Making Skills Visible in Cybersecurity — Part 1: Skills You Can’t See on a Resume

Why This Series?

Every week, I work with students and early-career professionals trying to break into cybersecurity. And while the advice often starts with “get your certs” or “build a homelab,” what’s missing is just as important:

The invisible skills.

I’m talking about:

  • Knowing how to stay calm during chaos
  • Making risk-based decisions in gray areas
  • Translating technical findings into business impact
  • Asking good questions when you don’t know something
  • Taking initiative without being told

These are the skills that don’t neatly fit into the Skills section of a resume. But they’re the ones that shape trust, credibility, and long-term success in the field.

Real-World Example

Imagine two candidates for a junior SOC analyst role:

  • Candidate A has Security+ and built a Splunk dashboard.
  • Candidate B also has Security+ but documented their experience running an incident simulation with peers, including the communication breakdowns they learned from.

Which one do you want on your team?

Employers increasingly want more than checkboxes. They want context. They want maturity. They want people who can think under pressure.

Why Resumes Aren’t Enough

Traditional resumes reward keywords. But in cybersecurity, we often value:

  • Judgment over memorization
  • Growth mindset over perfection
  • Team dynamic over solo execution

Those traits rarely appear in black-and-white PDF form unless you tell the story behind the skills.

Walking Deck: A More Human Way to Share Your Journey

A “walking deck” is a simple slide deck that introduces you—not just your credentials, but your mindset, style, and how you handle challenges.

We’ll build this over the series, but here’s a sample structure using my own background as a template:

Slide 1: “Who I Am”

  • Cybersecurity educator, practitioner, and mentor
  • Founding Program Director of a business-focused cybersecurity degree housed in the College of Business.
  • Passionate about hands-on learning, emotional intelligence, and communication

Slide 2: “What I Value”

  • Growth over perfection
  • Systems thinking + people thinking
  • Real-world projects over textbook examples

Slide 3: “Soft Skills in Action”

  • Led a team of 6 students through a simulated ransomware drill
  • Managed miscommunication between red/blue teams to maintain forward momentum
  • Debriefed stakeholders with both technical and business summaries

Slide 4: “How I Learn”

  • Share learning reflections on LinkedIn
  • Build hands-on projects on proftsec.info
  • Practice mentorship through Slack communities

Slide 5: “What I’m Looking For”

  • Projects where education, threat analysis, and leadership intersect
  • Opportunities to bridge technical and human gaps

We’ll cover how to build each of these slides in Part 4. For now, the point is this:

You are more than a list of tools.

Show people what you do with those tools—and who you become in the process.

Coming Next: Part 2

In Part 2, we’ll share specific tactics for building visibility—even if you don’t have a huge portfolio yet. From learning out loud to showcasing your questions, we’ll break down ways to stand out without sounding like you’re bragging.

Stay visible. Stay reflective. Stay growing.