Companies hiring people to work in this field are looking for more than just technical skills; they want cybersecurity professionals with a complete set of capabilities that will add value to the team. Those with problem-solving skills, attention to detail, a desire to learn, adaptability, and communication skills have a greater chance of capturing a recruiter’s attention.
We’ve said it before, working in cybersecurity is not what you see in movies. This is not a job you will be doing all by yourself sitting in front of a computer. In fact, it is the other way around. Cybersecurity requires you to talk to others, be able to explain technical things to non-technical people and to be able to have good relationships with vendors and co-workers.
At CyberWarrior Academy, we focus on helping future successful cybersecurity professionals improve their technical and soft skills. We want to help you build an exceptional resume.
This blog gives you some communication tips that will be very useful when working in any cybersecurity position.
1- Speak the Same Language as Everyone Else
Most people don’t understand what cybersecurity terms such as “privacy,” “security controls,” or “network defense” mean. For your communication to be effective, you need to learn to speak in a way that anyone understands.
For example, if you are going to talk with the Board of Executives of your organization, you should put yourself in their shoes, understand the real priorities of the business, and address the impact cybersecurity can have on them. That way, you can remove confusion and achieve better results.
On the other hand, if you are going to speak with someone from another department, you should use the risk language. Everyone understands risks. We have been taught since childhood how to avoid it.
Speaking the language of risk and business will open doors to better relationships with everyone in your organization and a better return to every suggestion you make. Technical language should only be used when speaking to other experts in the area.
2- Use Tools and Visuals as your Aid
The first thing you need to do is center your conversation in relevant data, find out what really matters to your audience, and focus mainly on that. To help them understand what you are talking about, it is a great idea to include visual aids in your presentation.
At CyberWarrior Academy, we strongly recommend cybersecurity professionals use industry statistics and compare them to internal data. It would help if you also considered building risk heat maps to present cyber risks in an easy and visually attractive format.
3- Bring the Risk Closer to your Organization
Over the past few years, we have seen how more and more business leaders are starting to consider cyber risks as an important threat to their organization. Yet, there is still a lot of work to do. One way to address this situation is to make it easier for them to understand the threats they face and their possible consequences.
For example, explain the different scenarios that can happen to your organization if there is no firewall in place or what can happen if there is not working from home policy. Include the financial and reputation impact, statistics, and examples of organizations similar to yours that have been victims of these types of cyber risks.
It is important to do the same when talking to coworkers, but do it on a personal level. Please focus your comments on what can happen to them, their loved ones, and their data. Let them know what the risk is on a personal level of clicking a phishing link or how they can protect their data with two-factor authentication.
Communicating with different roles within your organization will open the doors to having a well-trained staff, new security projects, and a more resilient organization.
