --> 04:07.900 And hopefully this is what's going to come out of this. 04:08.280 --> 04:11.900 And then it's going to be talking about getting your resume in front of the right person. 04:11.900 --> 04:16.460 It's no good having an amazing resume unless you're actually having the right person read it. 04:18.980 --> 04:20.760 What the talk's not about. 04:21.220 --> 04:22.900 Resumes, are they outdated? 04:22.900 --> 04:24.140 Well, probably. 04:26.420 --> 04:32.120 We must be able to come up with something better than a piece of paper with this information on. 04:32.280 --> 04:33.860 But we haven't got anything yet. 04:33.860 --> 04:43.560 Nothing that at least is accepted globally and can do everything that these documents do while also minimising any potential bias. 04:43.580 --> 04:46.160 So, you know, we're still figuring that out. 04:46.160 --> 04:47.980 LinkedIn and things like that. 04:47.980 --> 04:48.380 Who knows? 04:48.380 --> 04:51.260 Maybe they will end up taking over from resumes. 04:51.260 --> 04:53.600 But right now, resumes are what we've got. 04:53.600 --> 04:55.260 We need to make the most of them. 04:55.660 --> 04:59.880 And the other thing we're not going to cover is something I call keyword tricks. 05:00.180 --> 05:06.700 Keyword tricks are things like hidden words, huge skills matrices. 05:06.980 --> 05:22.820 You know, when you write these things all out in white font or in tiny fonts that aren't really readable by a person, but are aimed to be picked up by systems, you only need these things if you're planning to send those resumes into those systems. 05:22.900 --> 05:25.540 And that shouldn't be your goal. 05:25.540 --> 05:28.340 And I don't want that to be what comes out of this talk. 05:28.500 --> 05:33.280 I'm a firm believer you want to get your resume in front of the right person, not into the right system. 05:33.280 --> 05:35.320 So we're not going to be covering this. 05:38.660 --> 05:47.800 So my goals by the end of this talk, the plan is that you will understand why resumes are still very, very important. 05:48.720 --> 05:53.880 You can understand what the common mistakes are, how we go about avoiding them. 05:54.680 --> 06:02.000 Also, the relationship between your social media and your resume and the actual job search you're doing. 06:02.440 --> 06:13.520 And then the final part, as soon as we're going to come up with an amazing resume for you, we're going to want to make sure we maximise what we do with that and maximise the opportunities that you can get. 06:15.740 --> 06:19.100 So CV or resume. 06:20.060 --> 06:24.940 You can probably tell by the accent, I'm not originally from the US. 06:25.300 --> 06:31.460 And the great thing about DEF CON is, you know, when I've been for the last few years, you meet so many people from all over the world. 06:31.460 --> 06:33.020 I'm originally from London. 06:33.080 --> 06:38.320 I spent half my career in recruitment, actually recruiting for Europe. 06:38.320 --> 06:44.380 And in Europe, we use Curriculum Vitae or CV, which is Latin for course of life. 06:44.600 --> 06:46.440 And that's how we refer to it there. 06:46.440 --> 06:48.660 Not course of life, of course, we call it CV. 06:48.960 --> 06:58.840 And then the other half of my recruiting experience has been over here in the US, where we use resume, which is French to summarise. 06:59.520 --> 07:08.080 Now, there are a lot of articles that I've read on the web, and it talks about the differences between having a CV or having a resume. 07:08.080 --> 07:11.160 It talks about the length or maybe content. 07:11.520 --> 07:13.120 But it's the same thing. 07:13.420 --> 07:16.100 It's the same thing, right? 07:17.080 --> 07:21.780 It's a concise written history of your work in life. 07:21.840 --> 07:23.680 And it's designed to get you an interview. 07:23.680 --> 07:26.880 It's not designed to get you a job, it's designed to get you that interview. 07:27.760 --> 07:33.540 Now, I've been hands off for a while now, I don't do a lot of hands on recruiting. 07:33.540 --> 07:37.000 And I'm still seeing probably 10 resumes a day. 07:37.860 --> 07:42.440 When I was recruiting, 60 a day wouldn't be unheard of. 07:42.440 --> 08:02.720 And if I work back and think about how long I've been doing this for, even with half of it being in Europe with, of course, the famous European vacation time we get, which I definitely made use of, I'd still estimate that I saw over 200,000 resumes in my time within the recruitment industry. 08:02.720 --> 08:06.340 And almost all of that was the tech area. 08:06.340 --> 08:11.660 So I've seen a lot of resumes, and that's what I'm building this information on off of. 08:14.260 --> 08:17.400 So resumes are still very much important. 08:18.840 --> 08:20.620 You need to look at your resume. 08:20.620 --> 08:23.420 And some people get frustrated when they think about resumes. 08:24.460 --> 08:26.180 Oh, I've still got to do this. 08:26.180 --> 08:27.840 They can just look at my LinkedIn. 08:27.980 --> 08:30.780 Resumes are still very, very important. 08:30.780 --> 08:39.580 Just as communication skills are important in every job that you go for, they will expect and want good communication skills. 08:39.580 --> 08:44.360 And your resume, you've got to think of your resume as a test, if anything. 08:44.380 --> 08:55.360 Your resume is there to show hiring management, recruiters, everybody in that process, how you would communicate in writing. 08:55.680 --> 08:57.600 So you've got to bear that in mind. 08:57.600 --> 09:03.720 When you're doing this, when you're looking at resumes and you're putting them together, this is a test. 09:03.820 --> 09:07.520 You want to do your absolute best in this test. 09:07.880 --> 09:12.480 And hopefully this presentation and talk is going to help you do some of this. 09:12.860 --> 09:16.720 And just remember this document is there to get you the interview. 09:16.720 --> 09:23.280 And once it's got you the interview, it's going to form a major part of your actual interview process. 09:23.960 --> 09:26.020 So let's make sure you got it right. 09:26.020 --> 09:30.060 Let's make sure it's something that you know really well and then you can use. 09:32.790 --> 09:34.790 So owning your resume. 09:35.330 --> 09:38.130 Your resume represents you. 09:38.970 --> 09:42.230 This is supposed to be you, right? 09:42.350 --> 09:46.850 You should be the one that is putting your resume together. 09:46.890 --> 09:50.250 It represents you, it represents your career history. 09:50.430 --> 09:52.970 You must write it. 09:53.010 --> 09:54.430 Can you take a look at others? 09:54.430 --> 09:55.430 Of course you can. 09:55.730 --> 09:57.290 Who else do you know in the industry? 09:57.290 --> 09:58.450 Let's have a look at their resume. 09:58.450 --> 09:59.890 Will they share them with you? 10:00.030 --> 10:03.270 Could you use other people's in a template? 10:03.270 --> 10:04.370 Of course you could. 10:04.530 --> 10:06.550 You know, if you want to do that, great. 10:06.550 --> 10:07.790 No problem with that. 10:08.530 --> 10:10.050 Use a second set of eyes. 10:10.050 --> 10:15.510 You know people that are in the industry or recruiters or whoever it may be. 10:15.810 --> 10:19.910 Get them to take another look at your resume and give you feedback on it. 10:19.910 --> 10:22.170 You've got friends, you've got contacts. 