Graduated in December 2023 with a Bachelors in Computing and a Cybersecurity minor. Have applied to hundreds of positions in those three listed main fields, all over the country, with not much luck. I am currently based in Houston, but I am definitely open to relocate. I passed the CompTIA Security+ exam in April and have also been advancing my knowledge base through tech industry related podcasts, YouTube channels, newsletters, and online challenges. Professionally I have had my resume critiqued many times and have recently gotten involved in Toastmasters and career coaching with an emphasis on interview skills.

What was your GPA?

I'd suggest trying to get involved in local trade and industry groups. Don't just show up volunteer to help, take notes, solicit sponsors, stack chair if you have to. Build relationships with people doing the hiring.

GPA was 3.45; thank you for the suggestion!

What type of position are you looking for?

Any help desk and sys admin experience?

IronGold said:

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Graduated in December 2023 with a Bachelors in Computing and a Cybersecurity minor. Have applied to hundreds of positions in those three listed main fields, all over the country, with not much luck. I am currently based in Houston, but I am definitely open to relocate. I passed the CompTIA Security+ exam in April and have also been advancing my knowledge base through tech industry related podcasts, YouTube channels, newsletters, and online challenges. Professionally I have had my resume critiqued many times and have recently gotten involved in Toastmasters and career coaching with an emphasis on interview skills.

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IMO, you are probably doing it wrong.

Have you applied for positions or submitted your resume? I find most people submit their generic resume. I'm currently looking to hire someone in the tech field. It is a Sr position outside what you're looking at, but thought I'd comment.

I am personally going through each resume and there have been 46, so far. I told HR I wanted to see what talent the Req attracted. Less than 10 of them were submitted for this position and mention anything about our company/product. Just the same generic resume probably submitted for hundreds of open reqs. Probably 15 of them have no idea what they submitted their resume for. One person works in a pharmacy. One is an Admin Asst. If I say you need knowledge of a product, say, Cisco... or SAP... or Oracle... it'd help if you either listed that or gave me an indication you know who they are.

About me
I've only "looked" for a job twice and once was right out of college. Submitted a handful of resumes to jobs I found in the newspaper and got the 1st one to interview me. It was a bit of luck, but after the 1st interview I studied up on the technology and during the 2nd interview her response was "if you prepared that much between the 1st and 2nd interview, I think you will do well here." The other was in 2009 during the economic crisis. The company and product went defunct and I had to reinvent myself. I applied to over 100 positions. And by applied... I customized each resume specifically for each job and save the resume with the date applied and position. I saved the text of the position I had applied to. It was my full time job. Relatively speaking, I had great success considering everyone was locked up and almost every company was get rid of people.

Ultimately in 2009, and every other job I got after the 1st one, was something handed to me that I never had to apply for. 3 of the 4 were jobs that never posted that I found out about by someone in the company. The 1 job I actually saw posted, I reached out to someone I knew at the company and his boss was the hiring manager. He told his boss that I was the one that trained him and knew far more than he did.

None of that matters to you, but that is free advice for your career. Network. Help others. Invest in others and when the time comes, you'll likely benefit.

About you
I mentor lots of young people. You list 3 very different job profiles... Software, IT, Cybersecurity. That's like coming out of HS saying you were in the Drams Club, played Football, and were in Shop. Hopefully you are keeping 3 different resume profiles. I get it... you are not sure where you will hit, so you are probably keeping your options open.

Do you have a preference in terms of working corporate IT, partner, vendor?! Do you want to dig into the technology and participate in the Dev... manage the tech... or participate?!

Take Public Cloud like AWS and Azure. You could work for one of them and help build/design those solutions, you could help customers implement applications on them, or you could be the company looking to move Apps to the Cloud.

Cybersecurity is probably the hardest to get into. It doesn't lend itself to OJT. It has the most opportunity because it is specialized and hard to get into. At one point I got my CISA and CISSP, but that's a story for another day. I'm not saying to not look here, but you want to be very prescriptive about what you bring.

Software itself isn't an area I can really opine. I have a perspective, but outside being a user, I don't have much knowledge... nor interest.

IT - can mean almost anything. PCs, Networks, Infrastructure...

The market right now, at least in my world of IT is very slow. With Interest Rates high and all of the economic uncertainty and turmoil... companies are being slow to hire and a soft hiring freeze. We are only replacing necessary backfills.

Don'ts:
Don't look at Job Sites for jobs. You are competing with 100s of people.
Don't apply via Job Boards. WorkDay will tell the hiring manager you applied from a Job Board. I spend less time on those applicants because they generally don't know what our company does. It shows in their submission.

Do's:
Maintain a LinkedIn profile. It will be one of your career assets.
If you are in Houston... look at the O&G websites and look through jobs.
If you find something on a Job Board, go to that companies site and look at not just that job, but other jobs. They may have something you didn't know about that may be more interesting. You at least know they could be hiring. Include something about the company in your resume.

Search LinkedIn to see if you are connected with someone at the company. Maybe you are connected to someone who is connected with someone at the company. People are often willing to be a "Referral" because companies often pay for referrals. More importantly, ask for an introduction and then have a plan to ask the person questions about the job, company, etc. Don't just ask for a referral learn about the job.

Another thing I do... probably not unique, but when I interview someone, I look them up on LinkedIn. They are like a BFF by the time I leave their page. Had one guy from Florida who was an FSU football fan. I just happened to work in a reference to college football and I steered the conversation about how great Bobby Bowden was. He couldn't help but tell me how big of an FSU fan he was and from there, he spent 10 mins telling me about FSU football. He was ready to take me to get a couple beers by the end of the interview. If you have a good intervew, after the interview, ask if you can connect with them on LinkedIn. That's a way of expanding your network.

Stay positive and aggressive. Look at company sites that make equipment. For Network Security... companies like Fortinet, Palo Alto. For Cloud... get an AWS and/or Azure account. Get access to some of the technologies and get hands-on experience especially if you are looking at a company and they have "free/trial" SW. If you don't have a github account, that may expose you to some things. Infrstructure... Cisco, HP, Dell. Look for Inside/Outside/Digital Sales, look at Inside Business Dev type positions. It is a relatively new area companies are investing that help Entry level candidates join and they can sift people into roles/paths from there. Look at large companies in your area that likely need IT help.

I'm not sure how far you are getting into the process. But good luck to you. It is a tough environment, but something will break open for you.

Hope some of that helps.