What you will learn about cybersecurity soft skills | Guest Cicero Chimbanda

The IT and cybersecurity job market is thriving. The Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts 377,500 new IT jobs annually. You need skill and hustle to obtain these jobs, of course, but the good news is that cybersecurity professionals can look forward to extremely competitive salaries. That's why InfoSec has leveraged 20 years of industry experience, drawing from multiple sources, to give you, cyberwork listeners, an analysis of the most popular and top-paying industry certifications. You can use it to navigate your way to a good-paying cybersecurity career. So to get your free copy of our Cybersecurity Salary Guide eBook, just click the link in the description below. It's right there near the top, just below me. You can't miss it. Click the link in the description and download our free Cybersecurity Salary guide ebook. Your cybersecurity journey starts here Now. Let's get the show started. Today on CyberWorks Hacks, my guest, infosec Skills author, cicero Chimbanda, gives us another hack for our cybersecurity managers out there. Now, if you want to know more about Cicero's security manager learning path for InfoSec Skills, this is the episode for you, as we break down everything you'll learn and how to apply it to your career. That's all today on CyberWork Hacks.

Hello and welcome to a new episode of CyberWork Hacks. The purpose of this spinoff of our popular CyberWork podcast is to take a single fundamental question and give you a quick, clear and actionable solution, or give you a new insight into how to utilize InfoSec products and training to achieve all of your work and career goals. And so, for today's hack, I am very pleased to once again welcome longtime friend and InfoSec instructor and collaborator, cicero Chimbanda. So we've had a great time talking about many different aspects of the role of cybersecurity manager and this is Cicero's bread and butter as far as his area of expertise and we've had some good ideas for improving yourself as a security manager, as well as team building and much more. So go back and listen to past Hacks episodes when you have time, because we have lots more to talk about there.

But Cicero also has a learning path on our InfoSec skills platform. If you know about InfoSec Skills, you can check that out there and, of course, you can go to infosecinstitutecom slash free get more information about it. But today we're going to talk specifically about what you'll be learning on Cicero's cybersecurity manager path. So, cicero, thank you for joining me today. Welcome to CyberPacks. Thank you, chris. Thanks for having me again. Okay, you for joining me today. Welcome to CyberPacks. Thank you, chris, thanks for having me again. Okay, it's my pleasure. So, yeah, as I said just now, cicero, you've created a learning path within our InfoSec Skills platform to help you hone your cybersecurity soft skills, become a great security manager. So can you walk our listeners through these different learning modules and what they'll be, uh, working on with infosec skills?

yes, chris. Um, it was a pleasure and it was. It was actually a labor of love uh, doing doing these particular uh courses. Uh, we have uh infosec does a great job. Uh, basically logically aligning your course path so it all feeds into one another, so they're not as clones.

I have four learning paths basically in this course. The first learning path is really an overview, so we just give you an overview of what soft skills are going to be talked about in this particular course. So we give you an overview of the alignment of strategic goals, of soft skills. We give you a high level of earning trust. Part of your skills set is to earn trust the employees that you're leading, but also your stakeholders and your clients, your customers. So earning trust. And then, last, we give an overview of the stability or the operational excellence. So that's the first learning path. And then subsequently we tackle each learning path more in depth. So we go into the in-depth, with the first one being business strategic alignment, the second one being the regulatory obligation, if you will, and then operational excellence, and we drill down in each specific module.

Okay, and roughly. How many sort of hours of learning can you expect to be spending on these?

So each one, I would say probably an hour each. Each one, so hours total.

Okay, so this these are and, to be sure to be clear, these are videos that you'll be watching and they have sort of presentations and PowerPoints. Are there like quizzes or exercises? Are there things that they do to sort of like take the information with them?

That is correct. That is correct. So, chris, essentially there are videos, short clips and with the material, you'll actually get the PowerPoint materials and some documents that you can read, and then after each module, you'll have some questions around it to test your knowledge base, okay, and at the end you'll get a certificate.

Nice, yeah, yeah, absolutely, now, obviously this is. You know, I was going to say who should be interested in this, but this is obviously for security managers. But can you talk about, like, what types of security management can benefit from these types of soft skills and also whether or not it would be beneficial to learn these things even if you're not in a management role?

