Why Cybersecurity Candidates Fail Interviews (From Hiring Managers)

Most cybersecurity candidates prepare the wrong way for interviews.

They focus only on technical questions… but hiring managers are evaluating something completely different.

In this episode, we break down exactly what cybersecurity hiring managers look for during interviews — based on real hiring experience building and managing security teams.

You’ll learn:

• What hiring managers evaluate in the first 10 minutes
 • The biggest mistakes candidates make during interviews
 • Why personality and soft skills matter more than you think
 • How to prepare using the job description the right way
 • What questions you should ask to stand out
 • How to position yourself even if you’re entry-level

If you’re trying to land your first cybersecurity job — or your next one — this episode will help you prepare with confidence.

This isn’t theory. This is real advice from cybersecurity hiring managers. 

Come hang out with us in the Cybersecurity Mentors Skool community. It’s free to join.

Chapters

• 0:00 Cold Open & Pet Peeves On Professionalism
• 0:57 Welcome & Today’s Focus: After You Get The Interview
• 2:25 Calming Anxiety And Setting Expectations
• 4:21 What Hiring Managers Really Look For
• 6:35 Gauging Fundamentals And Tool Experience
• 11:11 Trainable vs Ready: The Skill Gap
• 13:46 Character Traits That Trump Raw Skills
• 17:19 Soft Skills, Teamwork, And Pressure Tests
• 21:05 Know Your Resume And Prove It
• 24:44 Study The Job Description Like A Map
• 29:21 Prepare Tight Stories That Sell
• 31:46 Ask Sharp Questions That Evaluate Them Too
• 34:15 On-Camera Etiquette And Dress Code
• 38:00 In‑Person Basics: Punctuality And Materials
• 40:31 Take Notes And Turn Them Into Questions
• 41:33 Final Prep Recap And Favorite Questions
• 43:32 Mock Interviews: Format And Feedback
• 46:38 Experience, Passion, And Closing CTAs

Transcript

SPEAKER_03: 0:00

I'm interviewing somebody and they have a white t-shirt, okay? And the the background is not even blurred, or they're not, or I don't see a wall. It's literally I can see their kitchen. And I saw their assumed to be their dad walking across, okay? The the back of them. Come on, people, let's be professional.

SPEAKER_01: 0:25

Could you teach me? Then learn fly. Nature rules on your son, not the mind.

SPEAKER_02: 0:33

I know what you're trying to do. I'm trying to free your mind, Neo. But I can only show you the door. You're the one that has to walk through it. What is the most inspiring thing I ever said to you? Don't be an idiot. Changing my life.

SPEAKER_03: 0:57

Welcome back to the Cybersecurity Mentors podcast. Today we're going to talk about what to do after you get the interview. So for multiple episodes now, we've been advising you, giving you some guidance, giving you some examples of what to do to prepare, what to do to stand out, not be like the rest, but give you that step up above everyone. Well, let's talk about okay, after you do all those things and it works, and you get the call, you get the interview. Now what? What are you going to do? How are you going to prepare for that interview? So today we're going to talk about that. We're going to give you some advice from actual hiring managers. John and I both have hired a number of people in cybersecurity. So you're going to hear it, hear it, hear it first. And let's just start with the problem. What's the problem or what's the challenge?

SPEAKER_00: 1:48

Yeah, I mean, I think people that I'm excited. All right, I got the interview scheduled. What do I do? How do I, if I've if it's been forever, maybe you're a career switcher and you haven't had ever had a technical interview, or you've not had one in 20 years, which might be would be my case. Uh well, not that's not true, not in 20 years, but you know, it's been a while. And so you you're like, okay, what to expect? How do I get a leg up? How do I know what they're gonna ask me in this interview? Are is it gonna be a full-on, you know, capture the flag scenario? They're gonna drop me into you got to solve all these challenges. What kind of questions are they going to ask me? It do I need to like study the OSI model before I show up, right? Like, how deep do I need to be prepared? All that anxiousness that comes already with going to do an interview uh and trying to think ahead of how can I be ready to answer every question that they have for me when I show up, because I want to I want to put on my best, my best foot forward. I want to be able to look the best and present to them that I am the candidate. So those that's the problem. I'm sure everybody's been in that situation. I've been in that situation. It's it's there's never not there's never a time when you're like, ah, I don't, I'm not worried about this interview. I got this. It's always nervousness, anxiety. Uh what am I gonna do to be to be able to answer their questions? And that's that's really the problem, especially for a technical interview or a cybersecurity interview that might be technical or not, even GRC. How do you get ready?