10:22.170 --> 10:22.950 Do that. 10:22.950 --> 10:25.130 Just don't pay for somebody to do this. 10:25.130 --> 10:28.590 Please, please, please, please, please do not pay for somebody to do this. 10:28.630 --> 10:37.170 And I'm probably really annoying a lot of people that maybe do resume writing as a career. 10:38.910 --> 10:40.350 I'm sorry. 10:41.010 --> 10:42.310 I'm sorry. 10:42.350 --> 10:44.690 I'm not really that sorry, honestly. 10:44.690 --> 10:57.190 That professional resume writers, I think I know one professional resume writer that actually works within the cyber security industry and has cyber security experience. 10:57.190 --> 10:58.650 One, one. 10:58.650 --> 11:03.490 I think I know 15,000 contacts on LinkedIn, well over 15,000 now. 11:03.490 --> 11:05.550 I still only know one, right? 11:05.550 --> 11:10.490 And your resume is very, very much industry specific. 11:11.010 --> 11:13.930 Different resumes are needed for different industries. 11:14.930 --> 11:19.130 And so the cyber security industry has its own requirements. 11:19.130 --> 11:27.490 So having a generic resume written by somebody that writes resumes for every industry isn't going to be that good for you. 11:27.490 --> 11:36.850 And I've looked at a lot of these and I can tell you much of the time when we are asking for changes and we have somebody say, well, but I paid somebody to do this. 11:36.850 --> 11:43.670 They still need changes in them because they're not set up for what a cyber security resume should look like. 11:44.170 --> 11:47.490 And so you could pay quite a lot of money for that to be done. 11:47.490 --> 12:06.010 So I'm just going to say, save your money, spend it on something that would help your career, whether that's expanding your knowledge, a training course, whether that's buying a new tool that you can play with at home, or whether that's even getting a certification, 12:06.010 --> 12:10.810 just don't pay somebody else to write your resume. 12:10.810 --> 12:12.130 Don't do that, please. 12:12.490 --> 12:15.170 Sorry, resume reviewers, but don't do it. 12:15.170 --> 12:16.670 Don't do it, resume writers. 12:17.130 --> 12:18.250 Anyway, right. 12:18.250 --> 12:20.410 Dress for the occasion is what I call this. 12:20.570 --> 12:23.370 You want your resume to fit the occasion. 12:24.350 --> 12:27.650 And so you're going to have multiple resumes. 12:27.790 --> 12:31.370 What we're going to mainly focus on is your generic resume. 12:31.870 --> 12:38.530 So your generic resume is the one that you're going to base your specific resumes from. 12:38.690 --> 12:41.750 So you've got to get this one right, first of all. 12:41.750 --> 13:01.750 If you're one of those people who like to take a printed copy to job fairs, and I gather there are still people that like to do that, especially because people don't want to send documents that could, you know, especially within cyber security, sending documents to different people or letting people loose on your computer might understand that. 13:01.750 --> 13:08.030 So if you're somebody who wants to take a printed copy with you, this is the one you're going to use. 13:08.450 --> 13:16.490 This one is going to be more tailored towards the type of job that you're most likely to be applying for. 13:16.850 --> 13:24.310 This one's going to talk about projects, experience that you've got that's broad. 13:24.310 --> 13:27.630 It's not going to go into so much the specifics. 13:27.630 --> 13:33.210 It's going to give people a general understanding of who you are and the experience that you've got. 13:34.490 --> 13:40.030 And you're going to use that for certain things you will use that for. 13:40.030 --> 13:46.630 The specific resume is the one that you're going to actually use and write for job description, specific job description. 13:46.630 --> 13:49.310 You know, you've got the job description there. 13:49.550 --> 13:51.450 You're going to take your generic resume. 13:51.610 --> 14:10.170 You're going to really, really read that job description, or even better, if you know somebody that works there, or you even may know the hiring manager, speak to them, get more information out of what they're truly looking for, and then make sure that's in your specific resume. 14:10.470 --> 14:15.890 I did this at my last position, and I know you're looking to do the same project, right? 14:15.890 --> 14:17.510 Make sure that's in there. 14:17.510 --> 14:25.470 And you've got to make sure that that relevant experience relates to the job you're applying for. 14:26.410 --> 14:28.570 The most relevant skills are in there. 14:28.570 --> 14:31.050 The most relevant tools are in there. 14:31.050 --> 14:33.630 Your most relevant projects are in there. 14:34.170 --> 14:39.890 They're all ready for that particular job, and you're going to want to detail that in your specific resume. 14:39.890 --> 14:42.510 So you might end up with quite a few specific resumes. 14:43.270 --> 14:44.590 Totally normal. 14:45.950 --> 14:46.910 It's important. 14:46.910 --> 14:48.370 It does take time. 14:48.430 --> 14:53.970 But this resume is the one that will get you the job, and it's the one that will create the conversation during your interview. 14:54.110 --> 14:55.010 So take time. 14:55.010 --> 14:56.250 It's worth it. 14:58.250 --> 14:59.810 All right, common mistakes. 15:00.470 --> 15:01.350 Oh, boy. 15:02.510 --> 15:04.930 Let's start off with resume length. 15:06.530 --> 15:11.450 Now, I'm talking very much about... I said this earlier in the presentation. 15:11.450 --> 15:17.930 We're talking about generically what most managers want to see. 15:20.350 --> 15:28.210 Some managers out there may well like to see a long, detailed resume, but on the whole, most do not. 15:28.650 --> 15:30.530 And so we're going to work for the most. 15:30.530 --> 15:33.910 We're going to put together a generic resume that works for the most. 15:34.210 --> 15:44.310 And so talking about resume length, your resume is a clear, concise example of your written communication skills. 15:45.090 --> 15:54.910 So unless you just graduated and have very little work experience, I can't see how you will get it to one page. 15:54.910 --> 16:07.310 And the ones that I have seen that are one-page resumes, they're usually missing key information, and they're usually written in a really small font that just makes it awkward to read. 16:07.730 --> 16:08.610 It's not good. 16:08.610 --> 16:11.350 It's not what you would do in a report that you would be writing. 16:11.350 --> 16:15.590 So skip the one-page one unless you've just graduated. 16:16.190 --> 16:19.290 Ideal resume length, two to three pages. 16:20.110 --> 16:24.550 Once you get to four pages, you're kind of pushing it. 16:24.570 --> 16:27.570 And anything more than that, you're going to lose your audience. 16:29.630 --> 16:36.870 I'll tell you a story, and I wrote a blog about this, but I had a resume sent across to us, and I opened it up. 16:36.870 --> 16:38.410 It was 55 pages. 16:38.430 --> 16:40.330 55-page resume. 16:40.330 --> 16:41.110 Wow. 16:43.210 --> 16:45.910 I don't know whether to write a resume or a novel. 16:45.910 --> 16:47.230 It was insane. 16:47.230 --> 17:00.830 So I actually spoke to the person, and you have to be pretty tactile because this is somebody's experience, and they obviously feel passionate about the experience they've got, and they feel passionate enough to write a 55-page resume. 