TL;DR
- There is no single path into cybersecurity, as AJ Debole, Field CISO at Oracle explains. Her career moved through law, the military, telecom, procurement and logistics before eventually leading her into cybersecurity.
- The skills you pick up outside cybersecurity can become some of your biggest advantages when you know how to apply them.
- As AI changes both cybersecurity work and the hiring process, simply looking qualified is becoming less valuable. Your experience, perspective, relationships and ability to think critically matter more.
- For young cybersecurity professionals, standing out is less about having the perfect résumé and more about becoming someone people know, trust and remember.
If you are trying to build a career in cybersecurity right now, it is easy to wonder what you are supposed to be doing differently.
The industry is changing quickly and AI is changing the work itself, and even the hiring process is becoming harder to navigate. As the number and complexity of threats increases, the industry needs people who can think fast and who bring on different perspectives. And for hiring, almost everyone can use AI to polish their résumé, write an application or produce convincing content, how do you show a company what actually makes you different?
That question sits at the heart of our conversation with AJ Debole on the latest Root to CISO episode. And interestingly, the answer starts with her own career.
Her path into cybersecurity was anything but linear
AJ did not set out with a plan to become a cybersecurity leader.
Before cybersecurity, she studied political science, went to law school, joined the Army Reserve, worked in telecom, and later moved into procurement and logistics. For a while, she was trying different things and figuring out what she actually enjoyed. Looking back, though, those experiences were not detours, they gave her skills in leadership, communication, operations, problem-solving and understanding how organizations work. Those skills eventually became useful in cybersecurity, where the job is rarely just about technology.
That is one of the more useful lessons from AJ’s story: you do not necessarily have to start in cybersecurity to build a career in cybersecurity.
Your previous career, degree or experience may give you a perspective that someone who followed a more traditional technical path does not have.
The advantage is knowing how to connect the dots
Her move into cybersecurity happened gradually and it was shaped through moments where she simply followed her curiosity.
At one point, she became interested in cryptocurrency and the technology behind it. Later, while working in another role, she noticed something unusual about her computer that the help desk had not been able to explain. She investigated further, found unexpected access and raised the issue with the security team. That experience helped open the door to cybersecurity.
What stands out is that she was not waiting until she had the perfect cybersecurity résumé before acting like someone who belonged in the field.
She was curious so she investigated, asked questions and she brought everything she had learned from previous roles with her. That ability to connect different experiences is becoming increasingly important as cybersecurity expands beyond the traditional boundaries of IT.
AI is changing what it means to stand out
This is where AJ’s story becomes especially relevant now.
AI is making it easier to automate parts of cybersecurity, but it is also making it easier for candidates to present themselves as highly qualified. A polished résumé or a well-written application is no longer necessarily a strong signal of what someone can actually do.
So what becomes valuable?
Your judgment, curiosity, communication, experience and the ability to understand a problem from more than one angle.
AJ points to AI safety as an interesting example. The people working on difficult AI questions do not all need to come from the same technical background. Someone with a background in philosophy, for example, can bring a completely different way of thinking about the risks and implications of AI. The same principle applies to cybersecurity.
The future does not necessarily belong to people who all have the exact same technical skill set. It will increasingly reward people who can combine technical knowledge with something else: business experience, law, leadership, communication, psychology, operations or simply a different way of looking at problems.
So how do you actually stand out?
AJ’s advice for people building their cybersecurity careers is refreshingly practical: get involved.
Volunteer, go to industry events, join professional organizations, present something, write, share what you are learning, talk to people in the industry.
Not simply because these things look good on a résumé, but because they help you become part of the community and that matters even more in a world where AI can make everyone’s résumé look polished.
If a hiring manager has seen you speak, read something you wrote, met you at an event or knows you through the community, you are no longer just another application in a system. You are a person they recognize, you are a face beyond the resume
Your career does not have to look like everyone else’s
Perhaps the biggest takeaway from AJ’s journey, that we also see from other successful CISOs journeys’ is that there was no perfect roadmap. She took a number of turns before finding cybersecurity, and many of the skills she picked up along the way became useful later.
That is worth remembering if you are early in your career and feel like you are taking too long to figure things out. You do not need to have your entire cybersecurity career mapped out, build useful skills, follow your curiosity, pay attention to what you are good at, learn how your experience connects to the problems the industry needs people to solve and make yourself visible enough that other people can see it too.
Because in a cybersecurity industry being reshaped by AI, being qualified may get you into the conversation. Being distinctive, useful and trusted is what can make people remember you and consider you.
And that may be one of the most important career advantages you can build.