It is performance review season. For many security professionals, this is a painful exercise.
Why? Because in cybersecurity, success is often invisible.
- When you do your job perfectly, nothing happens.
- There are no breaches.
- There are no fines.
- The audit is boring.
If you write your self-review based solely on “what went wrong” or “what I fixed,” you are underselling your value. You need to shift the narrative from “Operational Activity” to “Business Enablement.”
Here is how to translate your invisible work into a review that demands attention (and a raise) in 2026.
1. Stop Listing Tasks; Start Listing “Business Wins”
The Mistake: “I reviewed 400 vendor questionnaires this year.” The Fix: “Enablement of Sales and Procurement: Streamlined the vendor onboarding process, reducing the average approval time from 14 days to 4 days, enabling the business to onboard key revenue-generating tools 70% faster.”
Why this works: You aren’t talking about spreadsheets; you are talking about speed to revenue.
2. Quantify “Risk Avoided”
It is hard to measure a breach that didn’t happen. However, you can measure the risk you removed from the environment.
The Mistake: “I patched vulnerabilities on the servers.” The Fix: “Risk Reduction: Led the Q3 Critical Patching initiative, reducing our external attack surface by 90% within 48 hours. This brought our Mean Time to Remediate (MTTR) effectively to ‘Green’ status for the first time in company history.”
Why this works: You are using metrics (90%, 48 hours) that executives understand. You are showing a direct improvement in the company’s defensive posture.
3. Highlight “Trust” Assets
If you work in GRC, your work is a sales asset.
The Mistake: “I helped with the SOC 2 audit.” The Fix: “Revenue Protection: Successfully managed the SOC 2 Type II renewal with zero exceptions. This report was requested by 45 enterprise customers this year, directly supporting $5M in sales pipeline.”
Why this works: You are connecting a compliance certificate directly to the sales team’s ability to close deals.
4. The “Forward-Looking” Section
Don’t just look back. Use your review to plant the flag for your 2026 goals. This shows leadership you are thinking strategically, not just tactically.
- Bad Goal: “I want to get a certification.”
- Good Goal: “In 2026, I plan to obtain the CIPP/US certification to better support our legal team with emerging state privacy laws like CPRA, reducing our reliance on outside counsel.”
Final Thoughts
Your manager is busy. They likely have 10 reviews to write. If you send them a vague bullet list, they will write a vague review.
If you send them a review filled with data, business impact, and strategic wins, you are writing the review for them. You are making it easy for them to advocate for you.
Don’t be invisible this year.
Discussion
- The Hardest Part: What is the most difficult part of the self-review process for you? Is it remembering what you did 11 months ago?
- The Wins: Do you keep a “Hype Doc” or a “Brag Sheet” throughout the year to track your wins, or do you scramble in January?
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