Having Skills Is No Longer Enough, You Need To Be Visible | Root To CISO Podcast

In today’s competitive market, having top-tier technical skills and certifications is no longer enough to get you hired or promoted. If nobody knows who you are, your talent goes to waste. In this episode, top cybersecurity leaders and CISOs break down why technical expertise is just the baseline, and why mastering "visibility" through networking and authentic branding is the ultimate career accelerator. 

Learn how to stop hiding behind your screen, step out of your comfort zone, and build a reputation that makes opportunities come to you. 

 #Cybersecurity #CareerAdvice #CISO #TechJobs #Networking #PersonalBranding #RootToCISO 

Transcript

Speaker 2 0:01

Hi, and welcome to the Root To CISO Byte Size podcast. I'm your host Kris Rides, and in these bite-sized episodes, we'll be speaking to experienced cybersecurity hiring managers. We'll be asking their advice on how you can stand out from the crowd to make the career moves you desire. I'm an introvert. That's just how I'm wired. And so being an introvert, like sometimes I don't wanna be at the event or I don't want to go to the thing or I don't want to talk to the person. And so I had to, and I still do, I had to, fight against that. Okay? This is not gonna help me in my career, at least where I think I want to go. And so I'm gonna fight against that natural tendency and. Put myself out there, have the conversation, shake the hand, go to the meeting, show up at the party, whatever it happens to be. Proximity, creates some opportunity sometimes, and build and starting to build relationships, right? One thing I will, encourage any younger person in their career, build the relationships now. Not when you think you might need them. Right? Yeah. It's now do it now. Early in your career, and they're like, well, so I mean, I should join these. Yeah, join the association, join the group, get to the meetings, meet the people. Now, not when you're 10 years down the line and you just got let go and now you need people to find you a job that's too late. Most of the time build those relationships and not just for self-service, but you never know what those opportunities will bring and how you can help somebody and how you can partner with or, who knows, set off on a new, new venture.

Kris Rides 1:43

You know, how people can make the most of these sort of conferences. You know, going to a conference, what, what are the ways that you can, you can do that?

Greg Rogers 1:52

Yeah. I mean, first is the obvious, you know, the learning opportunities. you know, I think no matter where you are in your career, in your professional development, there's always something you can learn. I mean, cyber security is such a broad industry Second is, is, You know, it's definitely the networking. it, it's nice to network, you know, we've met so many people through this that, that we've become close with and now we see over and over at events, that friendship, that community Yeah. Is really nice. but they also are there, you know, as, as a professional support, networking that you do here. Helps you develop networking skills. You grow your circle, but also, hey, maybe someone you talked to at a conference six months from now is like, ah, you know, I, I talked to that guy and, you know, he seemed really interested in this topic and now we have an opportunity that I heard about. So, you know, it also will help you potentially find your next job. Yeah, I think I, I've heard of lots of people. That have connected with people at conferences that then ended up, you know, they hear something or they have something in their organization and they, they hire people.

3:05

when you've got 300 resumes, you're not gonna speak to 300 people. You can't. I was gonna ask you about, I. Like when, when you get a resume, when it gets to you, regardless of the role, what are the things you look for? 'cause most people only give it a few seconds before they decide how much time they're gonna spend on the resume. When you get to it and it's, it's in front of you, what do you look for in that piece of paper that gives them that opportunity to speak to you? Actually the first thing I look for is, did you apply, or did somebody recommend you?

Speaker 6 3:34

Because again, like you were saying, if I have a recommendation, I'm gonna look at that resume much more. I. Thoroughly that I'm going to look if somebody's just applied because they have, somebody's told me this person is good. And that to me is huge. So particularly if it's somebody who I have worked with in the past has told me it's good and I trust them, then that person's gonna get much more of a look over than somebody else. And if, if that person's resume isn't as good, but this person says, Hey, I know that they haven't worked in this industry, however, let me tell you why they would be good. That's huge as well.

kris-rides_1_03-04-2026_131022 4:11

we see so many posts now on LinkedIn, right? A load of AI

dave-ruiz--cyberdave-_1_03-04-2026_161021 4:14

Yeah.

kris-rides_1_03-04-2026_131022 4:15

out there. there's not enough, authenticity. and I, everything you post is so authentic, and I know you speak at a lot of conferences. You get asked to go on a lot of podcasts and speak a lot of webinars and all this sort of stuff. And I think a major part of that is because. you're how authentic you're as a person. So yeah, I just wanna talk a little bit about that and find out more about like what drives you to do it. If somebody was sort of needing advice. Being their authentic self. Is there any sort of tips you'd give them or anything you think they could do? to, to be out there pushing positivity and pushing their own sort of stuff out there to get 'em the kind of good, positive attention that I think LinkedIn can give you, especially when you're early in your career and it might be giving you career opportunities.

dave-ruiz--cyberdave-_1_03-04-2026_161021 5:07

Let's say you want post and you want to kind of create some interest on something, because a lot of people produce numbers, but they don't produce. Context and relationships, you know,

kris-rides_1_03-04-2026_131022 5:20

Yes.

dave-ruiz--cyberdave-_1_03-04-2026_161021 5:20

that personality, that personalization of it. So we all like something, right? We all like something, you know, you like snowboarding, right? That'd be some, that'd be a subject to talk about, you know, you know, why it would be something important. Because everybody's so focused about, you know, da, da, da, that when you see something that has a personality on it, you're like, oh, hold on. and it's just, find something that you like and talk about it. And relate it into your job. Relate it into your profession. Relate it into it, right? Because you know that that's how you create all these, you know, different, how you say, not a crowd, but different people and different groups.

kris-rides_1_03-04-2026_131022 6:07

like a good network, like

dave-ruiz--cyberdave-_1_03-04-2026_161021 6:09

Network. Yeah. and it just connects you on and it just, you know, you can have conversations.

Speaker 6:20

Thank you for listening to the Root To CISO Byte Size podcast. I hope you enjoyed this episode. Make sure you keep an eye out for season three of the full Root To CISO podcast. And in the meantime, stay up to date by liking, commenting, and of course subscribing to our channel. Thank you.