A Grad Story: What You May Experience In Your First Role - Callum Lake

[Applause] thank you everyone for coming I'm aware I am the talk just before we all go for lunch so I will promise to keep you for ages I will not ramble at you for so long and thank you for bearing with me while I was troubleshooting nothing the scary and doing it in a room full of people it's horrific so my talk is from graduate to con con consultant um I've been about 2 years now and the idea behind the talk was more to give people who are joining the industry just stting new I've just joined from different rules a little bit of an understand of kind of what someone goes through in that sense um there's a few different

kind of stories I wanted to tell just to take away some of the nerves that some people might have for sort of joining the industry in that sense firstly who am I so I pick on these photos as I'm desperately Clinging On to the fact that I graduated Union in 2020 and I don't want to let the Student Life go and they were me in my four years at Uni the final year being me asleep on the sofa uh which is very much how I felt a lot of the time outside of that I am a security consultant for won to are sponsor from cyberfest um little bit more information about them at the end if you're

interested in any sort of rules or anything like that as I said I graduated UN in 2020 uh desperate C the fact that I I'm now working fulltime which is weird I'm a kickboxer outside of that I still have all my original teeth uh which I'm very lucky about I'm a metal head H so see me any gigs please come and say hello and for those that are fuss by I use Nano rather than VI and some people don't like that so I'm very sorry about that kind of the de behind talk as I said um as a grad I found it really difficult I found it very difficult um in my own sort of

belief in my sense for what I wanted to do and I also realized that isn't just for graduates here there's a lot of people have been in the industry for maybe a little while and I want to thank you as well for all the support that I personally see all that you give out in general um yeah so just there's two sort of target audience for this just a couple of disclaim you typically get depends on my own um and those who are grads may not feel this I lacked a lot of confidence in my own ability um again you may feel just fine so and that's always really good good to hear and again my former Union employer

they not represent those in that sense so firstly for grad show a hands here uh I can vaguely see I'm it's quite bright up here um who is still at Uni at at the moment I see a couple of hands few hands excellent stuff has anyone recently graduated been in Industry two or 3 years is few more hands excellent stuff lovely stuff get and those have been in for sort of five years or more rough shower hands excellent stuff so really split split room which which I'm loving I'm really really enjoying so yes for those still at Uni and for those recently graduate again you may feel some of these this I feel was me and still is me

now uh literally overloaded with too much information I definitely felt there was a lot to kind of get get used to when I first started these are thoughts that cross my mind and they may cross yours I don't know anything I don't want to ask questions which really got me I want to learn everything as you always do when you're quite curious in this sort of world and where do I even start these thoughts are very very normal and do make them right in the sense that again we want to try and work around those but the point with this is to show that you're not on your own with this so some for those kind of each thoughts

really I don't know anything this was a big one for me when I first left I got a story I'll tell in a moment um for recent sort of clients and that kind of thing you have a lot of information thr at you when you're at Uni I did four years um and again mountains and mountains of information is trying to digest anything but then trying to apply that to a practical sense is very very difficult and I think the biggest point to raise for is that in time things will improve you will be able to conf talk about areas of your interest and so on you'll be able to talk to if you go into

a sort of consultancy role which is where I'm based you will have more information you can Comfort talk about your abilities depending on what area you kind of go down give yourself time don't think that you have to jump into it on your first day and know everything talk about everything that you need I don't want to ask questions I really struggle with this I didn't want to seem stupid I didn't want to feel The Imposter syndrome kick in I think was the big one but asking questions is the only way we're going to learn anything and it's scary it's horrific and again everyone in this room probably test didn't want to ask a question to a

colleague to a friend at some point about their role but it is worth doing and a good Mentor will give you the time that you need to learn and won't mind putting things in different ways if there's certain ways that you want to learn biggest advice I can give to those is to take note anywhere you want um take notes however you please have whatever's work for you it shows your interest and allows you to look back I don't think there's a day go by where I don't refer the notes I've taken on previous engagements because again they're always worth knowing I want to learn all the things um this is a big thing I didn't really

know where I wanted to go in my career when I first started again I'm still relatively new and things may change but I do enjoy my role and I still want to learn everything and the biggest thing is there all always cool things out there there really is um example that is that my Twitter bookmarks ever expanding I need to go through and review and find out what I actually should delve into because there's so many cool things in there a couple of quotes that people went for me was inch deep mile wide was a start of a rle again you're getting exposed to multiple different sort of tech Technologies and different areas it's worth again just getting flavors of

