Home » Security Leadership » Career/Staffing

Landing a CSO Job

Why recruiters are your friends (and other secrets to landing a new CSO job)

November 01, 2005 — CSO — OK, boys and girls, this month we're going to talk about the moving gameâ¬that is, the process of finding a new job. But first, I'd like to begin with a list of the top 10 ways you know it's time to start looking:

10. You arrive at work and Eliot Spitzer is in the lobby as an unannounced guest.

9. When you log in, your computer begins playing Blue Oyster Cult, and you have a personalized greeting from "Hacker Boy."

8. The company CFO has just taken indefinite emergency leave to visit a sick relative in South America.

7. A recruiter friend calls to ask why your job is being advertised on the street.

6. The CEO, to whom you've been reporting for the past three years, gets on the elevator with you, smiles and asks whom in the company you're here to visit.

5. The police show up at work to inform you that your warehouse guard force has been arrested in a sting operation. They would like you to come down to the station to answer a few questions.

4. The new buzzphrase around the company is "working hard to achieve shareholder value."

3. Corporate relations issues a press release saying that there are no plans to sell the company or to lay off employees.

2. After the press release, the CEO calls a special "all hands" meeting to discuss plans for the future of the company.

1. The head of HR requests an impromptu meeting with you and, by the way, can you bring your hat and coat?

In case you haven't figured it out yet, I've been job-hunting. The wheres and whys aren't important here. (For a hint, though, go back and read my February columnâ¬you know, the one that began: "My CEO is a psychopath.") What matters is that it was time for me to get rid of any quaint notion I might have had that my company or mentor or even rich daddy (if I had one) was going to take care of me. It was time to move on.

The same might go for you. Hard as it may be to admit sometimes, you and only you are the person responsible for your career and getting the job that you really want. So what's the secret? I'm still working that out. But here's a little of what I've remembered, and come to understand, along the road to my next job.

Welcome to the World of Recruiters