17:00.830 --> 17:06.010 So I did say to the person, have you got another resume that you also use? 17:06.010 --> 17:09.710 Because some people have a couple of generic resumes. 17:09.710 --> 17:18.010 Some people will have a two- or three-page generic resume, and then they might have something, a longer one, in case they get asked and you've got something that goes into more detail. 17:19.210 --> 17:25.830 So I asked that question, and got an email back, excitedly opened up the resume. 17:25.830 --> 17:27.770 That's an amazing experience. 17:27.770 --> 17:30.670 Opened up the resume, 70 pages. 17:30.850 --> 17:35.790 Yep, turns out the 55-page resume was their short one. 17:35.990 --> 17:39.510 So look, I know you're passionate about your experience. 17:39.510 --> 17:50.530 I know you want to work for companies that are also passionate about your experience, but you need to be able to write clear and concise documents for most jobs that you go for. 17:50.550 --> 18:04.030 And so if you can't get it down to that, and we'll talk a bit about how you might be able to do that, but if you can't get it down to that length, you've got to look at your ability and what kind of information you're putting in there. 18:04.050 --> 18:05.190 So look, work on it. 18:05.190 --> 18:05.970 Get your resume down. 18:05.970 --> 18:07.770 Two or three pages is ideal. 18:08.730 --> 18:11.150 So the other thing we're going to talk about is formatting errors. 18:12.230 --> 18:14.970 Choose your font and stick to it. 18:14.970 --> 18:16.990 Same font throughout the whole document. 18:17.310 --> 18:19.350 Don't do multiple fonts. 18:19.550 --> 18:28.350 Be careful when you cut and paste things, maybe from one resume to another or from your LinkedIn, you might find that you actually end up putting in a different font and you didn't know that. 18:28.350 --> 18:32.650 So regularly check that you've got the same font throughout the whole lot. 18:32.990 --> 18:40.190 And generally, probably the same size font as well. 18:40.190 --> 18:47.390 You might have titles in a slightly bigger font, I suppose, but you've got to keep whatever you do, do the format the same right the way through. 18:47.390 --> 18:58.170 So if you have a description of where you worked, how long you worked there, your job title, and then underneath, you've got bullet points of the things you did. 18:58.770 --> 19:07.390 Every job should be done the same way, not bullet points on one and no bullet points for another or square bullet points on one and round bullet points on another. 19:07.950 --> 19:16.610 You want to make sure that you've got all of these things laid out so that the format reads and there's nothing distracting them, basically. 19:16.850 --> 19:20.650 And be really careful about where you use your bolding. 19:22.210 --> 19:31.850 Some places, if you bold every company you work for, and then the date, and then the date isn't bold, you know, if it's the same all the way through, and it's used sparingly, it can look good. 19:31.850 --> 19:40.590 If you're bolding lots of words and you're sending them to different jobs, and sometimes those skills don't apply to those jobs, it's going to look a mess. 19:40.910 --> 19:42.770 First off, and it's often not going to apply. 19:42.770 --> 19:46.210 And somebody's going to be looking and saying, why are they even bolding those words? 19:46.210 --> 19:48.030 They don't apply to this job. 19:48.030 --> 19:52.310 So just be really careful and use it sparingly. 19:53.850 --> 19:56.310 Spelling and grammar mistakes. 19:58.090 --> 20:02.230 I always get a bit, but why are these still happening? 20:02.290 --> 20:06.930 We have tools, you know, Microsoft has tools for you. 20:06.930 --> 20:10.730 If you're using the Microsoft suite, it picks up your spellings. 20:10.730 --> 20:13.230 You get a little red squiggly line underneath. 20:13.230 --> 20:16.330 It tells you that it picks up your grammar mistakes. 20:16.330 --> 20:18.090 It tells you to check them. 20:18.330 --> 20:21.430 And this page had quite a lot of squiggly lines on it, I can tell you. 20:22.890 --> 20:28.530 Use those, read through them, and that should be your first point. 20:28.630 --> 20:41.170 And you'd be so surprised, probably three quarters, I would say, of the resumes we see have still got spelling and grammar mistakes in them. 20:41.270 --> 20:43.970 And so it's such an easy one to avoid. 20:44.070 --> 20:51.390 So make sure you're using the word processing systems or whatever software you've got to pick up on that. 20:51.830 --> 20:56.370 And I get that not everybody's great with spelling and grammar. 20:56.370 --> 21:00.250 I may well be from England, but actually I'm pretty shit at it. 21:00.250 --> 21:02.070 It's not a skill of mine. 21:02.190 --> 21:06.490 And so I ask friends, I ask other people to read over. 21:06.490 --> 21:12.490 In fact, even this presentation, I asked one of my colleagues to have a look through it and point out stuff. 21:12.490 --> 21:14.590 And I made some formatting mistakes. 21:15.250 --> 21:18.950 Thankfully, the spelling and grammar mistakes were only the ones I meant to make. 21:20.030 --> 21:21.610 But I did make some mistakes in it. 21:21.610 --> 21:23.390 So look, get somebody else to look at it. 21:23.850 --> 21:29.050 Now these next couple of things, they kind of do merge a little bit in together. 21:30.590 --> 21:33.670 So missing specific employment dates. 21:34.030 --> 21:42.210 We will see resumes that are sent to us that will say 2018 to 2019. 21:42.810 --> 21:43.770 I mean, when? 21:43.770 --> 21:45.990 I mean, is that a two-month job? 21:45.990 --> 21:48.650 Did you start in December and finish in January? 21:48.790 --> 21:50.350 Or is that a two-year job? 21:50.350 --> 21:53.290 Did you start in January and finish in December? 21:53.410 --> 21:56.710 You need to be specific with your employment dates. 21:56.970 --> 22:05.910 And I'll talk about why, because as we roll into sort of leaving employment gaps, everybody at some point may well have an employment gap. 22:06.150 --> 22:08.430 Maybe you were out of work and you were looking. 22:08.430 --> 22:12.250 Maybe you took the time off to do some certifications. 22:12.450 --> 22:13.450 Maybe you travelled. 22:13.450 --> 22:15.570 Maybe you looked after a loved one. 22:15.910 --> 22:17.010 Maybe you had a baby. 22:17.030 --> 22:18.410 Who knows? 22:18.550 --> 22:22.810 People have good reasons for having gaps in their employment. 22:24.050 --> 22:25.830 And you should embrace that. 22:25.830 --> 22:30.410 That gap in your employment, put what you were doing, put it down there on your resume. 22:30.550 --> 22:38.790 And the reason why I say that is because you will want to cause... when people are reading your resume, you don't want them having doubts. 22:38.790 --> 22:43.570 You don't want them making lists of, okay, I must ask them about those employment dates. 22:43.570 --> 22:46.750 I must ask them what they were doing between that time and that time. 22:46.750 --> 22:48.270 You don't want them asking you that. 22:48.270 --> 22:55.330 You don't want them... because if you have more doubts than the resume next to them, you might just never get a chance to talk to them about it. 22:55.330 --> 22:59.310 Maybe they'll take these resumes and they'll never get to that pile of resumes. 