each one to begin with and another one was leaning more towards the burnout side of things was it's a marathon it's not a Sprint hopefully you're going to be in the industry for a long time you don't want to burn out within the first six months and end up really struggling again you you've got a long way to go a lot to learn in that sense I think if you want to learn everything pick a path again whether you're thinking as broad sort of red team blue team there's different areas you can go the you can pick a path you can always change later people change areas of Interest all the time and it's always

good to always good to uh do where do I even start that was another big one that I really struggled with and I think the biggest thing advice I can give is what's pure interest if it's everything fantastic let's again let's start with those little areas of interest for me personally I started with my sex plus and then realized that again I went I wanted to go back to basics and let's try very very basic I went on to try hack me again many people in this room will will have heard of that and I think I personally love it it gives really really good solid grounding for again different areas and you can explore

further and further there is other options out there as well but I think for me personally work there a really good solid [Music] grounding so my journey very briefly aware I am starving as well so lunch time is very much calling so my first 6 months I joined a help desk I again wanted to get exposure to a little bit of help desk and then I moved over to a sock again getting very used to just getting exposed to as much as I could after about 6 mon months I joined the consultancy team and I've been there ever since been there about 18 months now I've Le I've Le my first project with in the first six months did

a cyber centrals basically plus Gap and Analysis which again was amazing and taught me quite a lot about how the business side of things work that was really really really interesting since then again been there about 18 months now I had multiple um assessments range of clients from really small housing associations to quite big sort of design firms as well there's a bunch of different ones out there supporting the team building sort of pen testing offerings and so on and there it's a big area now and I achieved my SE plus which was great fun first exam out of uni um first Clos B one in a long time so that was that was really

interesting having to remember stuff from the top of my head the M basic assessa course that was good fun as well and I'm studing for my Crest cpsa at the moment which is proving rather difficult but I am enjoying it the thoughts I've mentioned earlier uh just of how things can be really difficult and again the impost syndrome can kick in I don't want to ask questions all that stuff they do cross me my mind daily um had a couple of setbacks with feeling a couple of exams and again questioning my own ability but they will happen but it's how we keep moving forward I think is how much I want to stress for this for those in the room who've been

in infos a while and are supporting a lot of people I just want to say a big thank you to you conferences like this everything that you do is phenomenal and yeah I can't put any more than just say thank you you do so many amazing things I'm sure mentees if you have anything like that will feel how I felt before but we'll also be thanking you at the same time and I think I've heard from people who are mentors that they absolutely love it and it's something that we can always we always ask that people do more and the biggest thing is that your expect your experience and expertise is always valued very W the time so I don't want

to people much longer but no thank you very much and has anyone got any questions that's my Twitter if you have any questions please come find me message me on Twitter anything like that please come and have a have a chat thank you [Applause] everyone thank you very much so questions for C straight away

just a quick question um curious what your degree was in to see how you progress from whatever course you chose into the profession you've got into so I did an ethical hacking degree um yeah it was four years and it was again it was very I loved it I I really really enjoyed it um transferring the skills was very different as it was quite heavy Linux focused for my sort of Bachelors in that sense seeing it Go from sort of small sort in lab time to doing to for clients was a big jump I think um but yeah I'm very fortunate in the fact that I started with sort of a uni background to come into the industry in that sense

I think but yeah it is still a big jump of going from academic sense to a um work sense but no it was a big change but valuable at the same time any okay then fine didn't want you to work for um could I just ask in your degree did you do anything about business and how business works and what you would be doing in the business and how would you wasn't necessarily covered in that sense um from sort of memory I can't really recalling how business kind of works again we cover very basic like here's how you can set up as a general Network so we'll take ad is the example cover a little bit of

ad it wasn't covered in kind of how that applies business how a business will will be set up in that sense and even things like decision making and so on that was all learned in my role of having to speak with a client for example a recent one um it's two it's two users and trying to work out how to apply certain controls to their estate whether that's going to affect their business on a day-to-day basis and how it fits them with their budget and so on is really difficult and but again that that all came from on the job really was the main thing any other questions all the way back you hello hello um yeah I just wanted to

say really good talk I think I saw you a couple of years ago in bside leads yeah um so yeah it's really interesting to your journey I just wanted to know if you could give one piece of advice to a graduate say a 2022 graduate um what would you give them for someone who wants to get into the industry oh that is a fantastic question one bit of advice this is going to sound incredibly cheesy I'm very sorry it's more I was going to say like just do it I'm not sponsored by Nike or anything um more down the level of as I say find your sort of area of interest if it is everything have a look at career pass

