Q and A: Michael Parsey, Professional Services Intern at Crowdstrike and Final Year InfoSec Student

Michael Parsey is a final-year InfoSec student, and a prolific intern - which I can only imagine will set him in great stead in the future. He is an incoming Professional Services Intern at Crowdstrike and sat down with Comfortably Dumb to talk about how it's all going so far. Michael's LinkedIn can be found here, if you'd like to get in touch with him.

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What were you doing before you decided to go into cybersecurity?

"Before undertaking a degree in Cyber Security I was very headstrong about a career in the armed forces as an Army Officer. It was only until I had a setback that I re-evaluated my skills, and consequently decided to expand my technical skills. Programming did not catch my fancy and having always been careful what I published on the internet, I discovered an interest in the inherent security of the internet."

Dive into some of the cool jobs and projects you got involved in!

"As a current last year Cyber Security undergraduate student, I have been extremely fortunate in the experiences I have already gained. Projects I have undertaken that have spanned under the cyber security umbrella have ranged from DevSecOps projects through to threat intelligence and leading a small team of cyber interns, focussing around risk and compliance."

Technical experience you had before you joined?

"Growing up, I spent a considerable amount of time tinkering with computer hardware, whether that was building PC’s, breaking devices, jailbreaking, and following tutorials on raspberry pi forums. I had a good understanding of how the internet worked from reading and researching and just before university I became interested in sites such as Hack the Box and basic CTF’s."

Why did you decide on cyber specifically?

"I was looking for a technical career that posed new problems daily, challenged me to stay up to date with research, a subject matter that was constantly being updated and redefined, offered jobs across public and private sectors, good job security and paid well."

Courses, resources you used, and the providers of them - if they were good, say so, if not, say so!

"CompTIA is always a good place to start to demonstrate that you have a good knowledge base. I personally spend a lot of my time dipping in and out of Pluralsight and Cybrary for video-based

learning and expanding my knowledge in areas I haven’t covered at work.

Immersive Labs cannot be recommended higher! A fantastic resource that has enabled me to experience areas of cyber security that I am yet to have exposure to.

In my mind SANS is the holy grail, however I am still saving those precious pennies. I would also recommend going along to conferences and open meetings held by cybersecurity groups such as ISC2 or ISACA."

What was your job search/interview process like?

"I am yet to undertake a full-time cyber job, so all of my job searching and interviewing has focussed around internships. My perception is that the first job is the hardest to land and after that, you are able to envelop of the merits of your previous job, which in turn will help with landing your next internship.

I am soon to undertake my 5th internship in the space of 2 years and this is down to constantly scouring job boards, networking, and having strong demonstratable skills both academically but more importantly being able to take pen to paper and show that you have the skills they are looking for and more."

Any setbacks/low points?

"As you can imagine, the beast that is the cyber internship application process, continually spits you out and forces you to start at the very beginning again, however the sooner that this is understood, the sooner you can progress.

I cannot even begin to think how many rejections I received, however it only takes those few companies that give you a chance, for your career to get off the ground, so keep slogging! It will pay off eventually."

What is your job actually like? Good AND bad points!

"My current job is fast pace, exciting but also challenging. I would say that the good points are the constant need to be on your top game, but conversely, I have felt at times that I am awful at the task at hand, and not focussing on skills I know I can do well. Such is the nature of development, and those tasks that I was initially awful at, are some of my strongest now, due to constant revisiting and hours of exposure.

A hard lesson learnt was that you can never expect to be good at anything that you do not put effort into! If that was the case, I would consider myself a walking genius."

Advice you wish you'd have had before you started?

"I would tell myself to not be so harsh on myself when a plan does not go exactly right. Even with the setbacks I have faced, there has always been progression in some fashion. I wish that I had studied for Security+ in my first year of University as this was when I had the freest time, and I would have benefitted hugely from gaining this cert early in my career."

What's your end goal for your career?

"I would like to assimilate as much knowledge in different areas of cyber security while I am young. I would like to find a specialism in the next 5 years and consult from that specialism. After I have demonstrated some strong metrics of success, I would like to climb the leadership chain, be that private or public."

What are you working on right now?

"I am currently finishing off my undergraduate, pursuing my master’s at Imperial in October. I am in between jobs at the moment but I am looking forward to getting back into a fast-paced environment."

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Michael Parsey is a final-year InfoSec student, and a prolific intern - which I can only imagine will set him in great stead in the future. He is an incoming Professional Services Intern at Crowdstrike and sat down with Comfortably Dumb to talk about how it's all going so far. Michael's LinkedIn can be found here, if you'd like to get in touch with him.