22:59.450 --> 23:03.150 So get rid of the doubts. 23:03.770 --> 23:10.390 Make sure that they can focus just on what your resume has in it, the information and stuff that's applicable. 23:10.810 --> 23:12.630 That's why this is so important. 23:13.290 --> 23:15.710 And then irrelevant information. 23:16.170 --> 23:17.470 I'll give you a few examples. 23:17.470 --> 23:21.110 This is going to really help you with your resume length. 23:21.610 --> 23:35.030 So nobody, at least nobody I know, wants to know lots of detail about a three-month job that you had 15 years ago. 23:35.990 --> 23:37.970 Just probably not applicable, right? 23:37.970 --> 23:39.070 Just not applicable. 23:39.410 --> 23:49.490 So anything you've done even 10 years ago, and some people I've seen even go up to sort of seven, eight years, but certainly 10 years ago. 23:49.490 --> 23:53.290 If it's 10 years ago, it doesn't need to have any detail. 23:53.810 --> 24:01.650 I think if it's 10 years ago, you need to have the company you work for, the specific employment date you work for them, and the job title. 24:01.650 --> 24:02.530 That's it. 24:03.570 --> 24:07.670 A few of you now are looking at really long resumes and thinking, wow, I can just get rid of half of it. 24:07.670 --> 24:08.250 That's perfect. 24:08.250 --> 24:09.190 Thank you, Chris. 24:09.770 --> 24:13.190 So that's what you're going to look to do. 24:13.470 --> 24:18.130 If they want to find out more information about those jobs, they'll ask during the interview. 24:18.130 --> 24:21.010 They're not going to, that's not going to stop you from getting an interview. 24:21.010 --> 24:27.690 It's going to be something they'll ask you about, especially if it's very applicable to the job, or at least the job title is applicable. 24:28.050 --> 24:29.570 So just bear that in mind. 24:30.270 --> 24:34.270 Likewise, and this is kind of a little bit of a bugbear of mine. 24:35.250 --> 24:45.450 Under certifications, a lot of people will have not only certifications they've got, certifications that they've let run out. 24:45.450 --> 24:47.350 So they don't have, they no longer have them. 24:47.350 --> 24:50.750 And then also certifications that they haven't even got yet. 24:51.150 --> 24:53.970 CISSP-studying. 24:53.990 --> 24:56.050 I've seen it so many times. 24:56.090 --> 25:02.910 And that's a bugbear for me because you forget, we have old resumes of people when they apply for jobs. 25:02.910 --> 25:11.370 I can see that for two years, you've been studying for your CISSP because on your last resume, the last time you were looking, it says it. 25:11.810 --> 25:13.150 So honestly, it's bullshit. 25:13.850 --> 25:15.390 I'm going to mince my words, right? 25:15.390 --> 25:16.190 It's bullshit. 25:16.190 --> 25:17.870 You're not still studying for it. 25:17.870 --> 25:18.990 So take it off. 25:19.170 --> 25:22.490 Or if you're truly about to do the test, right? 25:22.490 --> 25:34.470 If you know, September, I've got my test book, September, 2020, I've got my test book, then put it CISSP test book for September, 2020, put the year, right? 25:35.250 --> 25:37.310 But other than that, take it off. 25:37.310 --> 25:41.310 People will ask you, like when you've got stuff on there, people will ask you about it. 25:41.310 --> 25:46.950 And then, you know, you've got an M&R and you might have to, you know, blur the truth a little bit. 25:46.950 --> 25:49.330 And they can tell, they can tell this stuff. 25:49.330 --> 25:50.570 So don't put it on there. 25:51.610 --> 25:57.990 Other thing is we don't need a load of degree, a load of information about what you studied your degree in if it was 10 years ago. 25:58.650 --> 26:01.110 And don't bother people putting graduation dates, right? 26:01.110 --> 26:03.410 You don't want anybody to date you or to age you. 26:03.410 --> 26:07.210 You don't need to put dates of education in there. 26:07.210 --> 26:11.650 You can put what you studied, you put what your major is, you can put your GPA, that's it. 26:11.650 --> 26:12.710 Don't go into detail. 26:12.710 --> 26:14.910 Now, there's a caveat to that. 26:15.110 --> 26:26.890 And the caveat is that if you're a recent graduate, you don't have a lot of experience, then you may want to put into a little bit more detail as to what you did as part of that study. 26:26.890 --> 26:29.090 But that's the only reason you should do that. 26:30.010 --> 26:37.550 And then the last thing about your resume is this is going to be read by multiple people in a company. 26:38.790 --> 26:43.550 Some of those people are going to be technical, and some of those are going to be non-technical. 26:44.330 --> 26:48.770 And they're going to judge your written communication on this resume. 26:49.070 --> 26:57.890 And if you do really, really well, this is probably going to be, you know, in front of management directors, maybe even execs, depending on the position you're vying for. 26:58.250 --> 27:02.390 And you've got to write a resume that speaks to all of those different people. 27:02.890 --> 27:08.470 In my experience, if you're going for a technical job, you will end up having some kind of technical test. 27:08.490 --> 27:13.910 So you don't need to worry too much about making it overly technical. 27:13.910 --> 27:18.350 As long as they've got an idea of what you did, what projects that you've done, they're going to ask you about it. 27:18.630 --> 27:22.430 Make it something that works for all different levels of people. 27:23.090 --> 27:36.930 Because, you know, if you're writing a pen test report or a risk assessment, they want somebody that's able to write something that speaks to different people, different levels of people. 27:37.490 --> 27:41.570 And so let's not make it overly technical. 27:41.570 --> 27:46.210 You don't want a non -technical person to get lost in it and just put it down, right? 27:46.210 --> 27:49.110 Reminder, they will check your technical skills. 27:51.690 --> 27:53.210 I'm going to leave this one up here. 27:53.310 --> 27:54.050 Dishonesty. 27:54.050 --> 27:57.410 Let me take a drink of water while you just look at this slide. 28:03.230 --> 28:05.290 Don't be dishonest, please. 28:05.290 --> 28:06.730 It always comes out. 28:06.910 --> 28:09.050 I've seen it come out during interview. 28:09.230 --> 28:11.650 I've seen it just during people sending their resumes. 28:11.650 --> 28:13.490 I've seen it during the interview process. 28:13.490 --> 28:14.610 It's really awkward. 28:15.270 --> 28:20.930 I've seen it come out after people have been offered jobs and I've seen jobs retracted. 28:20.930 --> 28:28.410 I've seen it come out after people have got jobs and I have seen people fired. 28:28.510 --> 28:29.550 Just don't do it. 28:29.550 --> 28:31.390 There's no reason. 28:31.610 --> 28:36.010 This should be your honest career experience. 28:36.230 --> 28:37.770 Be proud of what you have done. 28:37.770 --> 28:39.150 Don't make up things you haven't done. 28:39.150 --> 28:42.290 It will come up and it will bite you in the arse. 28:45.910 --> 28:48.010 So social media. 28:49.490 --> 29:09.670 You guys generally are pretty savvy and I put a big buck here because for eight years I've been doing this and I still see cyber security people not thinking about how their social media impacts their job search. 