Cyber Security Career Path for Beginners — Certs, Labs & First Job

Three entry tracks

1. SOC / Blue team — monitoring, SIEM, incident response 2. Pentest / Red team — OWASP, Burp, controlled lab exploits 3. GRC / compliance — policies, audits (less coding)

Free lab ideas

• TryHackMe / HTB starting paths (document write-ups)
• Home lab with VirtualBox + Kali + vulnerable DVWA
• Wireshark capture analysis on your own Wi‑Fi

Certifications (optional, not mandatory)

• CompTIA Security+ for breadth
• CEH or PNPT for offensive lean (check employer preference)

First resume line

“Built a lab report demonstrating SQLi mitigation on a sample e-commerce app” beats listing tools you never used.