Tips for a successful cybersecurity job interview

Whether you’re looking to enhance your existing cybersecurity skills or just beginning your journey in the field, cybersecurity offers a wide range of career opportunities.

If you’re considering a career shift, exploring new job opportunities, or aiming to upgrade your skill set, take time to learn about the questions to prepare for in your upcoming cybersecurity job interview.

Preparing for the job interview

Researching the potential employer will enable you to answer questions in ways that highlight the value you can bring to the organization. Be prepared to define terms and concepts and discuss industry trends and challenges.

You may encounter different questions, including those that test your technical knowledge, assess your potential success in the position (behavioral and situational questions), and explore your commitment to professional development.

In addition to preparing your answers, you should also plan questions for your potential employer. Consider asking about the interview rounds, any required assessments or security clearances, the offer process, and onboarding procedures after salary negotiations and offer acceptance.

It would help if you also prepared for questions about your organizational skills, communication style, and approach to collaboration.

Common questions from a CEO that interviewed 100s of candidates

Justin Wright, the CEO at Polished Carbon, discusses some of the questions you should prepare for are unrelated to cybersecurity. For example, these are often asked:

• What are your strengths?
• What’s your greatest weakness?
• How do you handle stress or pressure?
• What are your salary expectations?
• Can you tell me about the gap in your resume?

Prepare to tackle these questions, along with technical questions.

Common technical interview questions

Preparing for a technical interview is essential, as you’ll need to demonstrate specific knowledge relevant to the job posting. You can expect technical interview questions to cover three main areas: the tools you’re familiar with, the processes you’ve worked with, and hypothetical scenarios designed to showcase your problem-solving abilities.

Here are few examples for beginners, intermediate and advanced level questions. Naturally, depending on the cybersecurity role you’re preparing for, the questions will be different.

• How would you identify a compromised system?
• What is your approach to defend against a cross-site scripting attack?
• How do you define data leakage and its types?
• What are the differences between cybersecurity in the cloud and on-premises?
• How do you prevent outdated software from being exploited?
• Explain the concept of a secure password
• Discuss the importance of disaster recovery planning in cybersecurity
• Discuss the role of artificial intelligence in cybersecurity
• Explain the concept of micro-segmentation in network security
• Explain the concept of federated identity management

Final cybersecurity interview questions

Companies typically use final interviews to address any remaining questions and assess which finalist is the best fit for the role, team, and company. That’s why it’s crucial to prepare for a final interview just as thoroughly as you would for any previous interviews.

Here are few examples:

• Could you provide an example of how you would explain a complex cybersecurity issue to people who don’t have a background in the field?
• Have you ever experienced failure at work and what did you learn from the experience?
• What lessons have you learnt in your previous cyber security roles?
• What could we do to improve X?
• What do you think would be the biggest challenge if you got this job?
• What are you looking for in your next career move?
• What interested you in working here?
• Why did you apply for this role?
• How do you like to be managed?
• How do you prefer to receive feedback?