Looking highly probable that I will be made redundant from my cyber-security role in the coming weeks - the company has made a huge profit in the last year, but fell short of its target. Personally I would have thought the way to address this was to review the product portfolio and work harder for new deals but seemingly the way forward is a mass cull of personnel. The sting in the tail is that the department being cut away is only being cut away as we are treated as an overhead cost.


I have kind of gone from the angry phase, to the despair phase, having never been made redundant in 25 years of employment. I am trying to plan my next move before the axe falls, and use any and all routes to uncover potential leads and opportunities.


If anyone has contacts recruiting in the cyber-security / security architecture / CISO space at the moment, I would welcome the opportunity for a discussion.


Having not been in this situation before, would be keen to hear how those who have been in this situation before have dealt with it. Did you "scatter gun" it for every opportunity which looked viable, or carefully select which opportunities you went after.


Bizarrely I have been in some really tight corners at work in the past, and have been able to separate the rough weeks at work, from family life. So far this has cost me two nights sleep and I haven't even had final conformation that I am going yet - I can only put it down to the potential of having a role that I enjoy deeply and excellent employment conditions, being taken away from me.

 

This sums up what is wrong with modern corporate thinking.The rich have too get richer every year.I suspect bonuses where in place for the bosses & they didn't reach the full target.Even though your company sounds like it's doing all right but the bosses/shareholders don't get there full wack so f&&& everyone else & I'm alright Jack! Out of interest,do you know if any senior heads are being cut.

 

Sorry to hear about the possible redundancy

I was made redundant a few years ago, it was a massive shock, but I focused on ideal jobs and got a new job soon after.

If you flood your cv out, you might get offered a job that you maybe wouldn't be keen on/pay too low/crap company. If you take one of those jobs, you could miss out on a more prefered job

If you have been there for 25 years at least you should get a decent payout

 

Hi TT, sorry to know about your situation with the possibility of your job redundancy. I haven't a clue about your work field but I hope some others may be able to help with that. I wish you good luck with the job search. With your long term experience and very valuable expertise I'm sure you'll be a credit to another firm. Remember, one door shuts, another one opens for the good ones. All the best.

 

Weirdly I was going to post a thread on the topic of linkedin connection requests

I have had loads in the past month

And I was wondering whether there was a correlation between that and an increase in job insecurity

Hope you get it sorted TT, it is a horrible situation to be in

Maybe UK PLC is heading for a downturn again !!!

 

This is a field that's pretty close to what I do, although you seem to be in a very different part of the country, so I'm not sure how much help this is likely to be.

Best of luck to you whatever happens.

 

Spot on,Same as our place.Although we made a profit,it wasn't as good as last year,and forecast this year to be the same,no pay rise again this year.Amazing how they can still drive around in their 120 thousand pound porsche cayenne turbo s x 2 plus top of the range mercs and bmw´s 😐

 

'They' means bosses?

They perhaps keep up the appearances. Your 'set up' image has a lot to do with what you're taken as. If they lower their standards, then they may lose face in front of their employees and business punters. Their downgrade could affect their employees' morale in worse negative way than not having the pay rise.

Other than that, they must just do it to wind other employees up with their greed and presumptious ways. After all, they employ you and pay you, so they believe they're entitled to bigger cut and luxuries, despite their company struggling / not making expected profits.

I was recently talking to a thriving electrical engineering company's boss/owner. He drives a 'top of the range with a status badge' car, in his mid 30's and his is the only car that gets full valet by the mobile car valeter every week! He's a clever one hence his brilliant business with many people employed by him, but what surprised me was that he wanted a trip abroad to be put through his business, which will be actually a pleasure trip. He told me that himself. This guy can afford his own holiday on his big wage, but the sneaky little sh7t will put that holiday as a business trip through his books. How greedy can you get, like???

Nothing new up there^ but you see this sort of attitude from the bosses because you're at their disposal. And you put up with anything because you are at their disposal.

I know of a charity organisation that took on a young graduate on for a year on one of those govt. funded placement schemes. That middle-aged senior manager was involved in a work offered post-grad CPD. She unethically but openly used that placement kid to do all the research for her academic work while she talked sh7te to others all day. His job was work admin, not assisting the senior manager's research for her professional development. None of their other employees could dare object because they were on the org's disposal, although they weren't happy with that. It caused further complications and some job cuts due to the senior manager's rubbish attitude, but there you are. She's still there, driving her sports car and now even promoted to a CEO.

