I remember when I was about 15 and starting my first job, my dad told me, “There’s no avoiding having to work for majority of your life, so you better make it something you love.” As I have reflected on my time at JSCM Group and my career in cyber security, I have done a lot of thinking on what makes me want to come to work every day. One of the big things that makes me appreciate what I do is that each day is different than the one before, and that I’m constantly having to push myself to learn more. Part of the reason I didn’t enjoy my first go at I.T. is because every day was Exactly. The. Same. And unfortunately, that concept is one that sticks with a lot of people when they think of working in tech. They think of someone sitting in a cubicle, surrounded by hundreds of other people, taking mundane support calls for hours on end. And that, in the end, scares them off. Do those roles in I.T. exist? Absolutely. Is cyber security one of the places you’re going to find that? Definitely not.
The truth is that cyber security is fun. As long as there is the Internet there will be hackers, which means that there need to be people there to stop them. That’s what we do all day long; we outsmart the bad guys. We figure out the ways they could get in, and then we close the holes before they can exploit them. We look at the bigger picture. We plan and we think and we test, and we come up with ways to be three steps ahead.
As it turns out, I think being a woman actually helps me with what I do. When you are a woman who has worked in a male-dominated field, you often find yourself trying to be three steps ahead so that you can actually show your worth. Your sex automatically makes certain people disqualify your opinions and your ideas, so you have to think of new ways to show your value. In so many circumstances, woman have to work harder just to earn a seat at the table, never mind actually getting to voice their thoughts. So, when your whole job is outsmarting the people that think they’re smarter than you, being a woman has its advantages because you’re already prepared for the challenge.
This in itself is why I would love to see more women entering cyber security. While other areas of I.T. are not necessarily accepting and it can feel like a boy’s club, cyber security is just…different. Here it’s all about what you can do. Being passionate and working hard is all that you need to earn a seat at the table; the rest is just details.
Madison Slater
General Manager