SPEAKER_03: 3:34

Yeah, I completely agree. And I think part of the problem is people might take it as a test. Like they might try or think that they need to prepare maybe the same way they would prepare if they were taking a certification or if they were going through a course or something like that. Well, let's talk about what are some of the things that hiring managers look for. You know, what are some of the things that we as hiring managers look for in a candidate? You know, things that can you do this, are you able to do that or show this? Um, that, you know, help you stand out. So for me as a hiring manager, when I'm interviewing somebody, whether it's for entry-level or even mid-level cybersecurity work, I start at the very beginning. And for me is do you understand the fundamentals? Now, what that means is do you have a good grasp of just general IT as well as entry-level cybersecurity, or maybe a step above that if you're applying for a mid-tier cybersecurity job? So that is, right? And we've talked about this. There's been a ton of episodes that we've done about how to get ready. So now it's are you good with networking? Do you understand the networking fundamentals, right? Are you good with certain security tools? Do you have that experience? Do you know how to go through logs? Do you understand what authentication is? Do you understand what risk versus vulnerability is? Do you understand uh uh incident response, how to go through that? Do you know how to run an investigation? Um, do you know what a phishing email does? I mean, there's just certain things, right, that are just key fundamental things for general IT, but also cybersecurity. And I think this is where, you know, I would look at your resume, see what all you've listed that you have experience with, compare that to my position description for my position that you've applied for and I'm interviewing you for, and I would tackle that, right? I would I would focus on what I need. I need someone that has a good understanding of networking because you will be looking at networking logs, you will be looking at uh different IP addresses, um uh maybe using Wireshark, you know, like there's gonna be certain things that I need you to do in my job that I've posted on my job description that either you've said in your resume you have or you can do. So that's kind of where the general fundamental IT questions will come from when if I were the person interviewing.

SPEAKER_00: 6:11

Yeah, you want to get a we want to know where you are in the skill level. Now, there's like a minimum, I would say, if you if you really you probably haven't gotten to the interview phase if you are too low in skills and you don't have those fundamentals. Like you just you just don't have it. You can't show in your resume that I have an understanding, I've got some training, I've done some certificates, I've built some things, and I can show on my paper that are my PDF, whatever I'm submitting, that I have the fundamentals enough to be uh able to apply those in this job. On top of that, then it's what types of skills do we need that are not just that are above those fundamentals that are gonna how long will it take you to get up to speed? If you show up and you've never used the same tools that we we have, that's okay, but you're gonna have to get up to speed in those tools, and that's that's fine. If you've used a similar tool, then that means your time is gonna be shorter, typically. Uh it'll take some time, but it'll be shorter. But we want to know at from a skill level where you are. Now there's not like a um a specific point, I would say, that it needs to be here and because of the way we treat this is we can train you. There's a there's so many things that we know you're going to get up to speed as long as you are trainable. Are you trainable? You know, can you are you coachable? Put it that way. Are you able to take and and show us that you would be somebody that could come in, work with our team, work through the stuff that we've got, work with our tool set, and and then within you know some period of time that's reasonable, you will be ready to actually do the job, right? You would be operate, you'll be operating with the tool sets that we have to do the things we were doing.

SPEAKER_03: 8:12

So I think um just to recap and and tell me if you agree, is we want to understand the baseline, right? Where are you starting from from a technical standpoint, from a fundamental standpoint, whether that's general IT and a little security, like what's your starting point? Because for me as a hiring manager, once I know where you're starting, I already know where I want you to be to be able to do the job. So the bigger that gap is, the least likely I'm gonna be putting you in my top three, right? Because honestly, as a hiring manager, my ideal candidate is somebody that could come in and just hit the ground running, right? Meaning you are that gap between your fundamentals, where you're starting to where I want you to be is as slow or as short as possible. Um, so that is kind of like for me as a hiring manager, I'm interviewing you. That's the first thing I want to know because that will give that, in my opinion, for me as a hiring manager, that's 50% of the interview for me. I want to know where you're starting from. The other 50% is a combination of other things that we'll talk about. But if your skill level, now again, if you've created, if you've done a great resume and it just is amazing, then I want to talk to you because I believe your skill level is at that minimum or at that level that I want you to be. So I'm not gonna be calling you if you know, if if I don't want to waste my time. This also goes to like, hey, if you're lying and using AI to prep you and put up all that fluff and make you amazing, and then in within the first 10 minutes of the interview, I'm trying to gauge you and you're failing. That interview is gonna be the shortest thing ever because you've you lied, first of all, or you're just you know, whatever other reason may be, you're not what you said you were on your resume. So I'm just cut, not wasting my time. Moving on to the next one. So, again, just to recap, just we want to we want to gauge, we want to understand where you are starting from a fundamental technical standpoint.