29:09.670 --> 29:19.230 I've seen public tweets, old public tweets, that people probably don't feel that way anymore come and stop people getting jobs. 29:19.230 --> 29:21.510 Certainly stop people getting interviews. 29:24.090 --> 29:25.850 There's two ways to work it. 29:26.230 --> 29:31.730 Keep it private and I think a lot of cyber security people probably understand that. 29:32.130 --> 29:34.570 You can have a couple of different social media. 29:34.570 --> 29:41.070 If you want to have a private and a public one and have it separated like that, you can absolutely do that. 29:41.350 --> 29:45.210 Or, of course, you can be at the point of, look, I don't give a shit. 29:45.210 --> 29:46.070 This is me. 29:46.210 --> 29:49.030 If you're going to hire me, this is what I feel. 29:49.030 --> 29:51.670 And I see a lot of people do that and that's great for them. 29:51.950 --> 29:55.390 And there are a lot of people in high demand in our industry. 29:56.230 --> 30:00.710 And so, you know, absolutely, you know, you can go ahead and do that. 30:01.630 --> 30:02.890 But you make that decision. 30:02.890 --> 30:06.390 Just do it with a clear head, I guess. 30:06.390 --> 30:08.990 Do it and understanding what you're doing. 30:08.990 --> 30:14.990 Because the last thing you want to do and I guess, you know, we should be pretty good at assessing risk, right? 30:14.990 --> 30:22.070 And you can decide how risky it is, whether you want to manage that issue or whether you don't want to manage it. 30:22.230 --> 30:23.530 Up to you. 30:23.730 --> 30:30.770 Just make sure you're thinking about it because it can stop you and it will stop you getting jobs and it could stop you getting your dream job. 30:30.770 --> 30:33.310 It could stop you getting the thing that you most want to do. 30:33.690 --> 30:36.490 And, you know, you don't really want it to do that. 30:37.250 --> 30:40.870 So, moving on to LinkedIn accounts. 30:42.410 --> 30:45.410 I've seen a couple of people with a couple of different LinkedIn accounts. 30:45.410 --> 30:51.630 That always looks a bit strange, especially as most of them are not private and they often say different things. 30:52.670 --> 30:53.610 Don't do that. 30:53.610 --> 30:55.210 Have one LinkedIn account. 30:55.210 --> 31:00.490 And make sure the information matches what's in your actual resume. 31:00.670 --> 31:02.790 So make sure the job title matches. 31:02.790 --> 31:05.010 Make sure the description matches. 31:05.530 --> 31:18.250 And if you could probably have a couple of different job titles, you're welcome to have one on LinkedIn and then you could have that same one on your resume and then in brackets, the job title that you would put that as. 31:18.250 --> 31:22.490 Because I know that some businesses use very generic job titles. 31:22.490 --> 31:30.930 So you can you can work within this, but make sure that there is a match there and it isn't going to make somebody say, I love this resume, this person looks great. 31:30.970 --> 31:33.230 Let me look at their LinkedIn. 31:33.230 --> 31:36.490 Oh, oh, well, that's totally different. 31:36.650 --> 31:37.830 Why is it totally different? 31:37.830 --> 31:38.990 That's strange. 31:38.990 --> 31:44.310 And you don't want to create that doubt because you don't know how many people you're up against when you're going for these jobs. 31:44.770 --> 31:48.470 And then think about the information that you share as well. 31:50.310 --> 31:54.610 Would your previous employer be happy about that information? 31:54.610 --> 31:59.450 Would your current employer be that happy with that amount of information you share? 31:59.870 --> 32:06.670 And would your future employer be happy about the amount of information you share on there? 32:06.670 --> 32:09.990 So just be very, very careful around that. 32:12.980 --> 32:14.040 Maximizing impact. 32:14.040 --> 32:15.320 Got a couple of slides on this. 32:15.320 --> 32:16.160 Very important. 32:16.160 --> 32:17.840 You've got the best resume in the world. 32:17.840 --> 32:19.420 You put something together. 32:19.460 --> 32:20.780 You're very happy with it. 32:20.780 --> 32:22.840 How can we maximize impact? 32:24.800 --> 32:29.120 First up, we're going to talk about cover letters or cover sheets. 32:29.120 --> 32:39.600 As an external recruitment company, we do not send out a resume unless it has a cover sheet, a one-page cover sheet right at the beginning. 32:39.980 --> 32:41.540 Absolutely every time. 32:41.540 --> 32:50.160 We do it because we believe it makes an impact on how long that hiring manager will take to look at your resume. 32:52.660 --> 33:02.280 And so it's a way for us to take out very much the most relevant experience in those two or three pages and putting it right up front. 33:03.020 --> 33:08.840 We know Mr Hiring Manager or Mrs Hiring Manager that you're miss hiring manager. 33:09.120 --> 33:11.040 Whatever pronoun you prefer. 33:11.040 --> 33:18.080 We know hiring manager that you are looking for these five skills. 33:20.670 --> 33:24.290 This person has this many years with this skill. 33:25.390 --> 33:28.130 They were using it in their most recent role. 33:28.130 --> 33:30.090 We pull out that information. 33:30.310 --> 33:31.410 We make it so that 33:45.270 --> 33:48.390 the manager looks at it and is excited by your impact. 33:48.390 --> 33:49.910 So that's how we do it. 33:49.910 --> 33:52.590 As an individual, you might do it a little bit differently. 33:53.970 --> 33:57.850 First off, you've got to make sure that they're specific and concise. 33:57.850 --> 34:04.970 The same way as you would do in your resume, you've got to do the same in your cover letters or cover sheets. 34:05.190 --> 34:07.610 Make sure they're specific to the job description. 34:07.610 --> 34:10.390 Don't send out generic cover letters. 34:10.690 --> 34:11.570 They're horrible. 34:11.730 --> 34:12.270 They really are. 34:12.270 --> 34:13.290 Don't send a cover letter. 34:13.290 --> 34:15.970 If you're going to send a generic one, just don't bother sending one at all. 34:16.170 --> 34:18.810 Make sure they're specific to the job you're applying for. 34:18.810 --> 34:20.390 Make sure they're concise. 34:20.570 --> 34:30.750 Take your relevant experience and actually look at the job description or the job specification and read through it and think about it being a question and answer. 34:31.230 --> 34:33.190 They are looking for this. 34:33.330 --> 34:35.190 What experience do I have with this? 34:35.190 --> 34:36.570 They are looking for this. 34:36.570 --> 34:38.490 What experience do I have with this? 34:38.490 --> 34:41.290 And think about pulling that kind of information out. 34:41.330 --> 34:47.550 The other things you should put on the cover letters or cover sheets are why you really want the position. 34:48.250 --> 34:50.650 What's exciting you about it? 34:50.930 --> 34:53.290 And then that folds on to why you want to work for that company. 34:53.290 --> 34:55.030 What excites you about that company? 34:55.030 --> 35:03.610 If they feel that you're excited about the job, you're excited about working for them, you've done a little bit of background on them, they're going to be excited to meet you. 35:05.170 --> 35:10.890 And then finally, if relevant, you may want to put why you're leaving your current position. 35:10.890 --> 35:15.410 It's really, really important if you're doing this, you keep it very positive. 