How do I write a cyber security resume with no experience?

Question

Zippia Team · Accepted Answer

You write a cyber security resume with no experience by highlighting your technical expertise and unique skill set that you have cultivated from education and training thus far. This can include any internships, school projects, or freelance work you may have done.

To land a cyber security job with no prior experience means you're going to need to focus on highlighting your technical skills.

It's not enough, however, to just list them in the skills section. Rather, you want to demonstrate that you can, for instance, reverse engineer a piece of software and debug it by discussing a project you worked on in school or from a self-taught project you did to add to your work portfolio.

For example, "Recent IT college graduate with professional experience in FISMA compliance and local network security looking for an opportunity to apply extensive risk management and threat analysis knowledge."

You can also consider adding additional sections to further demonstrate particular accomplishments or show your fit for a particular position. In the education section, be sure to include a list of any relevant courses that you took (e.g., Network Forensics, Cyber Crime, Database Security, Ethical Hacking).

Additional sections to include on an entry-level cybersecurity resume:

Foreign languages: especially helpful if you're applying to large international companies.
Certifications: a great way to help gauge how much knowledge a security professional has.
Security clearances: Government jobs and jobs working in research environments might require security clearances, so list these if you have them.
Volunteer experience, hobbies: Only add these if they are relevant to the position you're looking for.