SPEAKER_00: 10:37

Yeah, I I got a good example. Um, you know, a lot of people will put like, here's the tools that I know or I've used. And and I don't really think that's helpful, honestly, but someone did that did put those on there, and one of the tools, which is one of my favorite tools of all time, was Nmap. And they said, Oh, I use Nmap, you know. I I have a tool that I'm I'm I have skills in. And so I'm gonna ask you about Mmap, right? It's like I said, it's one of my favorite tools. So tell me about Nmap, maybe you know, where what switches do you use to do this, or how would you normally do this kind of a scan, or or what typical scan do you run? Yada yada yada. Just something not super technical, but if you put Nmap on there and then this person their answer, I could tell they had never really they had run it one time in a lab once. They weren't skilled in that tool, they didn't really know how to use that tool effectively. Don't put that on your resume, right? And so that's the kind of things that I will pick at just to see baseline, like you said, where are they? They're putting this out there that they have done this, they put the keyword in there because they think that's gonna get them through the the filter, and then when you show up and you don't know how to use it, well, don't put that on there, right? So with AI, I think it's a good point, is you gotta be honest. You know, when you're in the interview, if you're getting questioned in the interview and you have only used AI to help you solve that problem or understand how to use that tool or to use AI to figure out the challenge for whatever, there you you know, you gotta imagine like AI is there and it's good and it's great to help you, but what if it's not there? And what if you can't use it, or what if you can't use it for that situation? So you got to operate where you're building the the fundamental baseline skills that imagine you don't have AI. Now use AI, but use it to help you learn. Don't use it as that crutch that when you show up in that interview, it Lex isn't gonna be there for you, right? AI is not gonna be able to answer your questions, although people still try to do that with um with with over video, we've had that happen. But you got to be honest about where you are and what and and we're gonna try to we are gonna find out. Don't worry. We're gonna find out where you are. It's you can try to mask it, don't worry. We know we'll we'll be able to figure it out and we'll talk about how we do that too. So the things that um if if 50% of the interview is where you are baseline from a security skills and technical and IT skills, then the other 50% is what who you are as a character, what characteristics do you have? How are you gonna come to the team and make the team better? And I've talked about this before in a previous episode, which I don't even remember which ones, but in the book, The Talent War. And the talent war talks about all these traits that you look for in talent. How do you find talent? That's what the book is about. And I'll run through a couple of these, but you know, the big one, we talked about this on Dave Burke's episode, is humility. If you come in and you're faking it and you're trying to make this seem like you you're gonna have all the answers and the right answer, but you're we really, you really don't know. Um, we're gonna pick up on that. Right? We're gonna we're gonna be able to find out that you think we want you to have all the answers. You think we want you to know everything, versus, hey, I don't know. That one, I don't know. Sorry, I I'm not I've never had any any experience with that thing. Um, I would love to. I I I've had a little bit of this, but I've never used that thing, or I've never done this in a in a real job, I've never done this in a real scenario. Um, being humble, you're not humble, you're not coachable. So we want to find out if you're showing up with with humility and able to be coached and able to learn, right? So some of those things that we're really looking for is your personality, your personal characteristics. And do we feel like you don't know this, this, and this? That's okay. We can we can teach it, and you're gonna get the on-the-job training because you're gonna be doing it every day. Now, like Steve said, the the golden unicorn is somebody that is ready to rock, has the skills, and they have these other characteristic traits, right? Um, they're humble, they have integrity, uh, they're coachable. Some of these other ones are drive. What's their drive like? How how resilient are they? How adaptable are they? Um how well would they work on the team? Because it's not a it's not a solo sport, right? It's a team sport. Those kind of things, that's in my opinion, those trump skills to some extent. They don't they're not like the may they're not gonna trump everything, but they trump a lot. If you don't have the skills, but you are adaptable, you're curious, you're driven, you're gonna be coachable, you're humble, and we don't think the gap is too much, right? Like, okay, this person's amazing. We think they would be just killer, but they are just man, they're just so far, it's gonna start from square one, then that's that's a factor and it's gonna be tough. So the closer, you know, have these things, work on these things if you need to, but the closer you get your skill set up to the level of getting the reps in, as I always say, right, the better you're gonna be as a candidate. But if if these things here, there's something that doesn't smell right, something doesn't feel right, you're trying to fake it, you're trying to act like you're you know you're awesome, but there's something not right to it, you know, that's silly. It's this silliness, right? Just come in and be honest. Be honest about what you know, be honest about what you don't know. So those two pieces of the fundamentals and skills and your characteristic traits are the are very, very, very important, and those two come together.

