The cyber security expo and conference season is well underway. Rachael Bailey, TechVets Training Coordinator has been up and down the country spreading the TechVets word to ex-forces and tech companies about the amazing careers and employment opportunities that come together in the powerhouse that is the TechVets community.

UK Cyber Week kicked off earlier this month at the Business Design Centre in London. Organised by Roar B2B the event was attend by just under 3000 people over the two-day event.

Was the event a success? Here’s our Rachael with her latest dispatch:

UK Cyber Week is designed to bridge the knowledge gap between the expertise of the cyber community and UK businesses leaders by allowing companies to exhibit – highlighting what they do and why people should be interested in the services they provide.

The event had a lot of talks on covering a variety of topics within cyber, these educate people both in and entering the industry to understand more on different subjects. Attending these talks offers the unique opportunity to ask the speakers questions.

The first day of the event was busier than the second day. We greeted lots of visitors many of them TechVets members who stopped by to say hello. We also spoke to a good amount of veterans and Service leavers who didn’t know about Techvets (how’s that possible!). This gave us a great opportunity to spread the word about how we are supporting the Forces community into cyber security careers.  

This led to a number of new registrations and we hope that now that their members TechVets can help them with their goal to work within Cyber Security.

The second day was quieter, but this was a good thing! It allowed me to have a good walk around the event and speak to people and companies at the stands. There were a few companies I had not seen at events like these before which gave me some new potential employers to research.

The great benefit of attending events like these is that veterans and forces family members have the chance to speak face to face with companies and potential employers. You can gain really valuable information from the free specialist talks and network. 

For those that attended, it allowed them to gain more information into cyber security and helped them to figure out what roles interest them. This will give them options and goals to aim for. Experts are a plenty in events like this, they can advise you of the best websites to keep you updated on current events and can point you in the direction of new tools, threats and techniques as they appear. Something that online learning cannot provide.

For me, the highlight was in helping people to understand more about TechVets and how we can support them. It’s also great to meet in person members of the TechVets community and get to know them beyond the digital sphere. I also had the joy of bumping into an old colleague I hadn’t seen in over ten years, so we had a good catch-up about the old days. The military is a really small world!

Service leavers, veterans and forces families should attend events like these because they’re great for being able to understand a company and what they can offer you as an employee or customer. For example, if you are looking at applying for a job with a company you can get a feel for what the culture might be like by how the exhibitors are interacting with each other. You can also ask the exhibitors questions you might not be able to answer from an internet search.

Every time I attend these events, I increase my LinkedIn connections just by chatting to people and learning about them and the companies they work for.

There are always learning opportunities from events, and not just through the talks. There are also challenges that companies have on their stands to win prizes. For example Punk Security hosted a Capture The Flag (CTF) challenge so people could participate and learn new skills. Through this I was able to add current members of the TechVets community to our TechVets CTF team. Creating the opportunity for them to learn more of a skill they did not know they had, and for TechVets to add fresh new people to the team.

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