Which Cyber Security Job Is Right for You Full Career Path Breakdown

The cyber security industry right now is booming, but it can be overwhelming for beginners. You've probably heard terms like ethical hacker, penetration tester, sock analyst, GRC analyst, threat analyst. There's so many different roles out there and it can be overwhelming for beginner to even know where to get started or which role is going to be right fit for you. So, my goal for this video is to help you find out exactly which role is going to be right fit for you in terms of your personality, your interest, and your strengths and your skill set. even if you're completely brand new. So, if you're new to the channel, my name is Ben and make videos like this one every single week. So, make sure you guys go ahead and subscribe so you don't miss out on future videos. With that said, let's go ahead and get right into the video. So, first of all, want to talk about why cyber security is great career option right now in 2025. First of all, there's an extremely high demand for cyber security professionals with over 3.5 million jobs expected to be opening in the next few years. Number two is the fact that there's so many different types of opportunities and roles in cyber security. Some of them are more technical, require coding and using different tools. Some of them are more non-technical that require more business analytics or business insights and governance risk and compliance. So there's so many different roles that require different skills. So there's so many different opportunities for anyone looking to break into cyber security. Number three is that there's no single path of entry when it comes to cyber security. There's so many different ways to break into the industry. Some people like to do certifications to break in. Some people like to do the more traditional college route. Some people like to do boot camps. There's so many different ways. There's no oneizefits-all way to break into cyber security. And number four, this one's common misconception. lot of people think that cyber security just means hacking and breaking into systems, but that's not the case. There's so many different types of jobs out there that require different types of skill sets. And I'll walk you through these types of roles and some of the most popular ones throughout this video. So now let's go ahead and break down some of the most common roles that you'll find in cyber security and what kind of person will thrive in each of these roles. So at number one and probably one of the most popular roles in cyber security, especially when you're first starting off your career, and that is going to be security analyst or sock analyst, also known as security operations center analyst. This is one of the most common starting points of cyber security. And it's pretty much where you work inside of sock, security operation center. And your job is to pretty much monitor the network, detect any threats, respond to incidents, and respond to different alerts. You'll learn exactly how attacks operate, and how to stop them in real time. Working as security analyst is perfect for someone who likes analytical thinking, who likes problem solving and solving different puzzles. And some of the tools that you need to be familiar with when working as sock analyst is going to be using an SIM platform. An example of this is Splunk. You'll use different endpoint detection and response tools and utilizing different threat detection dashboards and threat intelligence. So, moving on to number two, and that is going to be penetration tester or ethical hacker. Now, when you first think about cyber security, the first thing you really think about is someone hacking into system, but in this case, you're doing it legally. Your job is to pretty much hack into systems and attack them before real attackers do. You'll simulate real attacks and document all of your findings to fix security flaws and vulnerabilities. I'd say this one isn't as beginner friendly as sock analyst because it requires lot of technical skill and knowledge. If you're beginner and you're interested in penetration testing or ethical hacking, one of the best ways to get your feet wet is through tryh hackme. Try hackme is one of the most popular cyber security training platforms. And what makes it different is the structure. They offer guided learning paths for different roles like sock analyst, penetration tester, cloud security, and much more. So instead of bouncing around between random YouTube videos and different blog posts, you can actually follow full path step by step and get feel for the kind of work each role involves. And you're not just watching stuff or reading stuff. You're actually getting hands-on through lab work. You'll get access to real virtual environments where you're scanning networks, analyzing logs, exploiting vulnerabilities, configuring tools, basically learning all the skills that you would need on the actual job. If you're the type of person who learns better by doing rather than reading or watching, Try Hackme is perfect platform for you. So, if you're in the exploring phase of cyber security and you're not sure where to get started, Try Hackme is going to be perfect place to start to understand what kind of role fits you the best, what kind of skills are needed for each of these roles and which one you want to go ahead and pursue. I'll leave link to try Hackme in the description box down below. Thank you to Tryh Hackme for sponsoring today's video. So, at number three, we have cloud security engineer. As companies move their infrastructure to the cloud, so this means AWS, Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure, and many more, cloud security is going to be more critical than ever. Your job as cloud security engineer is going to be focusing on securing cloud environments, configuring permissions, and preventing misconfigurations. This role has strong demand and high pay, especially if you're willing to specialize in specific cloud computing platform. This is pretty technical role that requires strong background in cloud architecture, identity and access management, and cloudnative tools. So, the barrier of entry for this role is bit higher than your standard entry-level cyber security job, but it's definitely still feasible if you're willing to learn and put in the work. So, at number four, we have digital forensics and incident response. So, this role works handinhand with the sock analyst, but think of yourself as instead of first responder, you're someone like detective looking at exactly what happened after breach has occurred. So, your job as digital forensics and incident response analyst is to pretty much determine exactly what happened, what went wrong, and what was the impact of the breach, and how to prevent it from happening again. This role combines technical skill with investigative thinking. So, if you have law enforcement background or law background, this role is going to be really good fit for you. It's really good role for someone who has strong critical thinking mindset, who likes investigations, who likes solving different puzzles and mysteries, and also you'll be using bunch of different digital forensics tools. Number five on