SPEAKER_03: 16:56

I completely agree. And this goes out to our listeners, our viewers. There is a world, and we know this because we've done this, where if you are from a personality standpoint, a solid fit, and you're not so strong on the technical realm, but like John said, you're coachable, you're humble, and you're honest, you can get the job. Like you can absolutely get the job. Now, this is again our opinions, right? But we've done this. You know, we have posted a position out there for entry-level work, and we interviewed a number of people, and there were people with, and you we've heard you guys have heard these stories in previous episodes. There were people with three, four-page resumes with you know, applying to these entry-level work, and they were just maybe they had a lot of the technical aspects of it, but on the personality standpoint, they sucked. And for us, now again, look, this is our opinions, John and I. We have a way that we like to hire, we have a culture that we want to continue to grow and build up build upon. So for us, certain things carry more weight than others. You might go to a different corporate environment and they could give they could care less about your personality because they're gonna stick you in a cube and you're just gonna be a working ant for them, and they don't care that you get along with your buddy next door, right? So, again, these are just our opinions for our kind of our work environment. But let's be honest, any real, true, successful security team needs a lot of the things that we are talking to you about. And there are a lot of organizations that kind of do the same, that prioritize culture, prioritize teamwork, prioritize, hey, we're all in this together, let's help each other out. It's not individual, you know, there's no I and team. So, again, this is for the majority of the positions you're gonna go out there, this will work for you. So, one of the things I want to say is you have to know your resume inside and out. You have to know it completely. You have to know exactly what you put on your resume. The example John gave about Nmap is a great example. Um, and I see it all the time. People just, hey, it's a keyword, it's a hot topic, I'm gonna throw it in there, and that's just that's gonna add ammo to my resume, and that's gonna get me picked. You go ahead and do that. And when I see that on your resume, I'm gonna ask you about it. And if you can't answer a good question, negative points right then and there, right? Negative points. And I say this all the time: the resume is the appetizer, it's not the main course. The main course is the interview. Whether it's one interview or two interviews or three interviews, whatever their interview process is, that's the main course. That is where you get to shine, you get to show your personality. But you need to know your resume inside and out. Because if you don't, and I ask you questions about stuff that are on your resume and you don't know how to answer, or you don't have a good story about it, or you don't even remember that you put that on your resume. Oh my God, how embarrassing is that?

SPEAKER_00: 20:00

Yeah, I actually um I met with the NSA this week that came to come visit some students that are applying for some internships with them. And actually, I was really really impressed on how they do it. They they bring you in as like an apprentice, apprentice, and you can try a blue team, try red team. So shout out to them. They they make it very flexible, they want to give you opportunities to move through. But the thing that they said that I was over there shaking my head was um, you know, they they value the soft skills. This is the NSA, you know, top intelligence agency for for the United States of America, right? They're how he mentioned this, like this is what we value. We value the soft skills, we value communication, we value how you talk and how you communicate with others. And so that's that's another piece that we're looking for. And we've we've done whole episodes on soft skills and how people neglect the soft skills, they focus on the technical skills. We're talking about that again here. We can teach you technical, as long as you have the you're you're they're there, you can be taught. Not everybody can be taught, honestly. I I used to think everybody can learn this stuff. There's some people that can't. It's just not for them, right? It's just not their in their wheelhouse. Most people, if you're hungry, you're passionate, you're driven, you're ready to go, you're getting after it, you can learn these things. But they specifically highlighted these are the things we're looking for. We're looking for the soft skills. We want to see how you work, we want to see how you interact with the others, we want to see how you work as a team. They specifically said team ability, working with the team. So when you're apprenticing with them, they're watching you and to see how you work in a team. They actually come down to these competitions to look for students who are in these stressful environments and and under the guns with the C C D C and things. And they're trying, they're watching to see how you work under pressure because you're under pressure, you're getting beat up by the red team. And that is specifically what they said is like we want to see how you work. They said, We don't even care if you win. We don't care if you win. We care how you handle things in those moments, in those tense moments, and how you work together as a team. Are you humble? And those are the best ways you find. Out. Are people humble? Are they blaming everybody? This is what happened. This is the ownership. You know? Oh, so and so he didn't give me what I needed, so that's why I'm my I failed in the task that I was given. Or I didn't get it in time. So whatever, whatever, right? We make excuses. And it's easy to make the excuses for saying, look, y'all, I dropped a ball. So those are the things that we try to pull out in an interview of are they open and honest about where they are? And then we put them in the gauntlet. We put them in those situations to find out how do you communicate under pressure? Are you able to talk through your process and be and talk through your your mind and how you're navigating what you're doing? Right. And try to tease those things out. And honestly, I believe that if you put people in those those heated situations, that's where you kind of see what's what and what they not only what they know, but also how they are able to use their soft skills. What are they lacking in? And will they work well with us? Because as I always say, on day one of your job, you might be in the fire. The fire might be happening day one. And it's okay if you don't know that tool, but if you don't know how to work with us and triage and communicate and help your team be better, right? That's a major piece of like, can you help us be better? Look, I don't know how to do this right now, but I'll do anything. What do you need me to do? You need some coffee, you need some pizza, need something? I got you. I got your back, right? I'm here to help us be successful.