35:16.010 --> 35:21.850 And you should always be talking as positively as you can about why you're leaving your current position. 35:22.370 --> 35:32.470 It's been wonderful working here, but they don't support going to conferences or they don't actually pay for people to do certifications. 35:33.250 --> 35:34.570 Something like that. 35:34.570 --> 35:36.650 They have eight days vacation time. 35:36.650 --> 35:37.770 I work really hard. 35:37.770 --> 35:42.070 I'm willing to work really long hours, but I would like to spend more time and see more of my family. 35:42.110 --> 35:47.150 Whatever it might be, if it is relevant, then you can put that in the cover letter. 35:49.190 --> 35:52.610 So going on to sort of other ways to maximise impact. 35:53.230 --> 35:57.550 These are the three ways that you're going to really do your search. 35:57.550 --> 35:58.910 So you've got to make sure you own it. 35:58.910 --> 36:00.050 Own your search. 36:00.990 --> 36:03.650 One way is going to be responding to adverts. 36:04.570 --> 36:08.110 The other way is going to be utilising your network. 36:08.790 --> 36:15.290 And then finally, and these are the big three for me, is recruiters. 36:15.290 --> 36:19.010 Working with internal recruiters and working with external recruiters. 36:20.290 --> 36:22.570 So we'll talk about adverts first of all. 36:22.570 --> 36:24.010 Call that adverts a mess. 36:26.270 --> 36:29.150 Adverts are a funny thing, especially for our industry. 36:30.010 --> 36:31.850 So let's think about this for a second. 36:33.010 --> 36:39.330 I'm going to advertise to people that work in security and privacy. 36:40.070 --> 36:58.650 And I'm going to expect them to send their resume, which includes their personal data, through an advert to get added on a database, multiple databases, for who knows how long that's going to be sitting there for. 36:59.130 --> 37:03.850 And then you're going to get maybe standardised responses. 37:04.290 --> 37:06.290 You may or may not even be contacted. 37:07.130 --> 37:15.950 And when you do get contacted, there's a high chance that the first person contacting you or speaking to you may know nothing about our industry. 37:17.370 --> 37:19.970 And maybe even working off a checklist. 37:20.370 --> 37:21.070 Do you have this? 37:21.070 --> 37:21.970 Do you not have this? 37:21.970 --> 37:24.050 Check, check, check, check, check, check, check. 37:24.250 --> 37:28.770 Strangely enough, it doesn't work very well in an industry. 37:28.770 --> 37:29.750 It's broken! 37:30.210 --> 37:31.290 I should be there. 37:31.290 --> 37:33.170 I should smash a glass here for effect. 37:33.170 --> 37:34.470 That would be really good. 37:35.230 --> 37:36.530 It is broken. 37:37.150 --> 37:38.530 Advertising is broken. 37:38.530 --> 37:43.650 You should not rely on this, no matter how great your resume is. 37:43.710 --> 37:48.570 Don't rely on responding to adverts to be the major part of your job search. 37:48.570 --> 37:50.330 Am I saying you shouldn't do them? 37:50.330 --> 37:51.210 No. 37:51.610 --> 37:55.710 I'm saying you can still do that, but it shouldn't make up the major part of that. 37:56.410 --> 37:59.310 And we'll talk about the other things that you are going to do. 37:59.310 --> 38:04.770 As a recruitment company, you're probably saying, hey, but Chris, I've seen Tyro Security. 38:05.070 --> 38:06.910 I've seen them advertise their jobs. 38:06.910 --> 38:08.830 You've got a job page on your website. 38:09.010 --> 38:10.490 You advertise your jobs here. 38:10.490 --> 38:11.490 You advertise your jobs here. 38:11.490 --> 38:12.970 Yes, we absolutely do. 38:13.010 --> 38:17.130 And I can tell you, we don't get a lot of response from them. 38:17.610 --> 38:25.230 And a lot of the response we do get people that are hoping to work in cyber security. 38:25.950 --> 38:29.910 And so the thing is, they haven't got any experience. 38:29.910 --> 38:33.550 And as a recruitment company, we get paid to find experienced people. 38:33.570 --> 38:36.330 So we don't have a lot we can help those people with. 38:36.330 --> 38:42.470 And actually, we've got to do a lot of delving through people that aren't qualified to get to the people that are. 38:42.630 --> 38:45.470 It's not really worth a whole lot of our time. 38:45.470 --> 38:52.290 We still do it because at the end of the day, we're putting out there and you're taking the time to respond to us and we want to take the time to respond to you. 38:52.290 --> 38:55.150 But really, we don't get a lot of benefit from advertising. 38:55.190 --> 39:01.370 The major benefit is probably from having companies come to us and say, oh, do you know what? 39:01.370 --> 39:08.690 I've seen you do a lot of adverts for that application security people or cloud security people or DevSecOps or whatever it may be. 39:08.690 --> 39:10.630 You're advertising a lot of jobs for that. 39:10.770 --> 39:12.770 So you probably got a lot of candidates. 39:12.770 --> 39:18.390 So I want to talk to you because you're a specialist in that area and I'm looking for a DevSecOps person as well. 39:18.390 --> 39:23.250 So we actually probably get more benefit from the client side rather than the candidate side. 39:25.760 --> 39:26.660 Right. 39:27.320 --> 39:29.080 Your network. 39:29.620 --> 39:32.380 Your network is going to be absolutely key. 39:33.040 --> 39:38.680 The people you know, what companies are your friends, do your neighbours work for? 39:39.200 --> 39:43.040 Are they recruiting for positions that you might be interested in? 39:44.020 --> 39:45.340 How are you networking? 39:45.340 --> 39:46.600 Are you using those? 39:46.640 --> 39:49.060 Think about the people you know in person. 39:49.060 --> 39:51.320 Then you think about your virtual network. 39:51.320 --> 39:53.460 LinkedIn is key for this. 39:53.460 --> 39:54.400 Who do you know? 39:54.400 --> 39:55.660 Who do they know? 39:55.860 --> 40:02.320 Connect with managers that you think may be hiring and take the time when you connect them to write a personal note. 40:03.000 --> 40:05.500 Are you involved with your local community? 40:05.960 --> 40:11.700 The funny thing about this is that we're not meeting up so much in person at the moment, right? 40:11.700 --> 40:16.080 But a lot of the communities are doing a lot of webinars and things like that. 40:16.080 --> 40:21.320 Certainly, my Cloud Security Alliance chapter is doing regular webinars. 40:22.020 --> 40:27.380 So think about getting involved with that, either just as a member or even as a volunteer. 40:27.380 --> 40:30.340 It's a great way to build your network and be involved. 40:30.380 --> 40:32.740 It'll be amazing to see who you might meet. 40:32.740 --> 40:38.840 You've got people like the Cloud Security Alliance, OWASP, ISARCA, ISSA. 40:38.840 --> 40:45.360 You've got other local groups as well that may just have meetups or webinars. 40:45.360 --> 40:47.420 So take a look at meetup.com. 40:47.420 --> 40:48.680 That might help you. 40:48.680 --> 41:01.560 If you're part of an underrepresented group, Cyberjutsu, the YSYS people, the Women in Security and Privacy, ICMCP, the Blacks in Cybersecurity. 41:01.560 --> 41:09.680 Join a group that you feel you will fit in well to, and that can be a great networking opportunity for you. 41:09.680 --> 41:12.100 And you can give back as well at the same time. 41:12.420 --> 41:13.880 Another thing, conferences. 