The Cyber Career Pathways Tool User Guide

This tool will help you identify, build, and navigate a potential cyber career pathway by increasing your understanding of the knowledge, skills, and abilities needed to begin, transition, or advance your cyber career.

The Cyber Career Pathways Tool presents a new and interactive way to explore work roles within the NICE Cybersecurity Workforce Framework. It depicts the cyber workforce as five distinct, yet complementary, skill communities. It also highlights core attributes among each of the 52 work roles and offers actionable insights for employers, professionals, and individuals considering a career in cyber.

You can find this tool on the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency’s (CISA) National Initiative for Cybersecurity Careers and Studies (NICCS) website in addition to other tools and resources for current and future cybersecurity professionals. This tool was created and is maintained in partnership with the Federal Cyber Workforce Management and Coordination Working Group, led by CISA, the Department of Defense, and the Department of Veterans Affairs.

The Cyber Workforce encompasses the skills required to build, secure, operate, defend and protect technology, data, and resources; conduct related intelligence activities; enable future operations; and project power in or through cyberspace. It is comprised of the following skill communities: IT, Cybersecurity, Cyber Effects, Intel (Cyber), and Cross Functional. The skill communities are color coded to match the work role galaxy.

Information Technology (IT):

Skills required to design, build, configure, operate, and maintain IT, networks, and capabilities. This includes actions to prioritize portfolio investments; architect, engineer, acquire, implement, evaluate, and dispose of IT as well as information resource management; and the management, storage, transmission, and display of data and information.

CYBERSECURITY:

Skills required to secure, defend, and preserve data, networks, net-centric capabilities, and other designated systems by ensuring appropriate security controls and measures are in place, and taking internal defense actions. This includes access to system controls, monitoring, administration, and integration of cybersecurity into all aspects of engineering and acquisition of cyber capabilities.

CYBER EFFECTS:

Skills required to plan, support, and execute cyber capabilities where the primary purpose is to externally defend or conduct force projection in or through cyberspace.

CYBER INTEL:

Skills required to collect, process, analyze, and disseminate information from all sources of intelligence on foreign actors’ cyber programs, intentions, capabilities, research and development, and operational activities.

CROSS FUNCTIONAL:

Skills required to lead, acquire, and manage cyber initiatives; develop cyber workforce talent; and conduct cyber related legal and law enforcement activities.

The Cyber Career Pathways Tool is designed for:

• Professionals looking to begin or advance their cyber career through training, reskilling, and upskilling;
• Employers and managers recruiting cyber talent, creating position descriptions, guiding employees, procuring training, and conducting workforce assessments; and
• Students and recent graduates looking to learn more about the NICE Framework, identify cyber work roles of interest, and identify and pursue training and certifications to prepare for a cyber career.

Users from a variety of backgrounds can also use the tool to better understand the cyber workforce as a whole, in addition to the various types of cyber work roles and their relationship to one another.

The Cyber Career Pathways Tool allows you to explore the cyber workforce through the lens of Cyber Communities, expand your knowledge of NICE Framework roles through core Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities (KSAs), and compare related work roles to gain a better understanding of how to obtain the skills needed to move from one work role to another. Users are encouraged take advantage of the interactive nature of the tool and use the tool for exploration as well as information gathering.

Features:

• Cyber Workforce Communities diagram
• Work role display by Cyber Community
• Individual work role displays with core Tasks, Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities
• Data comparison between two roles

There are multiple ways to navigate the Cyber Career Pathways tool to choose a work role.

1. Pick a Cyber Workforce Community
2. Select a work role from the galaxy
3. Use the Select a work role search field and drop-down
4. Search for private-sector job titles

Explore the Cyber Workforce using the Cyber Communities buttons. Each section of the Cyber Workforce within the Venn Diagram can be selected to display a subset of the work roles.

The work role galaxy is an interactive display of all 52 work roles in the NICE Cybersecurity Workforce Framework

• Hovering over a work role will display a pop-up containing basic work role information and draw connection lines to related work roles based on the Relationship Filter button selection made (by default, this is KSATs, which show the top 5 related roles by shared KSAT statements).
• Select a work role to view more details about the work role.

The Select a work role search field and drop-down list allows users to select a work role from the list, which is grouped by community. The roles listed can be filtered by typing part or all of a work role’s name in the search field.

Functional job titles are names which are commonly used for work roles in the private sector. The “Search Job Titles” link will allow you to search for these commonly used names.

Once a job title is selected, one or more work roles will be displayed. Select a role to set the corresponding dropdown.

The single work role view features a filtered version of the work role galaxy that displays only the related work roles and an information panel. The information panel lists information about the work role, as specified by NICE, and is supplemented with career path information, such as common off-ramps, as identified by the Federal Cyber Workforce Management and Coordination Working Group.

Compare related work roles to gain a better understanding of how to gain the skills needed to move from one work role to a related work role.

• To compare, select one of the related work roles in the work role galaxy, or select a work role from the second dropdown
  • The information panel will update to provide a side by side comparison of the selected work roles
• To compare the originally selected role to a new role, select a different work role in the galaxy, or select a different work role from the second dropdown

By default, the information panel will show all Task, Knowledge, Skill, and Ability statements for the selected role or roles. Changing the Relationship toggles to Federal Core will filter these statements for the corresponding work role.

When the KSATs relationship button is set (see below) roles shown in the galaxy for a hovered or selected role will be those related by top 5 shared KSAT statements. If the Selected KSATs toggle is set to Federal Core, the roles shown will be related by top 5 shared Federal Core KSAT statements.

Selecting from the filter buttons (KSATs, On Ramps, Off Ramps, and Secondary Work Roles) will change the relationships shown in the galaxy for a hovered or selected role.

• When On Ramps is selected, On Ramps to Cross Functional roles from other communities are not shown. Similarly, when Off Ramps is selected, Off Ramps to Cross Functional roles from other communities are not shown.
• The selected relationship button will change when navigating the data tabs. You can use the lock button to prevent this.

To reset or clear the galaxy, select the Clear Selection button.

For a refresher on tool navigation, select the Information button.

The Federal Cyber Workforce Management and Coordination Working Group (WG) is dedicated to developing cyber career resources, including career pathways for NICE Framework work roles for use throughout the Federal government, as well as private industry and academia. This interagency collaboration directly supports Executive Order 13870, America’s Cybersecurity Workforce and the President Management Agenda’s Cross-Agency Priority Goal, Developing a Workforce for the 21st Century. This WG is tri-chaired by the Department of Defense, the Department of Veterans Affairs, and CISA.

CISA is the Nation's risk advisor, working with partners to defend against today's threats and collaborating to build more secure and resilient infrastructure for the future. CISA's Cyber Defense Education and Training subdivision manages and develops the NICCS website, which serves as a one-stop shop for cybersecurity information and training.