SPEAKER_03: 24:06

No, ran over. Drop mic. Yeah. No, I mean that there's just a lot of solid advice there. And a lot of it is stuff that we've we've said in other episodes. We've said in other podcast episodes, we've talked about before. But listen, guys, if you hear us say it multiple times, it's because it is very important and it matters. You know, we're not gonna waste our time giving you fluff. No, we're giving you the real deal here. Like things that we as hiring managers look for. So before that, I mentioned, you know, go kind of going back to like this is what you need to do to prepare for the interview, right? We talked about making sure that you know the fundamentals, right? The the fundamentals of general IT and cybersecurity, making sure that you know your resume inside and out. Make sure you know exactly what you have on your resume, and you can talk about every single thing that you have on your resume, okay? The other thing I want to talk about is you have to know that position description inside and out for that job that you're going to apply to, or sorry, for the job that you're going to interview for. You need to know it inside and out. And how I would suggest people prepare is have the position description, right? If if you follow our our content and you've listened to our other podcasts uh episodes, then you reviewed the position description before you applied. You tailored your resume as much as you could to fit that position description, and that's what you used to apply. Okay, so perfect. So you've already done some of the work there. So now, as you're reviewing that position description, now with a different mentality, like, okay, now I'm gonna go into an interview about these things. You it should be pretty easy for you to list out, okay, here's the position description, here's everything that they're looking for, here's my resume, here are things in my resume that match with what they're looking for that I used to tailor my resume and give examples on my resume. And now make sure you have for every single thing that they ask for or examples that they give in the position description, you have something, whether it's something that you've put on your resume already, or it's something that you maybe learned pretty quickly or got up to speed pretty quickly between when you got that call of hey, we're we want to interview you to when the interview is. Make sure you do a little bit of studying, a little bit of catch-up, just so you know what the hell they're talking about if they ask you about that. And then just keep going down that list. And you need to do that, and you need, I'm not saying memorize it, but I'm saying you need to know that position inside and out, you need to know your resume inside and out, and you need to know what's on your resume that matches that position description, and what are new things that you did not know or you have no experience with that you had to go do some research, chat GPT, whatever, just a quick what is this, and fill those gaps in and have that ready to go for that interview. Because if it's on the position description, they may still ask you about it, even if you don't have it on your resume. Because they want to, you know, for example, me, I'm like, well, this is a one-page resume. They followed the guideline, they followed the golden rule for entry-level work. So maybe they didn't have enough space to put in little extra things. So I'm gonna ask you about it just to confirm that it's something you don't know, or there's a reason why it's not on your resume, right? Now, if I'm asking you that and it's not something that you had any experience with that you didn't put on your resume, but you tell me as the hiring manager, I actually don't have any experience with that. But when I saw it on the position description, I looked it up pretty quickly, and this is what I know. Dude, initiative! You're showing initiative. That's a point for you, brownie point for you, my friend. So those are the things that they might be small, but they matter so much when you're in the interview. And 80% of the stuff that they're gonna ask you questions about is stuff that matters to them, meaning it's in the position description, and stuff that you said you know how to do that is on your resume, because they want to compare the both and make sure that they do mesh. And they want to make sure that the experience they assume you have based on your resume is accurate. So they're just making sure, confirming, okay, he gave me this example on his resume of using this tool and following this process that I have on the position description. Let me just ask him again and maybe ask him to clarify or ask him to give me a story with more detail to make sure this isn't AI generated. And he actually said, or he actually did what he said he did.

