Career Management Tactics From North Korean Hackers

Why You Should Have A Hacker As A Career Coach

2025 has been a record year for the employment of North Korean citizens within corporate America. That is not a sign of DEI making strides for disenfranchised Americans. It is a testament to the perseverance and ingenuity by people who literally have their backs against the pavement. North Korean Hackers are referred to by U.S. CyberCOM (United States Cyber Command) as an APT, Advanced Persistent Threat. APTs are groups of hackers with nation state missions, backing, and funding.

In the case of North Korean APTs the mission is to help the country avoid sanctions. These hackers are actually really good at that task. In Dec of 2025 Chain Analysis reported a record year for North Korean Hackers stealing $2Billion from various crypto theft attacks. Unfortunately for most of the individuals participating in these operations if pride in their countries mission is not enough of a motivation many of my friends that monitor this behavior will tell you they have “unplanned moments of silence” when APT groups go dark.

So what can we learn about career success from the very motivated hackers that have to pay dues to make up for sanctions:

1. Don’t just master your craft; Tell the Internet About it

   Many of the DPRK ITWs (Information Technology Workers) have publicly available resumes and we aren’t just talking about LinkedIn. The industry has observed profiles on various freelance websites that serve to give the ITW the presence of an expert in the field. You can use this principle by developing your LinkedIn profile, writing articles for multiple sources, and making your own profile on freelance websites that showcase your experience. Your resume is like the poster for your rock band/music career/breakout movie. Your poster needs to be everywhere that eyes drift to. Above urinals, behind the heads of boring people, laminated and bolted to bathroom floors in-between stalls so that people throwing up can read your skills while they contemplate life decisions. Metaphorically speaking of course - just think outside the box.

2. Stack Your Resume with Experience

   
   The resumes of these sanction dodging professionals are stacked with experience in the fields they are looking to work in. At this point you’re probably wondering how do I gain experience without a job? That’s a simple one to remedy; experience comes from work not the job. You just have to do the work, and lucky for you the tech industry respects projects that you can prove. Find a project to engineer, maintain, or improve. Write a blog on it and add it to your resume. Truth is that plenty of tech experts got hired because of the work they did when no one is looking. Side projects documented on Github, Youtube, and blogs can turn into talks, which add to your rapport within the industry. Imagine someone walking up to a construction site and asking for a job whilst admitting they never swung a hammer and thinks a stud finder is how you find handsome lesbians. Unless they plan on blowing up the jobsite for insurance money that someone isn’t getting a job. The hobbyist building furniture and doing handy man side project will be labeled a “self starter” that people want to work with.
   

3. Mass Apply is a more superior strategy than Intentional Applications

   
   Have you ever stared at job posting and wanted it so bad you crafted your resume around that job posting just to get the sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach that they never even look at your resume? DPRK Hackers don’t have that problem at all. They mass apply to all of the available job listing that meet a certain criteria. Every job listing is lined up in rows like audience members of the Oprah Winfrey show in November 2010 and handed the same exact stock 2012 Volkswagen Beetle with color swaps (the car is your resume in this analogy). As opposed to modifying your resume for each job listing which will waste your JOBLESS time just so someone with a JOB can have an easier time selecting a candidate. If you modify your resume for each job posting you may get to apply to 15-30 position in a week. Just to be completely honest in 2026 if you tell me you are looking for a job and you’ve submitted less than 100 applications in a week I don’t believe that you want a job.
   

4. Let them tell you no before you tell yourself no (Don’t Qualify Apply Anyway)

   
   Do you think that fraudulent ITWs are burdened by the thought of career rejection from corporations posting job listings? DPRK hackers don’t care about being rejected within their job search and maybe you should be the same way. Apply to the job even if you think they’ll say no apply anyway. You don’t meet the qualifications, who cares, apply anyway. A Microsoft employee once broke it down to me like this: most of the people that get the job have some skills but most of the time the organization is training you on the job; so most of the new hires had no experience. Using the lens of LET THEM TELL YOU NO, how many opportunities have you missed by giving yourself the no?

There you have it; 4 easy steps on how to get the job learned from some fraudulent IT workers who actually stole your job. This is $2Billion advice to North Korean hackers and it could be lifetime career advice for you if you let it.

Read more about DPRK ITWs

https://www.fbi.gov/wanted/cyber/dprk-it-workersurluser

https://reports.dtexsystems.com/DTEX-Exposing+DPRK+Cyber+Syndicate+and+Hidden+IT+Workforce.pdf

https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/1ebgbe4/north_korean_hacker_got_hired_by_us_security/

https://therecord.media/40-countries-impacted-nk-it-thefts-united-nations