A Tool to Help You Develop Your Cybersecurity Career

We’ve all heard that cybersecurity is a booming field. But sometimes it can be challenging to know career-wise where to begin, or how to take the next step.

The new CSX Career Road Map is a valuable educational tool for young professionals looking to jump-start or launch a career in the cybersecurity/ information security field. The Road Map is comprised of three sections:  your background, your current skills, and future goals and aspirations in the cybersecurity field.

The first stage takes you through basic information such as building your profile by providing your name, current job title, current role (technical or nontechnical), education level, years of relevant security experience, and any certification(s) you have earned. After completing this, there is a little circle below which tells you which level on the CSX certification path you are currently at and what the actual path is.

The second stage consists of your current skills. It asks you what managerial and soft skills you have. After entering the information, the tool tells you how many job titles you qualify for. This is an awesome feature.

The job titles also include nice descriptions so that you will know exactly what each entails and can compare that against where you want to go in cybersecurity. At this stage, you should have a good idea of what job you can be looking for in the market if you are not yet employed. However, if you are already employed, this stage gives you a good idea of what you should be responsible for in your current cybersecurity role, as well as some alternate areas to consider pursuing.

The third stage helps you determine where you want to be in the future in the cybersecurity field based on the path that appeals to you most (managerial/technical). It gives you a list of future job considerations and development goals that you can choose from to reach your goals.

Since I currently work as an information security analyst—the equivalent of a cybersecurity practitioner in the CSX Career Road Map tool—I was able to determine where I am now and where I am supposed to be next in my cybersecurity/information security career.

Another great feature of the CSX Career Road Map is that it gives you a great level of detail on suggested potential roles, which may help you discover new roles you might be interested in pursuing. Importantly, it also tells you possible certifications to earn in order to strengthen your path to a successful cybersecurity/information security career. Certifications are really important in the cybersecurity field in order to validate your skills. With that, I was able to see what certification I need to earn in order to get to an information security manager (ISM) role. It also gives hints on what to do to achieve your development goals.

Overall, this is an awesome tool that provides very valuable information. It will not only help many young professionals starting their careers in cybersecurity find out what to do and where to start, but it will also help practitioners like me who are already in the field figure out how to advance to the next level to better identify, protect, detect, respond and recover.

Yaro Sadek Tahirou, Information Security Analyst, Affinity Plus Federal Credit Union

[ISACA Now Blog]