SPEAKER_00: 28:55

Yeah, and uh we had in here about sharing stories, right? And and you know me, I like talking about stories like sharing stories. Have some stories that you've practiced that back up what you have on your resume, and it could be about your lab, it could be about something you experienced while learning, while you're you know, you were doing and trying to figure out a thing. The lab is a is a cool thing. We talked about that um with uh Doug Burke. Like having that is a good conversation topic to talk about in an interview, but have have your stories. Here's my let here's my point about the stories. Have stories, have the stories have an ending that's clear, don't make them too long. They should be a minute, maybe two minutes. If it's very, very amazing story, I'll give you three minutes, right? But it has to be good because people will start their story and it really doesn't have a point, and it's long, it's rambling, and you're and everybody's sitting here thinking, is this person gonna stop talking about this? Or when are they gonna stop talking? I mean, I'm telling you, right? I've been in those situations. So stories sell. We talked about this. Go listen to our episodes about stories and telling, using stories. Those are things to hook in to make you different, make you stand out. What is this person telling me? I'm now now I'm focused on what they're telling me their story versus um just a random question, answer, question, answer, question, answer, right? But practice them. It is don't memorize them. This is important. Don't go in and be like, oh yeah, well, I forgot that part that happened here. No, what happened? Beginning, what changed, what, what made why was the story important? How was I changed by what happened? And how did it wrap up, right? Um, and so this is very important. Is it is good to have stories, just don't abuse it, don't go too long, keep them with a point in mind, keep them short, practice them, get somebody to listen to your story and be like, dude, that was boring. You gotta change this story, right? So mix it up. Um but I do think having those stories is important. The last thing I would say is like things to bring to do on your part to the interview is have questions and use what Steve said of like, here's everything that was on their their wish list, wish list in the job description. But you should have questions about what they're doing, what their mission is, what their challenges are, what's their day-to-day like, what are they like doing. Um, and and those kind of things. Those stand out as well. You you, as we've said this before, you are also interviewing them. You might be desperate, you might be like, look, any cybersecurity job is a job. If I get experience, that's a what I that's what I want. But you you really truly need to evaluate them. It might be an amazing opportunity, but in the wrong place and the wrong culture and the wrong setting, and your life would be miserable, even though you're gonna try to get these skills. So bring those questions. It most of the time, people I think fail on asking questions. We will say, and do you have any questions for us? We always say that. Sometimes they most of the time they have a question, but it might be a question. That's it. And it might be like, hey, what do the benefits look like? Right? Like, uh, you want to talk to HR? Um, I mean, they're pretty good, right? Like, that's how we're gonna answer. Um, I mean, we can tell you some specifics, but that's not an interesting question to bring. Yeah, right. Bring interesting questions that show us that you are trying to evaluate this position and you are interested in what the job is like and what the culture is like, and what is it really gonna look like? Do the question should make me think this is how you know it's a good question. Like, I am being interviewed in a way, not like I'm you're drilling me, but like we are being evaluated. Our organization is being evaluated because they're not just gonna take anything, they want to take the right opportunity. They want it to be like this is a I am interested in actually committing because it is a life commitment, it's a big commitment. So I should feel like you are asking me questions because you are evaluating this position and what it's gonna be like in this job. If I don't feel that way, then it then you know you're missing an opportunity, is my point.

SPEAKER_03: 33:36

I want to talk about now some of just, you know, some people may be like, oh, Steve, that's a no-brainer. That's duh. Who wouldn't do that? You'd be surprised, okay? Depending on how the interview is, whether it's just an over-the-phone interview, whether it's a Zoom interview, like a virtual meeting interview, or if it's in-person meeting, you know, dress to impress, my friend. You want to start off with the right foot. Like if it's a virtual meeting, meaning you're on camera, make sure, first of all, at least half of your body is good to go. Make sure you got a clean background. You know, take the time to prepare. Set the camera at an angle where you got a wall or something. Don't set it where people could be walking by or there's distractions that other people could be focused on, right? Like, let's let's actually give two F's what our background is, okay? Like, really, do um make sure you are good, make sure your face is good, your hair is good, at least half of your body that you can see in camera is good, looks professional. Don't wear a white t-shirt, don't wear something with holes, don't wear anything that's gonna cause it, uh just make people be like, what the what are they wearing? They're not taking this seriously. Like, dress professionally, okay? Dress like you actually give two cents about this interview.

SPEAKER_00: 34:58

I think even overdress than what you think the position like don't go crazy, don't show up in a tux. But I think like you might think they're wearing business casual.

SPEAKER_03: 35:08

You need to be wearing yes, men wear a suit, young ladies, uh a nice blouse, or even a lady suit. Like, yeah, like make sure that the other person watching through the screen says, ooh, they take this seriously. And how I know that is because they took the time and effort to dress up and look professional. They care about this interview. So I am the hiring manager, am also going to care about this interview. If I'm this has happened to me, I'm interviewing somebody and they have a white t-shirt, okay, and the the background is not even blurred, or they're not, or I don't see a wall. It's literally I can see their kitchen. And I saw their assumed to be their dad walking across, okay, the the back of them. Come on, people, let's be professional. Let's let's care. Let's let's give two Fs what's on our background. Okay, that's that's one point. Two, you want to always turn your camera on. I don't care if the person interview interviewing you doesn't turn their camera on, you turn your camera on. Okay, and if they tell you, hey, sorry, for whatever reason, I'm not turning my camera on, so I don't expect you to turn it on. That is your choice, then if you want to turn it off. If I were you, I'd be like, oh, it's okay, I'll I'll leave it on. You know, but like I don't care, it doesn't matter, right? Like that's that's just that's your own opinion. But always start with your camera on, always assume that if it's a virtual meeting, the camera is gonna be on. And if you don't have your camera on and I ask you, hey, can you turn your camera on? Because everybody else has their camera on, and you give me some BS excuse why you can't turn your camera on and I'm getting heated because this has happened. Interview done. I'm not wasting my time with you.