again I'll go back to try hack me I'm not sponsored I promise even though I've got hoodie with me that's got the little one not sponsored it gives you an idea of C pass that you can go into and whether that's through the formal education Ro apprenticeships there's different options there to do and just find what sort of picks your interest really and yeah um yeah sorry so find that area and kind of just see where it can sort of lead you I think is the advice that I would give okay any other questions all the way across really all the way across that's it next year there'll be a queue do a question there'll be a queue there and we'll just

set up a mic and I won't have to run by the place thank you I'm curious oh that's very l um yeah I'm curious like how uh much you think that people should value certifications in comparison to say like making personal projects and things like that how do you think they sort of compare against each other when or how do you think they Fair against each other when you're applying to positions or trying to progress you think there should be a good mix of both or would you lean on one side of oh that's a very good question I would say personally for me I find that set are great I quite enjoy doing set I

I say Enjoy when I pass them and so as everyone kind of wants to one yeah big green tick you've done it I really enjoy um seeing both I recently was helping with interviews and it was a case of seeing what qualifications a person have but also how they are as a person especially in a consultancy role is more where I'm speaking from again it's how you can talk to people how you can talk to a different group of people I think seeing a personal project again whether that could be iOS for example WR WR in your own book that would be phenomenal cuz it shows the passion you've got for the role that you may be

going into SE are great again for sort of job like sort of specs always you clearly have the knowledge there but also use I would value both equally personally anyway and jobs may be different but personally I would say both I would value both this this sort of same really as a hiring manager yeah individual projects show what type of person somebody is Sears yeah you've going and set it and it can be dep if you're looking depends where you're looking for entry level or or not sometimes you'll be hiring for uh and you need a particular skill set having that set in that skill set is great but if you have a thousand different search

for tons of different skill sets but you've not been in the industry that long that just means you're really good at passing exams which isn't necessarily what I'm looking for so it can it's never a bad thing to have a se but you have to be able to back it up with the I know the stuff it's not just I could sit and pass the exams cuz I know plenty of people I know marines that can like fix do signal intelligence Under Fire but cannot set an open book exam without burst without sweating and failing which was impressive uh cuz it's an open book exam uh but so yeah CS are great especially in some businesses

where you need them for to sell your services as a business and stuff like that but uh personal projects and showing what excites you that's that that could be really telling about a person any other questions for come on

people sry uh how much of a culture shock was it switching from being in Academia doing your bachelor's over to being full-time in the workplace o uh I'm going to say in a word huge did you have to get up in the morning and stuff like that on let me let me go back let me go back I could no longer do the sleep in the in the afternoon that was interesting I am not a morning person at all um so that was interesting and realizing that the N with uni I very much found that there was an end point four years I'm here I'll get my degree at the end in a working world not necessarily again

if you're sort of contracted for 6 months 12 months so on maybe but for me personally there was no end date to my sort of employment I realiz that I now make my own path I gone from very much some education kind of up through the sort of levels so yeah it was a big big shock for me um yeah getting up in the morning was hard just little things like that and realizing that this is for a while now but that's also a really good thing to know that I I've got time to build my skills up it's forever yeah it's forever that over the speak was horrifically scary yeah uh what you do want to do is

because when you're graduating Union you've got that plan and you know in four years this is where you're going to be after that it becomes your problem to figure out where you're going to be in four or 5 years time and if you can get yourself a good Mentor there's plenty of communities and stuff that out there the first thing they're going to do is turn and say where do you want to be in 5 years time right what does that need what do you have now how do we get get you there so yeah you got yourself into uni and someone mapped essentially mapped the course out for you you know now need to go and do that for yourself

uh nobody's going to do it for you and you can Coast from one thing to another but if you want to achieve and you want to get to the top of your profession you have to have a plan and you have to chase it and that passions for you to do don't worry about the mic question for the room has anybody's fiveyear plan ever o see there you go you should still have a plan you don't have to achieve it nobody's going to fail you for it but you should have a plan well you're going to fail yourself for it but always yeah well that's fine okay any more questions for Callum oh F come on why are you asking a

question rude um so you graduated dur during Co how do you think that affected your career progression ooh so I joined a remote I joined him a new job working from home for 12 months that was weird I very much enjoyed the fact that again I was still at home have to commute to the office all all that lazy student life I'm going to call it cuz I was still again not used to it I definitely found that it it makes difference for getting to know people knowing people through screen is different to knowing someone in person um so yeah I definitely think that that's a big difference is if you can and you're willing to try and meet

the people in person is the biggest thing but again obviously teams is always good but you do get to know people a little bit better when you're sat face to face having a drink and like a coffee or whatever that is better I think any more questions [Music] K yeah watch it you okay another round of applause for Callum cuz he was amazing