 

sounds about right our md took £1.9million in shares, what did we get **** ALL

 

Hi,
Have you considered working overseas?
We moved to UAE 4 years ago and would struggle to have our lifestyle back in the UK (2 cars - 887hp between them, petrol 30p per litre, 5 bedroom villa with own pool, kid at private school etc. etc.)
There are loads of jobs for in your field and at senior level they are very well paid (and tax free!)
Just saw one example on a job website - don't know if it matches your qualifications or skill set.
https://www.akhtaboot.com/en/uae/job...-Professionals
Cheers
Steve

 

Recently been through redundancy and would certainly advise to start looking and getting your cv out through the usual channels like linked in , montster , recruitment agencies. Although you need to wait as you don't want to leave before your redundancy is confirmed.

If you end up in the unfortunate position of redundancy then as others have mentioned use the time to think what you want to do in the next chapter of your life and avoid jumping into a lesser role if possible as you end up regretting it.

 

I'm very sorry to hear this. I have been in the same position and went from being in IT to being in sales, wasn't a pleasant move but hey, needs must.

First of all I ended up doing some sh1tty temp jobs and also I was cleaning in the evenings - but I didn't have as defined skills as your good self.

I find it amazing how ignorant a lot of companies are with regards how important SOC teams, CERT teams, Security Analysts and just security teams in general actually are. You guys are really not just an overhead, I wish thee C Level guys would start to understand that a little more, they are being demolished by cyber issues and don't seem to realize that they might actually retain more revenue through intelligent investment in IT sec teams.

Anyway, all that being said, there is a lot of scope for employment in companies providing sec tech. If I was you I would look in that region. Have you ever considered pre-sales engineer role (or is that kinda what you are trying to avoid?)

I know that Trend Micro were doing a lot of recruitment not so long ago. FireEye as well. Also companies like Tanium are exploding at present and are very successful with a lot of investment being made into it, worth considering. Also, look at Qualys, Illusive Networks, Corero Network Security, Infoblox (doing lots in DNS and DDoS security stuff, not just network automation), MalwareBytes - there are a bunch of others who I can't think of right now who have been looking for more talent but I cannot think of them right now.

Crunchbase is a good site for showing orgs who have had big investments made into them - I would also use those as a basis to get CV's sent out directly to those companies.

The good thing is that there are a lot of companies out there who need good security guys. I should have asked what your specialty is.

I wish you the best of luck (then again, I do believe you make your own luck, so go get 'em!!)

 

Sorry to hear about your predicament.

One avenue you may wish to explore is banking. Working for one of the UK's largest, and knowing people in other large banks, two things have become patently clear.

• Banks take their security very seriously
• IT in general and security are not seen as overheads anymore

With the speed that things move now, IT absolutely underpins the ability of the sales force to get new product out and for people to have convenient banking. IT professionals in banking are well rewarded and sought after, and as we all know, the banks are too big to fail

That's not to say we don't suffer redundancies, but they tend to be in other areas.

The Cyber Security element in our organisation is on the increase, and security is not going to become less of a concern any time soon.

 

Can't believe I forgot to mention banks. Spot on.

 

Thanks all for your contribution on the tread and to those who PM'd.


@BoozyDave - not 25 years at current company, only joined them in September 2015. If I had 25 years done with them, I'd probably be begging for redundancy or be so expensive to pay off they would bypass me.


@Markjmd - PM'd and thanks.


@Steve05wrx - unfortunately I am not in a position to relocate overseas, although maybe I can spend my period of 'funemployment' at your villa in the UAE to see if I'd like it!


@Torquemada / geezer - sound advice thank you, financial services & insurance industry seem to 'get it' - defending a high value target from skilled motivated attacker - that's the challenge I am looking for.

 

I know what you're saying,but some just like to make you feel as if its a slap in the face.When you haven't had a payrise for four years,and one is boasting to the other your Porsche isn't isn't a turbo s,goes sailing for four months,and then pins up a staff notice ,nobody is to take holidays September because it's our busiest month..British management as always basically been ****..

 

Its not good to have hanging over you head. I have been made redundant twice in 2005 & 2008, it semms to be the norm in the print/graphics indutry.
As has been said, get your CV and LinkedIn profile out there, sometimes it can work out for the best.