SPEAKER_00: 36:56

Yeah. Like, oh, we're turning cameras on? Yeah, what? Yeah. Like, would you show up at a real in-person interview and be like, oh, you want to see me?

unknown: 37:08

Like this.

SPEAKER_03: 37:09

I got a bag over my face over my head. I'm not, you want you want me to take it off?

SPEAKER_00: 37:12

Yeah, yeah. No, that it's so funny that these are great points because you would think these are obvious, but we have had those exact same things happen. Like just not showing up and then not turning your camera on, like, what is this person? You're setting a bad example out the gate.

SPEAKER_03: 37:29

And I and I can't say it's generational, like some generation, no, older, younger, we've seen this. So it's it's just it's a no-brainer. Um, the other thing I wanted to say was if you are meeting in person, then you absolutely need a dress professional, you absolutely need to be on time, be like 10 minutes early. Like, I you know, depending on where you live, depending on how far it is, like drive over there the day before if you need to, so that you can time traffic, you know where to park, you know where the entrance is, you you know these things. Because if you're waiting until the day of to show up and you don't give yourself enough time, you you're you could be late. And me as the hiring manager, this meeting has been scheduled for over a week or a week or two weeks, a month, whatever. I'm expecting you to be there on time. I'm not gonna give two Fs if you say, Oh, traffic was bad, or oh, I couldn't find the front door. Bro, do your homework. Do you want this job or not?

SPEAKER_00: 38:28

I mean, it's Google Maps, right? Bring up the map at least and map it and look at the the building. Okay, street view, here it is. Like that's a minimum. Absolutely, but uh, but for sure, show up and make sure you know where to go, right? And it should be like the world is ending if you're there late.

SPEAKER_03: 38:48

Because the your world might be ending if the world if you're late, because you're probably not gonna get the job. That's right. Um so anyway, the other thing, look, people might say, Steve, that's old school, man. That's old. No, screw that. If you go in person to an interview, you better bring copies of your resume. You know, bring 10, bring, you know, however many. If you can tell in the invitation how many people they've invited, bring that many resumes plus more. Because sometimes, you know, they might invite somebody and not put them in the invitation, the the uh calendar invitation. So just bring more copies of your resume. Now, I'll say this sometimes as the hiring manager, if I'm the hiring manager and it's my job to hire to interview you, I already will have a copy of your resume. But there might be other people that I invited that I want their opinion. They were busy, they couldn't print out your resume or whatever, so they may not have a copy. So if you bring a copy with you, that makes things even easier for them, right? And that just shines that that's another good point for you.

SPEAKER_00: 39:55

Absolutely. Yeah, uh last thing I'll say um before we wrap this is take uh write, bring your notebook. My opinion, bring a notebook, write down notes. Don't just show up with your notebook and your binder and you're and it's closed the whole time. You should be writing down notes, and this also leads into the questions. Okay, they said this, very good, said that, very interesting. And then when you're going back to hey, you got any questions? Yeah, yeah. When you see when you guys said this, you can you tell me a little bit more about what you mean there? What does that look like? Yada, yada, yada. So if you there again, it shows that you're taking it seriously. You are wanting to ask us questions, you want to know more about you're studying this position, you're studying this job. You know, this is us, you're proving to us that you are taking it seriously if you do that.

