Here are the keywords and skills that appear most frequently on recent Security Engineer job postings. In other words, these are the most sought after skills by recruiters and hiring managers. Go to Sample Templates ↓ below to see how to include them on your resume.
Remember that every job is different. Instead of including all keywords on your resume, identify those that are most relevant to the job you're applying to. Use the free Targeted Resume tool to help with this.
Does your resume contain all the right skills? Paste in your resume in the AI Resume Scan ↓ section below and get an instant score.
Paste your resume below and our AI will identify which keywords are missing from your resume from the list above (and what you need to include). Including the right keywords will help you get past Applicant Tracking Systems (i.e. resume screeners) which may scan your resume for keywords to see if you're a match for the job.
Go through the Security Engineer posting you're applying to, and identify hard skills the company is looking for. For example, skills like Penetration Testing, Cybersecurity and Security Engineering are possible skills. These are skills you should try to include on your resume.
The following word cloud highlights the most popular keywords that appear on Security Engineer job descriptions. The bigger the word, the more frequently it shows up on employer's job postings. If you have experience with these keywords, include them on your resume.
Here are examples of proven resumes in related jobs and industries, approved by experienced hiring managers. Use them as inspiration when you're writing your own resume. You can even download and edit the resume template in Google Docs.
A UX (user experience) engineer is responsible for building design systems and front-end engineering rather than finalizing the look and design of a product. UX engineers collaborate with designers, researchers, and programmers and need a solid understanding of design principles as well as technical skills including familiarity with creative software, programming languages, and experience testing and debugging.
UX engineers need a lot of technical skills, so make sure you explicitly list skills and keywords. This is just as important for getting past a resume screener as well as showcasing your fit to a hiring manager. You can include hard skills and certifications in your work experience bullet points or in an additional skills section.
Make sure you’re tailoring your resume to each specific job you’re applying to. Listing the job title at the top of your resume in particular is an easy way to get past automated resume screeners and onto the desk of a hiring manager. Keep your work experience and skills section focused on the most relevant information, including recent certifications and proficiency with UX design software.
An IT Security Manager specializes in all things security for an organization’s information technology, including protection, disaster recovery, virus detection, security breach response, and more. Especially for certain industries such as health or finance, it is of the utmost importance for companies to properly protect sensitive customer data. When crafting your IT Security Manager resume, emphasize your expertise in the cybersecurity space and detail your relevant skills and certifications.
It’s important to demonstrate your competence throughout past positions in maintaining the integrity of computer systems and infrastructure. Like an IT Manager or IT Infrastructure Manager, this position is heavily project-oriented, so you should outline successful projects where you made an impact on the organization. Include aspects of the project such as scope and outcome, and be specific as you can with details.
Cybersecurity is a highly specialized skill, and the soundness of a company’s information security is extremely important in many industries. Make sure to carefully read through the job description to see what kind of software, languages, and/or hardware that the organization uses to manage their information. When hiring for this role, recruiters are looking for extensive experience and a clear understanding of what the role entails, and you’ll want to reflect that in your resume.
A cyber security analyst is a professional who works to protect a company from cyber security hardware and software attacks. In addition to typical IT tasks like ensuring the organization’s software is up-to-date and monitoring networks for potential attacks or security risks, they also educate employees in other departments about potential security risks and how to avoid them. The best security analysts are also researching new security threats to stay ahead of constantly changing threats.
This resume effectively shows a mid-level cyber security professional’s ongoing growth and specialization. They have an excellent foundation with a computer science degree, obtained a cyber security specialization certificate, and applied it to their career path. Since the analyst wants to specialize in government and private security, it’s extremely effective to list their security clearance front and center.
One aspect of cyber security is dealing with outside regulatory agencies to ensure standards are being met. You should always note when you’ve had to work with these agencies or standards (e.g. the Department of Energy, HIPAA, etc.) as they increase your value in these niches.
If you have some roles that were foundational to your knowledge of cyber security, but not necessarily in the field, you can highlight the skills that you used in that role that helped to develop your knowledge of cyber security before you became a specialist.
