hi everyone i'm vinisha welcome back to
my channel on this channel i talk all
about cyber security and how you can
succeed as a woman in cyber security so
let's get started straight off it's the
new year it's all about vision boards
goals a mission for your life elevation
for your career
you know there are things we have things
what we need to do is we need to put a
plan in place in the early stages of my
career i really struggled to get my
plans in place and get it happening in
the new year etc but if you're at that
point where you're starting out your
career and or you're looking to elevate
i highly encourage you even if it's just
a few line items that you put together
on where you want to be
a year from now six months from now
three years from now whatever your
timeline put that down so that you can
visualize it and so that you can see how
valid and actionable that actually is
building a study plan for cyber security
the first uh kind of thing that you need
to keep in mind here is that this is an
evolving uh world it's an evolving field
it's not something that you can put down
what you're going to be doing for the
next three years
because honestly things change so
quickly within cyber security the
technology evolves there
are new threats materializing and you
know cyber security professionals tend
to
do um
you know certain qualifications bootcamp
certifications in one area and then when
you start getting into the workplace you
might find yourself in a completely
different space
so it's not something that is fixed and
your mindset should not be fixed on what
you're gonna do for the next three years
or so
um how i build my study plan is to map
out where i want to be in one year from
now and that's really just high level in
terms of what role i might want to be in
if you want to work for a particular
organization or in a particular space
put that down as part of your vision and
then
what i actually do is i look at the
requirements in
that specific role where i want to be
what are the certification requirements
what are the technical requirements what
is the
soft skill requirements that i need to
have do you want to move into a people
management kind of space you need to
have different skills for that and that
really informs what i put down for my
annual vision for
what i want to do for the year
but when it comes to actually defining
my goals
and putting
dates and times to my goals and
deadlines i do that on a quarterly basis
so i will build out what my goals are
for
one quarter of the year and this is how
i do that firstly i start with what i
want to study and why so
what certification do i want to get and
why do i want to do it so to give you a
practical example for quarter one of
this year
i'm going to be doing another microsoft
certification it's going to be the sc200
certification and that's because i want
to
learn more about the security operations
and analysis side of things work on the
sim components like sentinel etc so
that's what i'm going to do and that's
why i'm going to do it because it's
going to elevate my career long term i'm
going to be able to have better
conversations with my customers i'm
going to be able to better through it
and understand the technology etc so
that's what i want to do and that's why
then the next thing is does this
uh component that i want to do fit into
my overall career plan and remember my
career plan i've now defined for one
year in the beginning before i even went
down to the quarter of putting my ac 200
certification in one quarter
and the answer there is yes because at
the end of this year i want to have done
a bunch of or not a bunch three
cloud certifications um in order to
bolster my knowledge about cloud and
cloud security specifically so this year
is going to be a cloud-focused year for
me it's going to be driven into cloud
because i am a cloud
security architect so it just makes
sense that i elevate my portfolio a
little bit more in the cloud space so
yes it does fit into the longer term
time frame of what i have planned for my
career what you want to do once you've
selected a particular
certification that you want to do boot
camp that you want to do etc
what you want to do is plan for your
timeline
remember
goals are actionable when they're
firstly achievable and secondly when
they have a deadline you have to set a
deadline for yourself and you have to
find a way to hold yourself accountable
otherwise you may not execute on your
goals and that's so important so the
next step is what is your timeline so to
give you the practical example again for
the ac 200 i've researched and i have
found that
sort of my timeline and how much time i
need to study for this exam is going to
be about 30 to maybe 45 hours to study
for this exam and then i still need to
do hands-on labs and i still need to
practice
do some practice exams so that i can get
into the right mindset etc so so you get
it
you need to understand what the
resources are that you're going to be
using to study for your exam or
certification and you need to understand
what the timeline is associated to that
so
now you've put down what you want to do
now you put down
sort of how you're going to do it so
what are your resources what's the time
frame etc and
then you put that into a specific
timeline so now
i can see that i'm in january at the
moment and ac
is very achievable for me for this
quarter because i only need about
40 to 45 hours to prepare for this now i
have a full-time job i have a business
that i'm running so those 40 to 45 hours
and i have a family so those 40 to 45
hours has to come in between somewhere
where i'm not
doing my kids homework and i'm not
working in my full-time job and i'm not
doing my business so it's not
necessarily going to take you only
one week to prepare for the
certification by means that it's 40 to
45 hours might take me two months to
prepare for the certification and be
fully ready but
what i'm now going to do is i'm going to
move to the next step which is to book
the exam
so i'm at the point where i've already
done all the research i know what
resources i'm going to be using for to
prepare for the ac 200 and i now need to
book my exam so i'll be booking my exam
for about
the end of february perhaps first week
in march and by booking the exam that's
how i'm gonna be keeping myself
accountable to actually
executing and actioning this goal
because i've now
paid the money or committed myself and
i've now booked the exam disclaimer i
work for microsoft so i don't really pay
for the microsoft exams but um
you get the point all right and i think
the final
step here is
especially for
beginners in the industry and for people
trying to build their
professional profile and network you
have to showcase your skills
while you're studying this is sort of um
a part of the study plan that i think
not many people include but you have to
include a once a week time slot where
you've sat down and you've captured
the lab that you've built or you've
captured the information that you've
learned or even if it's your notes just
take you know clear notes for that
session of what you're learning and
actually share the information that
you're learning and the knowledge that
you're gaining on a professional
platform like linkedin to build your
network this is so so crucial um
in like in many other spaces like for
example in a coding world uh there there
are much easier ways to showcase your
skills and what you've learned through
projects etc in cyber security you know
it's you can definitely use something
like github or something like that but
it's not necessarily that simple and
it's not the same so you've got to build
your network cyber security works on a
model of trust if someone recommends you
you um to an employer
you know if if word of mouth is so
powerful so
you really have to focus on
building your network while you're
studying to be able to set yourself up
to get that job at the end of the day
all right friends so
that's really the crux of how i build my
study plan um so it is longer-term goal
that i'm flexible on then quarterly
goals that i fully commit to
i
make sure that it aligns to my long-term
roadmap
i then research what i'm gonna
need what the resources are how much
time i'm gonna be spending studying once
i know that time frame i can then book
my exam before i start studying so
important before to hold myself
accountable and then finally i'm gonna
showcase my skills online i'm gonna be
talking about the certification that i'm
going to be doing i'm going to be
sharing a lot of insights and
information knowledge that i've gained
etc
and then hopefully
by the end of the deadline of when we're
actually writing our exams we're going
to be ready to write it and one final
key
type of information
is that even if you've booked the exam
and you don't feel like you are 100
ready if you really really don't feel
you know even close to there then by all
means you know you can always reschedule
your exam but i highly encourage you not
to do that stick to your deadline commit
to your deadline and
you never can feel 100 ready
but just make sure that you gaining the
knowledge and you studying purposefully
um in order to to achieve the goal or
get the certification or get the
credential whatever it is that you are
targeting at this stage all right
friends that is it for this video i hope
that this has helped you out um let me
know in the comments below what you are
studying and uh don't forget to give
this video a thumbs up if you liked it
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content catch you next time