the list is going to be governance, risk, and compliance analyst. This is the current role that I'm in right now, and one of the reasons why enjoy it is because see it as mix of business and cyber security. GRC requires less technical skill than the other roles that I've mentioned in this video, but it does still require lot of technical knowledge. GRC analysts focus primarily on policy assessments and audits and ensuring companies are compliant with different laws and frameworks like the NIST ISO and PCI frameworks for example. It's really good for people who are detail oriented, who have good soft skills, who are good at collaborating, who enjoy structure and documentation and working alongside business leadership. So, if you're someone who is strong communicator or if you have background in legal audits or business, this might be good fit for you. GRC has great future outlook as more laws and regulations are becoming more and more strict with AI and new technologies being introduced. Number six is going to be application security. Your main focus when it comes to application security is going to be focusing on the secure software development life cycle. Pretty much ensuring that apps are built with security in mind. This includes reviewing code, securing APIs, and working closely with developers to prevent any flaws. It's great role for someone who has programming background or really wants to learn programming. You don't need to be master developer for this role, but having background in it and being able to read it and understand it and the logic behind it is going to be really important to have. And at number seven, we have threat intelligence analyst. And in my opinion, it's probably one of the most interesting roles in cyber security. Your job as threat intelligence analyst is to pretty much keep up with all the emerging cyber security threats and news. So you're keeping track of different cyber threats, malware, attack trends, and threat actors. So this might involve analyzing different threat feeds, dark web chatter, fishing campaigns, and global events. So it's really good for someone who likes doing research and staying up to date, and also someone who has good communication skills and writing skills. You'll also probably present all of your findings to an audience, so good presentation skills are also huge plus. So in nutshell, your job as threat intelligence analyst is to gather all this information, stay up to date, and disseminate that information throughout your company to make sure your company is protected from these different types of attacks and what's going on in the world today. So those are going to be some of the most popular cyber security roles when it comes to starting off your career. So now you have to ask yourself some questions to determine really which one is going to be right fit for you. So our first question could be, do you prefer breaking into things or defending things? So this means do you want to be on the blue side so the defensive side so think about the sock or do you want to be on the red side think about the ethical hacking or penetration testing are you someone who likes to be more technical or more strategic and more policy driven so do you want to be hands-on coding and using different tools or do you want to be more of the business side or the assessment side or policy side and lastly do you want to be hands-on or do you want to be more communication driven or business focused so after answering some of these questions maybe you'll get more of an idea idea of which role is going to be right fit for you. If you probably want to be more technical, maybe the red side of things are going to be really good fit for you. lot of the blue teaming roles that mentioned in this video, so for example, sock analyst and also digital forensics or incident response analyst, those roles also require lot of technical knowledge as well. So just because you want to do some more technical work, doesn't mean you automatically have to do red teaming. lot of different blue teaming roles also require lot of technical knowledge, but probably little bit more usage of different tools rather than coding. If you want to more non-technical roles or more hands-off roles, GRC governance, risk and compliance is good mix of technology, cyber security and business and also threat intelligence is going to be good role of sort of understanding different attacks and doing that research and disseminating that information through presentations and through soft skills and communication. So if one of these roles interests you, the next steps would probably be looking into getting some form of entrylevel training. And one of the best ways to do that is what mentioned before is through using platforms like try hackme. And that way you can get easily exposed to different types of roles and different skills in cyber security. But if you want to know exactly what you can do right now to really get your feet wet and just to get your cyber security journey started, all of these roles are going to require some form of knowledge when it comes to networking and also operating systems. So if you haven't already, highly recommend looking into the security plus certification and the network plus certification. Those two are going to give you good baseline starting point to start learning these different types of roles. So overall, that is going to be some of the most popular cyber security roles for entrylevel beginners. Some of them are more beginner friendly than others, but all of them are definitely feasible to get started, especially if you're beginner. Some of them just have more higher barrier of entries than others. And one of the best things about cyber security is that once you select role, you're definitely not stuck to that one. lot of times people move over from different roles and switch over. So, it's definitely not the end of the world. If you decide to go with one, you can definitely switch over to another later down the line. And one of the biggest pieces of advice would have for you is definitely take your time when making this decision. Definitely do reflection of what kind of skills you have and what you want to be doing on daily basis cuz that's one of the lessons that I've learned, especially at the beginning of my career. I'd rather do something that really enjoy doing or don't mind doing on an everyday basis rather than doing something that is more cool, more technical, or just looks better on your resume. rather do something that enjoy doing and what find interest in doing on an everyday basis. So, definitely do some reflection and be honest with yourself and what your skill set is and what your interests are when making this decision. With that being said though, guys, if you guys enjoyed this video and found it insightful, go ahead and subscribe to the channel. We're almost at 100K. If you guys found this video insightful, please go ahead and drop me like. And if you're new to the channel, welcome. My name is Ben and make videos like this one every single week. So, make sure you guys go ahead and subscribe and join the family. We're on our way to 100K. With that said, thank you guys so much for watching and I'll catch you guys in the next video. Peace.