Utilizing Your Skill Sets and Opening New Opportunities from a Different Perspective
2022-06-18, 14:00–14:45, Track 3 (Moody Rm 102)

Empowering technology students and professionals to shift their mindset in order to maximize their full potential as cybersecurity professionals. Technology students and professionals are less likely to pursue opportunities which they believe they are not fully qualified for due to a critical difference in mindset. We introduce a different approach to viewing and applying your skill sets which will open up more opportunities for you to excel in the field.


The cybersecurity workforce gap and shortage of workers continue to present a problem. It is extremely common for individuals within the cybersecurity industry to screen themselves out of opportunities, undersell themselves, and get caught up in the details. As a result, they miss out on a lot of opportunities.

There is a need to provide more individuals with the knowledge and skills to become successful cybersecurity professionals, and we are here to provide that. To date, we have been offered over $305,000 in scholarships and cybersecurity training/certifications. During her first year at Dakota State University, Annabelle received over 10+ cybersecurity internship offers. We have utilized this strategy to open up doors and have helped classmates and professionals do the same.

We will show you how individuals hold self-sabotaging views that screen themselves out of opportunities and believe that they do not have enough “relevant/applicable/qualified” experiences or skills for a specific job. We will demonstrate how individuals tend to view opportunity descriptions as if they were asking for exactly what they need, and believe that applying without the “qualifications” is a waste of their time.

Then we will introduce our successful approach to viewing and applying your skill sets which will open up more opportunities for you to excel in the cybersecurity field. This strategy will help you reframe your perspective, push you out of your comfort zone, and showcase your value.

We will provide a worksheet for audience members to immediately take steps toward estimating themselves more realistically.

Annabelle Klosterman is a Cyber Operations student at Dakota State University and Co-Founder of the Cyber Community Club. As a high school student, Annabelle worked as an Information Systems Assistant at a data center providing services to 15+ banks throughout the state. Now, she is a Cybersecurity Engineer, researcher, and speaker. Annabelle has been a national finalist for the Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition and CyberPatriot. She holds SANS certifications in Cybersecurity Technologies and Cloud Security.

Mariel Klosterman is a Network Security student at Dakota State University and Co-Founder of the Cyber Community Club. Mariel has presented at professional groups and conferences including Silicon Valley High Technology Crime Investigation Association, InfraGard South Dakota, NEbraskaCERT, and OSMOSISCon and received the 2021 Open Source Rising Star of the Year Award. She has appeared on podcasts such as PI Perspectives, Great Women in Fraud, and OSINT Cocktail.