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These keywords appear most frequently in security engineer job descriptions. Missing even a few can drop your ATS score below the screening threshold.
Hard and soft skills that security engineer ATS systems look for
Common mistakes that cause security engineer resumes to fail ATS screening
Include 'penetration testing' AND 'pen testing' as ATS may not normalize these synonyms
List compliance frameworks verbatim: 'NIST CSF', 'SOC 2 Type II', 'ISO 27001', 'PCI-DSS' - regulated industry ATS filters on exact strings
Quantify risk reduction: 'reduced critical vulnerabilities from 847 to 12 over 6 months', 'achieved SOC2 Type II certification in 9 months'
Add 'DevSecOps' as a standalone keyword - it appears in 50%+ of modern security engineering JDs
Include specific tool names: 'Burp Suite', 'Nessus', 'Snyk', 'CrowdStrike' - hiring managers use these as ATS filters to find tool-experienced candidates
List 'threat modeling' and the methodology ('STRIDE', 'PASTA') - senior security roles filter on this to distinguish architects from operators
OSCP (Offensive Security Certified Professional) is the highest-signal certification for penetration testing and red team roles - it's hands-on and well-respected. CISSP carries the most weight for enterprise security architect and leadership roles. AWS Certified Security – Specialty is essential for cloud security positions. CompTIA Security+ is a solid baseline but insufficient alone for senior roles. List all certifications in both your Certifications section and your Skills header.
Use explicit section labels or role descriptions. Application security: 'OWASP Top 10', 'SAST/DAST', 'code review', 'Burp Suite', 'API security', 'threat modeling'. Infrastructure security: 'network segmentation', 'firewall rules', 'VPN', 'IDS/IPS', 'cloud security posture management (CSPM)'. Many JDs specify which they need. ATS CV Checker can show you which keywords are weighted most heavily for a given posting.
Very important for modern roles. Most security engineering JDs now require Python for scripting automation, tool development, or log analysis. PowerShell matters for Windows/Active Directory environments. Bash for Linux automation. Some roles (exploit development, malware analysis) require C or Assembly. Even if you're primarily an analyst, listing 'Python (security scripting)' and showing a tool you built significantly boosts your ATS score for security engineering titles.
Be specific about scope and outcome: 'led incident response for ransomware attack affecting 40 endpoints, contained within 4 hours with zero data exfiltration', 'built IR playbook reducing MTTR from 12 hours to 2.5 hours'. List tools: 'Splunk SIEM', 'CrowdStrike Falcon', 'Volatility (memory forensics)', 'Wireshark'. Include 'MTTR' (mean time to respond) as a metric - it's an ATS keyword in incident response JDs.
Security Engineers build security systems and infrastructure (SIEM deployment, WAF configuration, DevSecOps pipelines). Security Analysts operate them (monitoring alerts, triaging incidents, writing reports). Engineer resumes should emphasize building and coding. Analyst resumes should emphasize investigation and compliance work. Match the title in your resume headline to the JD title for the highest ATS title-match score.
Guides to help you pass ATS screening faster