Here's how you can secure the most in-demand roles in cybersecurity as a mid-career professional.

To secure the most in-demand roles in cybersecurity as a mid-career professional, focus on upskilling fast through certifications like CISSP or CEH, network widely within the cybersecurity community, gain practical experience through volunteering or participating in competitions, showcase your skills via a portfolio, tailor your applications to each role, stay informed about the latest trends, and consider additional insights not covered in the main content

There is plenty of demand for penetration testing and incident response, but there is also demand in Identity and Access management, and governance and risk management and other domains. A technical base is of value, but other transferable skills are valued as well. Reflect on how those transferable skills and highlight your strengths.

You first need to identify "What do I want to accomplish"? If it is to gain new skills or hone your expertise, training is absolutely the way to go. If the goal is obtaining a new job, certifications may not be the best path. Everyone has them, so they really will not help you stand out from other candidates. Further, certs show you have been trained. What a hiring manager wants to know is if you can actually do the job. So maintaining a blog, creating videos, posting Github code, etc. can help you stand out from others and give a verifiable method of showing you can do the job that's up for grabs.

If there is a local security Meetup group, absolutely take advantage of it. Leverage searchable social media to help others in the industry. What is a hiring manager going to find when they Google your name? If they see you active in the community helping others doing the type of work they are looking to hire for, you will be quickly identified as an expect in the field. Make it as easy as possible for a hiring manager to identify you have already demonstrated the needed skills.

Local cybersecurity conferences that give continuing education credits are amazing. Every region puts on an ISSA or a Cybersecurity Summit, Futurecon, etc. That give out credits for attending speaking engagements. You also get an opportunity to look at vendors in the respective space. Those vendors are always hiring talented cybersecurity professions for technical roles and it can always be nice to have a move to the 'dark side' as a Sales Engineer or architect in your back pocket.

In the era of public cloud, this tends to get overlooked; build a home lab. This gives you an excellent opportunity to try out new tools and techniques. If you mess up the network at work, it can cost you your job. If you mess up your home network, everyone impacted is related to you, in a relationship with you or are a friend. So the fallout to experimenting and iterating and having something go wrong is far less. This is a great way to get some hands on experience that then be scaled as needed.

Investigate local B-Sides events. It's usually much easier to secure a speaking slot. Further, videos of the event tend to get posted and socialized, so they can provide some great exposure.

Most HR departments run an Applicant Tracking System. This system effectively pulls keywords from the job description and match them against inbound resumes. There are services that will do this for you, for a fee, and even make recommendations on resume changes so that your will score higher in their system. Leverage these tools.

The cyber threat and solution landscape are constantly changing. Staying on top of emerging risks, attack trends and mitigations is crucial. Taking self study courses, subscribing to online resources and staying on top of the latest news will help you stay relevant and help you demonstrate your knowledge to hiring managers.

One thing a lot of people miss out on are unique opportunities. They are all around us! When your job has a project and they need someone to either take lead or take on an abnormal task, say yes! Even if it ends up in failure, trying new things is a key characteristic in high functioning people. Saying 'yes' to taking on unique responsibilities allows you to grow as a cyber professional by becoming well rounded and not trapped in one skillset.