What To Know: the Certification Alphabet Soup

If you have started researching a career in cybersecurity, then you might have read or heard about the certifications that professionals can earn in the field. The certifications help to show that a professional has specialized knowledge and experience, covering everything from basic IT help desk support up to securing enterprise networks.

As of 2022, there are over 300 vendor-neutral certifications. These are certifications that are related to the field of cybersecurity, and are issued by dozens of organizations. There are also hundreds of vendor-specific certifications, signaling an individual's ability to work with certain tools and platforms, such as Microsoft, IBM, and Amazon Web Services (AWS). Wikipedia maintains a pretty good list of the various certifications.

What To Know

Employers and recruiters are warning future applicants to not get too bogged down chasing various certifications. Many of the trainings required for the certifications can be costly and time-consuming.  

And if you are just starting in cybersecurity, it can be overwhelming to figure out where to start.

This is one of the reasons why Day0 created its Cybersecurity Fundamentals course. One of the learning components in the fundamentals course is on how to build a career in cybersecurity, including the various certifications that are required for different roles.

The Bottom Line

Employers and recruiters now prefer to hire entry-level candidates with a vendor-neutral certification and who have shown initiative in learning about cybersecurity. This orientation -- to provide training to students based upon what the industry actually needs, and not what bootcamps and schools think the industry needs -- is one of the reasons why Day0 was started!

‍