…and found out public speaking counts for CPEs

By: Div Joshi & Merisa Lee

Public speaking is something many of us dream of, but few feel comfortable pursuing. It’s intimidating to get up in front of your peers to give a talk, and it is a skill, like many others, that needs to be exercised until it becomes second nature.

We recently had the opportunity to speak at the 2022 Day of Shecurity May Virtual Event and the 2022 Grace Hopper Conference. It made us think about what additional information we could share with others and prompted us to write this blog post.

Pre Pandemic attending conferences, training, and taking the exams were an annual commonplace. With the onset of COVID-19, many of these in-person events were canceled, and earning CPEs to keep the certifications current became difficult. Thankfully, many conferences went virtual, like Day of Shecurity.

While many people already claim their attendance of conferences and training for CPEs, did you know speaking also counts towards your CPEs? We know the thought of public speaking can already be stressful, so if you are already leaning towards submitting for Call for Papers (CFPs), we hope this information about CPEs can give you another reason to dive in and go for it! As an additional bonus, speakers will typically receive a free attendee pass to a conference so they can attend other speakers’ talks.

We are both cybersecurity professionals, so this blog post will lean more towards security standards; however, this also applies to other institutions.

What are CPEs?

CPE stands for Continuing Professional Education. Typically for industry standard certifications (CISA, CISSP, SANS GIAC, PMP, etc.), there are two options to renew your certification. You can retake the exam or submit CPEs to show you are continuing your education in that space. Both these options have costs involved, and it is important to know that CPEs are merely a prerequisite to applying for certification renewal. 

How many CPEs can I earn?

It depends on the institution. For example, SANS will grant up to 6 CPEs per speaking engagement, while ISACA grants 5 CPEs per hour of engagement. We recommend reviewing the requirements set forth by the governing institution for your certification and contacting them directly if you have any questions.

Many certifications require approximately 32 CPEs for renewals. So let’s break it down for a potential hypothetical renewal - attending webinars, conferences, etc. fetches you about 1-2 CPEs, public speaking at conferences about 5-6 CPEs, industry work experience 12 CPEs, blog posts, papers and publications also earn you 2 CPEs and training completions 12-32 CPEs.

What’s next? Let’s earn some CPEs!

If you’ve been thinking of submitting a Call for Papers (CFPs) and speaking at a conference, we hope we’ve given you enough reasons to submit it! Start with the Day of Shecurity 2022 Virtual Conference CFPs due October 11, 2022, at 8 am PT!