Christopher Pardue

In layperson terms, what do you actually do at work?

I consult company IT people on how to set up advanced stuff in their expensive Secure Email technology. This is mostly through one on one meetings, where I show them how to do this and that, answer questions, and give them pro-tips wherever I can. I don't set up their stuff for them. They are their company's IT person. I am an expert on this technology so I just help them get things set up right, and help them figure out the most awesome way to do what they're trying to do.

How did you pick your career? Did you know all along?

I had no clue that it was possible for me to work in IT or Cybersecurity at all. I thought I had to be good at math, or smart, or have a college degree, or something. Once day at my crappy dead end job I started googling for "Highest paying job with lowest degree" and saw cybersecurity in most of the lists I read. So I started googling "How to get into cybersecurity" and went from there. Then I realized that ethical hacking is a job, and pays a lot of money. That sounds cool to me so that is what I picked. I am not yet an actual ethical hacker, but that is definitely what I picked and is definitely what I am working toward. I aim to be advanced enough to be an ethical hacker within the next 5 years.

What is the biggest challenge you had to overcome to get to where you are now professionally? How did you overcome it?

If I wanted to grow professionally, and I mean REALLY grow, then I had to drop my need for feeling comfortable all of the time. I want to feel comfortable all of the time, that's the honest truth. Forcing myself to sit down and learn advanced things does NOT feel good. It is NOT comfortable at all. But if I want to really grow, I have to start actually doing what it takes to grow, which is uncomfortable as heck. How did I overcome it? I started small. One hour per evening each night studying really intense, difficult stuff. Then I moved up to two hours per night. Then I moved up to working on this hard stuff on the weekends instead of watching TV with all my free time. By then I naturally didn't even really like watching TV anymore because it's such a waste of my time. Studying hard got me some raises, so that helped. TV has never gotten me a raise at work. Now, when I watch TV I feel guilty because I'm literally wasting time that could be spent getting smarter, more capable, et cetera.