41:15.820 --> 41:17.720 Welcome to DEF CON, right? 41:17.720 --> 41:19.800 You're attending the conference right now. 41:20.140 --> 41:26.320 Conferences are an amazing way to meet people that may well hire you or may be able to even help you. 41:26.880 --> 41:30.220 Most companies nowadays have referral schemes. 41:30.220 --> 41:32.060 They're very, very common. 41:32.260 --> 41:39.660 So even if you're not meeting a hiring manager, you could still be meeting somebody that could refer you internally. 41:40.120 --> 41:44.120 And a referral internally can help you skip a lot of the process. 41:44.120 --> 41:44.740 You'd be surprised. 41:44.740 --> 41:52.420 I know companies that guarantee that if you refer somebody, if somebody internally refers you, they will call you. 41:52.840 --> 41:54.200 You'll definitely get a call. 41:54.200 --> 41:58.020 Now, whether you'll get a full official interview or not, but you'll get at least a phone call. 41:58.020 --> 41:59.000 So you will hear back. 41:59.000 --> 42:05.680 They get back to their referrals in ways that they sometimes don't get back to their advert responses. 42:06.260 --> 42:08.200 So bear that in mind. 42:08.740 --> 42:11.600 The other thing to think about is speakers. 42:12.100 --> 42:15.080 I always say, failing to plan is planning to fail. 42:15.340 --> 42:17.020 It's one of my favourite quotes. 42:17.120 --> 42:24.880 If you're going to go to a conference, if you're going to attend a conference, make sure you're seeing in advance who you want to see talk. 42:24.880 --> 42:29.160 Could they help you in the process of you looking for a role? 42:29.160 --> 42:30.920 Do you want to work for that company? 42:31.020 --> 42:37.400 If it's an in-person one, be that person hanging around the stage afterwards and actually meet the person. 42:37.920 --> 42:43.480 If it's virtual, hopefully, like me, they'll be in a Discord chat and you can talk to them in there. 42:43.780 --> 42:48.660 Or you can reach out to them and say to them, I listened to your speech here and it was great. 42:48.660 --> 42:50.280 It was a really great presentation. 42:50.380 --> 42:53.880 I'd love to connect with you if you're going to connect with me via LinkedIn. 42:54.180 --> 42:57.000 And then the last thing is research and presentations. 42:57.840 --> 43:01.140 This is going to help your credibility hugely. 43:01.560 --> 43:04.260 It's going to be really good for your personal branding. 43:04.620 --> 43:13.660 It's a great, great, great way to network and it's experience that will help you in your career and it will really improve your resume. 43:13.780 --> 43:20.500 So get involved in doing research, presenting research, network and volunteer and help. 43:20.500 --> 43:25.600 These are all great ways to really maximise what you're going to be able to do with your resume. 43:28.400 --> 43:29.680 Right, this one. 43:30.940 --> 43:38.440 72% of cyber security professionals do not believe that their HR department understands their hiring needs. 43:38.440 --> 43:39.220 Ouch. 43:39.220 --> 43:42.140 Wow, that sounds really, really terrible. 43:42.540 --> 43:45.880 I should state here, I know some amazing internal recruiters. 43:45.880 --> 43:54.180 In fact, I'm going to be on a recruitment happy hour panel within DEF CON and some of them I've got so much respect for. 43:54.180 --> 43:58.700 This isn't always actually an internal recruiter's issue. 43:59.060 --> 44:05.340 Internal recruiters that spread at many companies very, very thinly, very thinly. 44:05.600 --> 44:14.500 And they can't get enough just cyber security, job JDs, job descriptions to actually just work in that area, to specialise in that area. 44:14.500 --> 44:15.440 Very tough. 44:15.440 --> 44:16.200 It's a tough ask. 44:16.200 --> 44:26.200 How can you ask somebody that one day could be recruiting for a cyber security person and the next day could be recruiting for an accountant or even recruiting for the same person on the same day? 44:26.560 --> 44:38.600 Really tough ask to expect them to know and understand cyber security, to sort of recognise what's on a resume and recognise the relationships between certain skills or certain tools. 44:38.820 --> 44:49.020 And so it can and it does result in people that have applied actually not getting through to the next stage and being overlooked despite them being really good. 44:49.700 --> 44:52.620 It's very tough ask for internal recruiters. 44:52.620 --> 44:55.060 So I just say don't give them too hard a time. 44:55.060 --> 45:01.700 Even if you've had a bad experience, internal and external recruiters, please don't give any of us a bad time. 45:01.960 --> 45:04.000 We try our best, right? 45:04.320 --> 45:05.720 Now, I will say this. 45:06.720 --> 45:13.480 There are, you know, your first port of call really should be technical hiring people when you're trying to get your resume in front of them. 45:13.480 --> 45:15.420 But there are some great internal recruiters. 45:15.420 --> 45:23.640 If you're working for a very, very large company as an internal recruiter, certain ones have people that specialise just in cyber security. 45:23.640 --> 45:25.060 So they do know what they're doing. 45:25.060 --> 45:34.760 And if they work for a cyber security company or a company, the majority of what they do is in the cyber security business, there's a good chance they're going to know and understand your resume. 45:34.940 --> 45:36.380 So just bear that in mind. 45:36.380 --> 45:40.080 And that stat, by the way, is from the ISRC state of cyber security. 45:40.360 --> 45:41.380 And it is tough. 45:41.380 --> 45:45.500 And I think it's tough because a lot of these roles stay open for a very long time. 45:45.980 --> 45:50.440 And people lose faith in their internal people because of that. 45:50.520 --> 45:53.000 So just bear in mind that don't be rude to people. 45:53.000 --> 45:56.000 Don't be rude to anybody, anybody you speak to. 45:56.000 --> 45:57.100 I've got a rule. 45:57.100 --> 45:57.560 It's funny. 45:58.120 --> 46:08.440 When I used to interview people to come and work for me, one of the first people I would speak to at the end of an interview would actually be the person that worked on the reception desk. 46:08.440 --> 46:10.540 I'd ask what their first impression was. 46:10.540 --> 46:12.040 How was the person to them? 46:12.040 --> 46:16.040 So anybody that's involved in the process, don't be rude to them. 46:16.040 --> 46:17.460 Don't talk down to people. 46:17.460 --> 46:18.680 No need to do that. 46:18.680 --> 46:26.420 And you'd be surprised how much of a say somebody that you may think may not have could have. 46:26.420 --> 46:27.360 So don't do that. 46:27.360 --> 46:29.020 And don't ignore company's process. 46:29.020 --> 46:33.980 If somebody tells you this is the process we go through, don't ignore it. 46:36.700 --> 46:37.420 Right. 46:37.680 --> 46:41.280 So external recruiters, us guys. 46:41.960 --> 46:49.600 When you're looking at external recruiters, you really want to build relationships with ones that specialise in cyber security. 46:49.800 --> 46:58.680 Great way of doing that, you can look at their LinkedIn, of course, you can see what they write, how they describe what they do. 46:58.780 --> 47:03.400 Another way could be looking at the company they work for. 47:03.400 --> 47:07.180 Are they advertising just cyber security positions? 