Internships are beneficial in just about any industry, and cybersecurity is no different. There is an extreme shortage of qualified and experienced cybersecurity professionals. Internships are one way to get new and upcoming cybersecurity graduates the experience they need to enter into the workforce starting with entry-level positions. When it comes to cybersecurity internships, the search can be very difficult.
To make matters worse, ever since the Covid-19 pandemic plagued the world, strict regulations have been put in place at businesses to curb the spread of the virus and its strains making the search even much more difficult. Lots of work experience placements and internships have been canceled across the world as a result of these new developments. This has led many companies had to change their business dynamics.
However, did you at any point feel that this pandemic would bring incredible opportunities such as free Online Courses, virtual experience programs with tasks that mimic real work job assignments? If not here is the good news. Some business partners and employers have cooperated to run virtual internships and programs since 2020 for undergraduates. Some of these companies included Microsoft, PWC, T-Mobile, and many other companies with the goal for undergraduates to acquire a real comprehension of what these organizations do despite the challenges the pandemic presented. Why not try out a virtual experience program at the comfort of your homes while you search out for internships that accept in-person training. But what is a virtual experience program?
What is a Virtual Work Experience Program?
Virtual Work Experience Programs are online projects designed by organizations; which involve a progression of tasks and assignments intended to mimic the real-world work experience student starting out a career journey.
Whilst companies may be hesitant to invite students to their offices in person due to safety concerns, the Virtual Work Experience Programs are incredible avenues for undergraduates who are hoping to acquire insight before looking for an entry-level position in that company. After finishing each program, you can add the information to your resume and LinkedIn profile to feature your experience and capacities to imminent businesses
What are the advantages of a virtual work position?
Available worldwide
Virtual work experiences are available to everybody and where you live should not be a restricting factor. This paves way for numerous opportunities for you to explore job sectors that may not be possible with a face-to-face job system.
Free for everyone
Most of the virtual work experience positions are free, plus the side to it is that you would not incur any movement/travel-related expenses. Working remotely is now going to be important to make companies. This virtual opportunity starts you on the right track gaining valuable and insightful skills on how to work online.
Nonetheless, virtual work experiences may not give a full picture of the specific job position, they just give a halfway glimpse of what is involved in a job position. After completing the Virtual Work Experience Program, you can decide to share and submit your information and work with the business. As you complete every module of the Virtual Work Experience Program, you will be able to unlock real work samples to show you how a graduate at that organization would have approached each assignment. So, it is important to take this opportunity very seriously as you complete each task.
Here is a website that offers virtual work experience programs for cybersecurity undergraduates which are being offered by companies across the world in a wide variety of areas to help you enhance your CV and work experience in the field of cybersecurity —and the best part is, they are completely free.
Forage Virtual Work Experience Programs
These programs from Forage give a glimpse of the work tasks at top companies and connect students to the companies themselves. In 5-10 hours, students can learn relevant tools and skills necessary to complete similar tasks during their workday as cybersecurity professionals.
1
Clifford Chance Cybersecurity Virtual Internship contains practical skills designed by the Clifford Chance team for students who want to specialize in the legal side of cybersecurity
The program includes;
- Practical guidance on an ICO Dawn Raid.
- Assess the legal situation after a data leak
- Respond to a data-related damages claim using litigation strategy.
2
Cyber@ANZ Program consists of two tasks namely;
- Social engineering investigation and report writing.
- Digital investigation of network traffic.
3
The virtual experience program from Genius Armoury consists of five modules, which give a preliminary understanding of the current state of cybersecurity, its roles, the types of threat actors, and how they intend to damage the systems, as well as some key basic knowledge, such as computer languages. This program aims to gain insights into the lives of cyber security professionals at Genius Armoury and the understanding of the tasks it covers.
In this course, you will explore:
- the basic components of the related technologies
- an overview of the current cybercrime landscape
- cyber attack methods commonly utilized;
- potential career pathways in cybersecurity
- case studies of historical cyber attacks.
Each module is accompanied by a knowledge check in the form of multiple-choice quizzes, content-related tasks, or both.
4
PWC Cybersecurity is a virtual case experience in cybersecurity that will help you get a deep understanding of how they help clients deal with risk and respond proactively to cyberattacks and threats.
This program’s modules include;
- Integrated Information Defense and risk management frameworks
- Risk analysis and assessment
- IT System Security Baseline
- Network Security Segmentation and firewall configuration
By finishing a Forage Cybersecurity Virtual Internship, you will achieve the following:
- A better comprehension of diverse cybersecurity professional pathways accessible to you
- Earn a certification upon completion
- Virtual experience programs are available to all undergraduates (no applications)
- You can finish them at any time and anywhere.
In conclusion, Virtual Work Experience Programs on Forage have been created to help students trying to decide which field they want to pursue or career experience they want to gain and that includes cybersecurity. Now that you are presumably turning into somewhat more used to learning at home, why not attempt a virtual experience program and gain more insight into how working as a cybersecurity professional at a company looks like.
Chelsy Aryeetey
HackHouse.net Author