In some ways, you can think of a cyber security engineer as a higher-level cyber security analyst. A cyber security engineer performs many of the same tasks but is working at a higher level on the network as well as more strategically. Often, they’ll use tools like penetration tests to see where the vulnerabilities are in their system and are the architects of programs to combat them. They’re usually the go-to person for creating and explaining security procedures and protocols of a company.
As an applicant with 10+ years of relevant experience, this job seeker is right to focus more on their impressive job experience, letting the skill box become secondary. He or she allocates more space to their recent experience, which brings together their technical skills with their ability to manage teams. This puts them in competition for top-tier jobs roles, like a chief information security officer (CISO).
You should always support your claims of success with data, which is particularly accessible in the cyber security industry as you’re the one reporting it to the company. Whenever possible, if you can make this data tell a story of change focused on impact. For example, instead of saying, “identified x bugs,” you would instead say, “identified x bugs which lead to an y% increase in productivity.”
Resumes these days are almost always run through an automated program to narrow the number of resumes they read. As a cyber security professional, you can tailor this skill box to jobs you apply to quite easily. As a bonus, in an industry so focused on certifications and demonstrable skill sets, because you’ve already listed the baseline skills in a clear, direct way, you can utilize your job experience section to display particular successes.
ATS (applicant tracking system) filters. - Cyber Security Engineer Resume"/>
Cyber security consultants perform many of the same functions as cyber security engineers, but they are hired (either as agencies or individuals) to work for clients. Often this means that they’re evaluating systems for vulnerabilities, setting up a new and functional system, and then leaving the client to maintain the system with internal personnel.
Cyber security consultants represent a unique skill set in the industry. Because they are hired from outside of the organization in need, they have to have equally high standards in their ability to work with diverse companies, understanding and communicating with those they often don’t have long-term relationships with, and in their wide but deep technical expertise, which allows them to recognize problems efficiently and in different settings. Unlike other roles in the cyber security industry, consultants are constantly proving their worth (just as a freelancer would).
If you scan just the first word of each of these bullet points, they each have a different descriptive and action verb which is technical and highlights a core cyber security skill set. This gives your writing energy and (in combination with data points) places you in the active role in all of your work.
A cyber security specialist is integral to the creation of networks. They are less focused on training fellow employees for vulnerabilities and are more focused on system-wide security threats and incursions. As such, they are most important when a company is setting up their network in the first place.
At first glance, this resume looks very similar to the third resume example. Both are great examples of employees with 10+ years experience and advanced degrees. However, this resume highlights the job seeker’s ability to work well within an organization. They highlight excellent technical skills, but also their ability to train employees within the company on new security threats.
Just like the skill box, including the job title that you’re seeking will help defeat ATS filters as you have a matching job title to the one you're applying to (i.e. cyber security specialist). As an exercise, it will also function as a way to focus the data you put on your resume. You use this as the topic, and make sure that all data concretely supports this job title and experience.
The most common skills and keywords we found on Security Engineer resumes and job postings were Information Security, Network Security, Cybersecurity, Security Engineering, Penetration Testing, Security, Vulnerability Assessment and Firewalls.
Skills like Burp Suite, Security Information and Event Management (SIEM), Application Security, Vulnerability Management and Splunk also appeared on related job postings.
Popular skills we often see on resumes for Information System Security Engineer positions include:
In comparison, skills we see on Network Security Engineer resumes include:
Depending on the specific role you apply to, you may need to emphasize different skill sets. Here are a few examples:
While the keywords above are a good indication of what skills you need on your resume, you should try to find additional keywords that are specific to the job. To do this, use the free Targeted Resume tool. It analyzes the job you are applying to and finds the most important keywords you need on your resume.
It is personalized to your resume, and is the best way to ensure your resume will pass the automated resume filters.
Thank you for the checklist! I realized I was making so many mistakes on my resume that I've now fixed. I'm much more confident in my resume now.