Yeah, and I'll start with that. I think you know there's a great principle by Stephen Covey seven habits of highly effective people. One of those principles was begin with the end in mind highly effective people. One of those principles was begin with the end in mind. I always talk to young folks when I mentor career wise. Whether going to go in that career or not, it's always good to start with the end in mind and then reverse engineer your career, work your way from the end backwards.

So I say that to say, even if you're in high school, college or if you're starting your first job, this would be great. I mean, it would be great just to understand what kind of skill sets to have down the road. I also would say it's not just for cybersecurity professionals. Ok, so, even if you're not in cybersecurity. Cybersecurity is a general topic, that that hits all levels of a workforce. We all now data for protecting or either producing data, protecting data or disseminating data, and so we all need to be conscious, even personally, whether it's even not corporate-wise. The two demographics, chris, that are being highly attacked by threat vectors are seniors and teens. So that right, there is not the workforce, it's actually your family members, seniors and teens. So these skill sets are transposed, not just for cybersecurity professionals. So that's what I would say.

Interesting. Yeah, no, that's a really good point. We think of security as being the sort of perimeter around the organization that we work with, but it permeates everywhere, I suppose, and especially if you have family members who are susceptible, which a lot of us do for sure. So in a previous hacks episode, Cicero, we discussed some ways that you can develop your security manager soft skills on the job and you gave us some some great insights into keeping your skills relevant with your current teams and with you know current challenges and opportunities. But as we wrap up today, can you talk to our listeners about the specific benefits that come from learning soft skills in this type of format, the skills-based learning that you excel at? What are some insights and skill developments that you can receive specifically from studying the skills path that you can't get other places?

Sure, yes, you know, I think I always like to make my presentations relevant to your day to day. I think one of the things that you'll find from this course is the emphasis on peer relationships and have an ambiotic, where you're not going into a relationship like what can I get from you, yes, but also really going into what can I do to help you? Right, what can I do, how can I serve you, how can I, how can I add value in this relationship? So, and I always find that when you go into relationships to see how you can give, you actually end up getting when you get. Um, I think that's important because and then also people get turned off when they always feel like you're just wanting something from them. So that peer and also even with mentor relationships, having ambiotic relationships, that's always great in developing.

Then I would just add, chris, two more there's what's called informal development. Two more there's what's called informal development, right Relationships, like I mentioned. There's network that you can actually get a lot of information from networks, professional networks, non-professional networks. I'm going to talk about that how you can leverage and get the most when you're doing a conference, for example we were just talking about conferences, for example, and also volunteerism. This is one that's a normal way of you being able to heighten your soft skills when you volunteer in different community events. And then, lastly, formal. I mean I am a proponent of going back to school, getting a master's or bachelor's or, you know, a second degree those are always great Getting certifications. So there are ways to develop specifically your, your skill sets by doing formal education as well.

I do informal education as well. Yeah, yeah, I think last episode I mentioned that you know, the benefit and the downside of learning in this concentrated way is that your learning becomes kind of siloed against the rest of your day-to-day life. You know, like I think a lot of us do a Focus Friday or take two hours in the evening or whatever, and you just think about nothing but this skills path or this type of learning, and I think there's there's uh, you know, a lot of benefit to that, but as long as it's also able to be uh, sort of extracted from that theoretical situation and applied into uh day-to-day work, so that you're not getting theoretically better at being a manager while not actually uh having actual results in real life.

Yes, I agree.

Yeah, so all right. Well, cicero Chimbanda, this was great. Thank you again for your insights today and thank you for coming on to the show. Thank you, chris. My pleasure so, and thank you all for watching this episode.

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When we got new episodes coming up. We've got them all the time, so there's plenty more to come for learners of all levels, and if you have any topics you want us to cover, always drop them in the comments and we will do what we can to get to them very quickly. So, until then, this is Chris Sanko signing off, saying see you next time and, as always, happy learning. Hey, if you're worried about choosing the right cybersecurity career, click here to see the 12th most in-demand cybersecurity roles. I asked experts working in the field how to get hired and how to do the work of these security roles, so you can choose your study with confidence. I'll see you there.