full image - Repost: DefendEdge Review (from Reddit.com, DefendEdge Review)
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As promised, I said I would do a review once I finished my Skillbridge with DefendEdge. There are some stuff I'm not allowed to talk about as they make you sign an NDA so I will have to keep it vague in some parts. Some background on me. I have no professional IT experience. I'm Air Force with a Secret Clearance. I was a 2W1 then retrained into a 5R0. Only education I had a CCAF in Aircraft Armament Systems and working towards my Cybersecurity BA. Only certs I have are Google It Support and Security+. Only IT related skills I had from my jobs were IT equipment custodian and a SharePoint Content Manager. I also manage a home lab.The tldr, I thought it was a pretty good internship. The training weeks were a bit unorganized when I went through but they were revamping the program. They are very flexible with appointments. Don't expect to be hired at the end of the Skillbridge. All in all it helped me land 3 job offers (one of them being a federal job) with a possible 4th that I'm still waiting to hear back from. This was after about 300+ job applications over the last 6 months.I cant go to much into the training but I felt it was pretty basic. Its designed so that anyone without experience should be able to learn the material. They do have test that you are required to pass. I only found the 7th test to be difficult. Everything else I didn't study for. Once you pass the 4th test you are assigned to a team or as they call it a Hive. Your Hive determines what shift you will be on. They have a day, swings, mid and a weekend duty shift. All 8 hours except Weekend duty which is 12 but you get Monday - Thursday off. As an intern you are not allowed to work more and 8 hours a day (if not on weekend duty) and no more than 40 hours a weeks. They are very strict on that. By the end of my internship I felt more confident in talking about basic networking stuff like how DNS and DHCP works. Also learned a lot about how to set up a firewalls, local in policy, and configure static routes. Being able to talk about these greatly helped me in interviews.On the subject of jobs and finding employment, do not expect an offer from DefendEdge. They make it clear day one that they are probably not hire you on at the end. During my time there only two Skillbridge interns got hired on. They do assist with setting up your resume and helping you find employment. I personally didn't use their assistance as I felt most of there employment opportunities and connections were based out of Chicago which I did not want to move to. I also already had Next Op and ACP assisting me on my resume (highly recommend both of them). I do think its very unlikely you will walk into another SOC position after finishing the internship unless you already have some type of networking or security experience. I only managed to get a one interview for a SOC position and was rejected after the second round. I had to apply for helpdesk, SharePoint admin, system admin roles.Once again I do think DefendEdge greatly helped me find employment. Some interviewer straight up telling me I was mostly consider because I had SOC experience on my resume. However, DefendEdge alone wont get you a job. The biggest thing I recommend is using your COOL money to get a cert before you separate. Also check how far away you are from a degree, your time in basic and tech school/AIT are college credits. You can easily CLEP or use Sophia learning to finish off the remaining credits. Main point being this Skillbridge will give a heavy boost to your resume if you are lacking the experience but you need more if you want to find a job in this market. Anyway today is my last day in the Air Force and I have two bottles of Soju that are staring me down. If yall have any questions please let me know but I probably wont get to them until tomorrow. Good luck on the transition.
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