SPEAKER_03: 40:49

I absolutely agree. All right, so let's let's just recap real quick. All right. So, some of the things you need to do to prepare are make sure you are comfortable with the fundamentals, just general IT fundamentals, general cybersecurity fundamentals. Make sure you know your resume inside and out, make sure you know the position description inside and out. We didn't we didn't quite mention this, but make sure you know what the company that you're applying to, what they do. Do they offer a service? Do they offer a product? What what what does this company do? Right? How do they make their money? What's important to them, right? Make sure you do your homework on the company you're gonna go interview for. Um, you know, and then uh remember what John was talking about, right? We want to be humble, we wanna be honest, we wanna make sure that we show good communication skills, right? Are you able to explain a technical concept in a very simple way? Can you get your grandma to understand this topic, right? Think about it like that. Um, some of the other things are make sure you have stories prepared, like John was talking about. Make sure you have at least three stories. Make sure you know you can talk about the problem, the actions you took to solve the problem, and then what was the result of all of that, right? Make sure that you have those prepared and you have some good examples. Make sure you have questions for them. They could be questions that you think of as you're taking notes, like John suggested. They can be questions that you bring with you. One question I like to uh um I like to tell people to ask is if I were to get this position, what does success look like for you in the first 30, 60 days? Boom. Like, what can I be doing to from so that I could be successful within that time frame? That's one of my favorite questions that I tell people to ask, and I like it when I receive. I'm like, ooh, okay, I like this. Um, and then the last thing I want to talk about is if you need a little extra help, if you would like to work with us, we do offer mock interviews sessions. What that is, is we will put you through an interview. We will literally interview you for a position as if you were applying for that position. Now, this could be what we've what we've seen or what we've worked with with people is they will apply to a job, they'll get a call and say, Hey, Steve, we we love what we saw. We would like to schedule an interview with you for next week. They'll hit us up and say, Hey, John Steve, I got the interview for this position. They'll send us the position description. It is next week on Thursday. Could I schedule a time between now and then to do a mock interview of this position with you before I go to my actual job interview? And if the schedule permits, we will squeeze you in. Now, that is a full-hour interview with an additional feedback session afterwards. So John and I will review the position description and we will interview you as if you as if we are the hiring managers for that position. Now, I have to say this everything we ask is not going to be identical to what they might ask you, but you will be better prepared for it if you run through this with us than if you did not. So after that, then you get a feedback session. 30 minutes, 45 minutes of just us giving you feedback after the interview. We'll do start to finish, after we'll do feedback session where we say, Look, man, we asked you this question, the response was okay, you need to strengthen it. And here's some advice on how to do that. Or hey, this was great. This story was great. Keep it, give this exact story in the actual interview, or whatever it may be. But it's literal feedback from two hiring managers to you that you can use in your advantage for when you actually have the official interview. So that is a service that we offer. Join our school community. And if you are interested, send us a message and we will hook you up. Now, you don't have to already have a job interview in question. If you just want to practice, if you want to dust off some cobwebs, if you haven't interviewed in a while, or if you've never done a technical IT cybersecurity interview before and you don't even know what that's like, set something up with us, you know, and we will kind of run you through it so that you get that experience and you get that feeling, and you're not like dying of nervousness when you go because you have something to compare it to.

SPEAKER_00: 45:19

Yeah, and on that, I think the baseline of where you know where you are is important, right? Getting the feedback of, okay, here's I went through this step. We you got evaluated by us, and we tell you, hey, you gotta work on this. You gotta you're weak here, this this is something you gotta work on. That's feedback, right? That's feedback that is is very valuable for you to go and and prepare for those other interviews, and or just where you need to what your skills are and where you your gaps are, right? So I think that that is also important, not just to dust off cobwebs, but like, hey, where am I? Well, let's go through this, let's see what it would be like if it was a real job.

SPEAKER_03: 46:07

Absolutely. Well, anything else from you, John, before we end the episode today?

SPEAKER_00: 46:14

No, I mean, as you can see, um, we we are passionate about this. So we we have we have um we have advice, we have guidance, and some of the we have pain points that we've seen, right? And we've been through many interviews. I've hired whole teams, um, right? Um, hired every position type you can think of in cybersecurity. Um, so we're not just talking from from just no experience. We have a lot of experience. We also have been through our own interviews and and that that experience for cybersecurity, right? Um, so those things that we're bringing to you, we we really do believe in, we really do look for, we really do um want to help you in those areas that you can be the best prepared that you can for these jobs.

SPEAKER_03: 47:02

Absolutely. So, with that, we're ending the episode. But before we go, join our school community if you got any questions whatsoever. Even if you're not ready for the whole mock interview thing, you still have interview questions, join our school community, post them on there. We'll get back to you, we'll give you some advice, some free resources, anything that we have that can help you, we will share it with you for free. All right, with that, we're out. Thank you for tuning in to today's episode of the Cybersecurity Mentors Podcast.

SPEAKER_00: 47:30

Remember to subscribe to our podcast on your favorite platform so you get all the episodes. Join us next time as we continue to unlock the secrets of cybersecurity mentorship.

SPEAKER_03: 47:39

Have questions, topic ideas, or want to share your cybersecurity journey? Join our school community, the Cybersecurity Mentors, where you don't have to do this alone. Connect with us there and on YouTube. We'd love to hear from you. Until next time, I'm John Hoyt. And I'm Steve Higgeretta. Thank you for listening.