Pros
Benefits packages are decent. There are many company incentives, such as Summer Fridays and a wellness plan.
Cons
I was recruited by my former manager to join the company. It was apparent she did very little research on my background, because they did not even know where I was located. Even though I was contacted, I still had to go through four interviews and at least two phone screenings. In one of the phone screenings by an outside recruiter, I was treated very rudely and I got the sense the recruiter wanted me to back out of the running—I should have taken all those major red flags as a warning and listened to my instincts. I was fired without warning and without a review within 5 months after leaving a job where I had many mentors and some wins. Looking back, I should have turned this offer down, but I thought I was in tune with FS-ISAC’s mission and it would be a good fit. Was I wrong. The executives at FS-ISAC are some of the most out of touch people in this industry. There is a lot of talk about being more diverse and propping up women, but all you will hear is whining about how much work they have and how understaffed they are while they degrade their staff. One of my first introductions to a department with high turnover featured two of the managers taunting an employee who gave notice, saying things like “We don’t need you anymore and we’re glad you’re quitting.” Most people seemed to go screaming out of there. One person asked me if I was going to have children and then proceeded to tell me if I did, that I wouldn’t be able to get ahead. Not to mention, that many other instances I documented that showed bias and disrespect among the messiness of the organization. From day one, I was treated like an incompetent idiot, which totally destroyed my self confidence and caused me to fall into a deep depression. It was shocking because I thought this was a nonprofit that cared about an important mission? The department I was in was even worse. After suffering through physical and mental health problems, the disrespect doubled down and I experienced some of the worst office politics and bullying imaginable. My boss, one week into the role, told all my other colleagues in a meeting how terrible the assignments were I completed. They acted as if everything was my fault and I became the new scapegoat for why our department wasn’t producing. It’s ironic because the organization acts as if they care about hiring diverse candidates on the outside, but they do not have the infrastructure to train from the inside. I constantly took the fall for failures of my manager, who had absolutely zero accountability. If you don’t “get it” immediately, you’re dispensable. This experience was so awful, I will never publicly name this organization again. In fact, I have made a decision to leave cybersecurity for good because of this job. There was an idea to make this organization world recognized, but even in the cybersecurity industry many people don’t know who the company is or what it does. Because it is so niche and doesn’t even serve people who are not members (and to be a member, you have to be a security practitioner in financial services), I do not personally see how this is an achievable goal over several years, let alone a few months, especially with the toxic environment. The only people who seem to stick it out are the higher ups and younger people who start as interns/have no idea how a functional business operates. Even then, most of them seem like they’re miserable. I’m not sure how this organization stays relevant or funded, but it was the biggest mistakes in my career to even consider working here.