47:07.180 --> 47:08.760 Or are they saying they're specialists? 47:08.760 --> 47:13.480 Because there's an awful lot of specialists in cyber security that aren't actually specialists. 47:13.480 --> 47:17.720 They're generic people and they work on whatever roles that their clients give them. 47:17.800 --> 47:18.060 Right. 47:18.060 --> 47:20.440 So you want to work with specialists. 47:20.440 --> 47:22.340 There's an easy way of doing that. 47:22.460 --> 47:25.740 They have credibility in their industry. 47:26.000 --> 47:41.340 They can put you in front of hiring management and they can also talk to the hiring management, maybe even explain in a little bit more detail and get a little bit technical as to why you are somebody that should get an interview. 47:41.820 --> 47:53.700 And, you know, that credibility, certainly we see our resumes go to the top of the pile when maybe some generic recruiters might have to go through a slightly different process. 47:53.780 --> 47:57.420 So, you know, part of that credibility and stuff will really help you. 47:57.420 --> 48:00.860 A good way to identify them as well is are they involved in the community? 48:01.600 --> 48:03.920 Are they going out and building a network? 48:03.920 --> 48:05.800 Do they go to these conferences? 48:06.500 --> 48:08.240 Do they go to the meetups? 48:08.240 --> 48:10.440 Do they volunteer at these places? 48:10.480 --> 48:13.040 Are they regularly attending these? 48:13.120 --> 48:16.360 Have you given up your personal time to regularly attend them? 48:16.360 --> 48:18.840 Chances are they are dedicated to the industry. 48:18.840 --> 48:20.740 So that's a good way to find them. 48:21.060 --> 48:24.580 They wouldn't be that hard to search for, I'm sure. 48:25.420 --> 48:30.000 They're the recruiters you build your relationships with, you connect with them. 48:30.060 --> 48:36.200 They'll have a network and they'll also give you free cyber security resume advice. 48:36.200 --> 48:39.960 They'll be able to tell you on there what you should maybe change. 48:39.960 --> 48:44.660 They'll be able to use that industry experience to help you during the interview process. 48:44.720 --> 48:51.840 And they're going to be able to really guide you through that process and give you a much better chance of probably getting the job you want. 48:52.020 --> 48:53.560 So, just bear that in mind. 48:53.940 --> 48:57.360 So, coming towards the end of the talk now. 48:58.080 --> 49:00.460 Hopefully I'm not too short and not too long. 49:01.380 --> 49:03.580 Looking at my watch here, hopefully I'm doing all right. 49:03.960 --> 49:06.760 So the takeaways from this. 49:07.780 --> 49:19.400 Let's make sure you understand, and hopefully you do at this stage, you understand why resumes are still so, so important and why they're worth taking the time to make sure that you get them right. 49:20.100 --> 49:27.900 Hopefully you also understand the common mistakes that we see and you can avoid at least those ones. 49:28.740 --> 49:46.660 Also, understanding that relationship of how social media fits into your resume, owning the risk you're going to take, understanding what you're doing when you post things on social media publicly and what the benefits might be to keeping that private. 49:47.480 --> 49:53.800 And then finally, how to get this most amazing resume that you're going to be able to put together. 49:53.800 --> 50:01.940 How are you going to actually be able to maximise it and put it out there and get it in front of the people that will make the decisions. 50:01.940 --> 50:04.820 So hopefully this has been useful for you. 50:07.210 --> 50:09.350 This is the end of the presentation. 50:09.930 --> 50:11.910 You can follow me on Twitter. 50:12.050 --> 50:14.230 I'm actually not on Twitter an awful lot. 50:14.330 --> 50:19.770 A lot of the stuff that I post on LinkedIn, I will also post on Twitter. 50:19.870 --> 50:22.730 LinkedIn really is, I'm a pretty big user. 50:22.730 --> 50:25.370 Anybody that's connected with me probably knows that already. 50:25.370 --> 50:27.250 I'm a big user of LinkedIn. 50:27.250 --> 50:30.590 So absolutely, connect with me, please. 50:30.590 --> 50:36.750 I get a lot of connections and I'm probably turned down maybe 80% of what I get. 50:36.750 --> 50:41.490 So generally, if you work in the cyber security industry, I'm going to accept you. 50:41.630 --> 50:52.370 Please, if you can, if you wouldn't mind, just taking the time to write a little note in that section and tell me if you wanted to connect with me to tell me how terrible my talk was at DEF CON. 50:52.390 --> 50:53.050 That's fine. 50:53.050 --> 50:54.090 I'll still connect with you. 50:54.090 --> 50:56.990 We all need some constructive criticism. 50:56.990 --> 50:59.390 If we can keep it constructive, that would be amazing. 51:00.390 --> 51:05.930 So yeah, connect with me on LinkedIn and mention DEF CON if you did see it there. 51:05.930 --> 51:07.870 So look, thank you very, very much. 51:07.870 --> 51:10.510 Thank you, Kathleen, for the opportunity to speak. 51:10.710 --> 51:12.150 Hopefully I did okay. 51:12.590 --> 51:18.150 And those people that I've maybe sent to sleep, they can wake up now. 51:18.150 --> 51:19.350 At least they got a good nap. 51:19.350 --> 51:20.230 Thank you. 51:20.950 --> 51:22.950 Chris, thank you so much. 51:22.950 --> 51:25.750 You brought up some really great points. 51:25.750 --> 51:35.970 One thing I wanted to point out that a lot of people, a lot of the technical resumes that I've been reviewing in the community, a lot of people use templates. 51:36.010 --> 51:40.910 They believe that the templates are going to make their resumes look pretty. 51:40.910 --> 51:47.150 But when you use the template, it doesn't have the spell check or the formatting check. 51:48.250 --> 51:50.630 Primarily the spell check. 51:50.630 --> 51:57.230 So a lot of people have been using templates to make it look design pretty. 51:57.230 --> 51:59.550 Please, just keep it simple. 51:59.550 --> 52:04.910 Keep it something straightforward for everyone to be able to read. 52:04.910 --> 52:09.130 Love the advice about social media. 52:09.610 --> 52:13.250 Keep an eye that it stays out there. 52:13.250 --> 52:24.050 There's online reputation reports that say that HR managers and recruiters will check your social media before they call you in for an interview. 52:24.050 --> 52:30.270 And you might not like what they view as far as your social media. 52:30.270 --> 52:33.250 So be very careful about that. 52:33.250 --> 52:45.890 Also great recommendations on connecting with recruiters, connecting with them in various different places, socially, online, through conferences. 52:45.970 --> 52:48.590 Always great to be expanding your network. 52:49.090 --> 52:52.930 Chris's team is going to be part of our resume review team. 52:52.930 --> 53:00.870 So be sure you be sure you're signing up for resume review and get some really good advice on that. 53:00.870 --> 53:03.390 Chris, as always, great to have you part of this. 53:03.390 --> 53:06.470 Thank you for being part of DEF CON Hacking Career Village. 53:06.510 --> 53:07.550 Thank you so much. 53:07.550 --> 53:08.510 Thank you for asking me. 53:08.510 --> 53:09.210 It's been great.