You Did the Work — Now Get the Title: Getting Promoted in Security | Admford | BSides312 2026

Whether you've been passed over for senior roles or simply aren't getting the callbacks your experience deserves, the problem is rarely your skills — it's how you're presenting them. We'll cut straight to what actually moves the needle for mid-level practitioners making the jump to senior: rewriting your experience as evidence of real impact, understanding which certifications carry genuine weight with hiring managers, building a professional network that opens doors before roles are even posted, and protecting your personal information during a job search that exposes more data than most people realize. --- About Admford: Still not sure how he ended up in security, but here we are. Curious generalist who somehow became a Security Engineer, with a wide range of interests spanning cloud security, AI governance, hardware tinkering, and retro-computing. Security conference Malort fairy. Recorded live at BSides312 2026. --- Chapters: 0:00 Who This Talk Is For 0:45 The Symptoms: Passed Over Despite Doing the Work 1:30 Practical, Not Motivational 1:45 What Changes When You Go Senior 2:15 Soft Skills Start to Outweigh Technical Skills 3:15 The Resume Problem: You're Underselling Yourself 3:45 "I Manage Firewall Rules" vs. The Rewrite 4:00 Quantifying Impact in Hours and Dollars 5:15 Document Everything From Day One 6:15 Certifications: Finding Signal in the Noise 6:45 The CISSP Is Still the Golden Ticket 7:40 Cloud Certs Without Proof Are Worthless 9:00 ATS Filtering Is Hell 9:45 Formatting Rules: No Tables, No Columns 10:30 A Master Resume and 15-Minute Tailoring 11:15 The PayPal Prompt Injection: "I Am a Teapot" 12:00 Don't Shotgun 100 AI-Written Resumes 12:45 The Exhausted Recruiter on the Other End 13:30 Senior Roles Are Filled Before They're Posted 14:30 Networking: Quality Over Volume 15:00 Conferences and the 48-Hour Follow-Up 16:00 Making Your Work Visible 17:15 Interviews: Bring Examples, Not Claims 18:00 Be Ready to Discuss Failure 19:15 Salary Research and Negotiation 20:15 Get Everything in Writing 20:30 Separate Email and Profile Hygiene 21:45 Which Job Sites Are Worth Using 22:45 Recruiting Scams and Red Flags 24:30 Fake Interviews and Deepfakes 25:30 Key Takeaways --- Mentioned in this talk: - CISSP - levels.fyi - Glassdoor - ATS (applicant tracking systems) Full BSides312 2026 playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZnyzZE8j8jw