Top 12 Junior Network Engineer Skills to Put on Your Resume
Landing a role as a Junior Network Engineer takes a resume that punches above its weight, showing sharp technical chops and steady soft skills. Below are the 12 skills that consistently catch a hiring manager’s eye in today’s fast-moving IT world.
Junior Network Engineer Skills
1. Cisco IOS
Cisco IOS (and IOS XE on many modern platforms) powers Cisco routers and switches. It’s the command-line heartbeat for configuring, securing, and operating enterprise networks.
Why It's Important
IOS provides the control plane tools to build stable, secure networks. From routing to device hardening, it’s where daily network work actually happens.
How to Improve Cisco IOS Skills
Polish the fundamentals, then sharpen the edges:
Stay current: Keep images updated and track feature sets. Know the differences between IOS, IOS XE, and NX-OS.
Harden access: Use SSH v2, role-based CLI views, AAA with TACACS+/RADIUS, and strong password/secret policies. Disable unused services.
Standardize configs: Build templates, enforce naming standards, and document interface and routing policies. Back up configs automatically.
Automate smartly: Learn Python, Ansible, and model-driven interfaces (NETCONF/RESTCONF). Start with read-only tasks, then move to safe, idempotent changes.
Observe and verify: Use syslog, SNMP/telemetry, NetFlow/IPFIX, and embedded event manager for awareness. Add golden “show” commands to runbooks.
Lab relentlessly: Practice in virtual labs (e.g., CML/GNS3/EVE-NG) with break/fix drills and change rollbacks.
How to Display Cisco IOS Skills on Your Resume
2. Juniper Junos
Junos OS runs across Juniper routers, switches, and security platforms with a clean, consistent CLI and commit/rollback model that reduces configuration risk.
Why It's Important
Unified syntax, transactional commits, and strong automation hooks make Junos a reliable foundation for scalable networks.
How to Improve Juniper Junos Skills
Master the CLI: Learn configuration hierarchy, set/delete/rename, wildcards, and “show | display set”. Embrace candidate config and rollbacks.
Structured thinking: Use logical systems like groups and apply-groups for reusable, DRY configs.
Operational fluency: Get quick with “show route”, “monitor traffic interface”, and “show interfaces terse”.
Automate early: Explore PyEZ, Jinja2 templates, and event/commit scripts. Start with audits and compliance checks.
Lab practice: Build topologies in vLabs-like environments or local virtualization and test upgrades, commits, and rollbacks.
Troubleshoot methodically: Use commit confirmed, traceoptions, and “show log” files to pinpoint issues fast.
How to Display Juniper Junos Skills on Your Resume
3. BGP
BGP (Border Gateway Protocol) exchanges reachability between autonomous systems and, in larger enterprises, between internal edges. It’s the Internet’s routing spine.
Why It's Important
Without BGP, global routing falls apart. With it done right, you get resilient connectivity and sane traffic flow.
How to Improve BGP Skills
Filter with intent: Use prefix-lists, route-maps, and as-path filters. Enforce max-prefix on sessions to cap mistakes.
Summarize where possible: Aggregate to shrink tables and stabilize convergence.
Tag with communities: Apply communities to steer policy cleanly across multiple peers.
Secure the session: Prefer TCP-AO or MD5 auth where supported, set TTL security, and isolate peering on dedicated interfaces/VRFs.
Validate origins: Deploy RPKI origin validation and publish ROAs for your prefixes. Reduce hijack risk.
Speed convergence: Tune timers carefully, enable BFD for fast failure detection, and consider graceful restart where appropriate.
Use multipath wisely: Enable ECMP/multipath for scale and load sharing when paths truly are equivalent.
Observe everything: Track session state, route churn, path changes, and policy hits. Baseline, then alert on anomalies.
How to Display BGP Skills on Your Resume
4. OSPF
OSPF (Open Shortest Path First) is a link-state IGP that builds a map of the network and chooses shortest paths within an autonomous system.
Why It's Important
It scales elegantly with areas, converges fast, and supports rich design patterns for campus and WAN cores.
How to Improve OSPF Skills
Design in layers: Use areas to contain flooding. Keep area 0 clean, summarize at ABRs, and limit full-mesh adjacencies.
Choose area types: Stub, totally stubby, and NSSA reduce noise. Pick them based on transit needs.
Tune costs and timers: Adjust interface cost for path control. Balance hello/dead intervals against stability.
Stabilize LSAs: Throttle LSA generation/flooding and use passive interfaces on non-transit links.
Secure adjacencies: Enable authentication and restrict adjacency formation to intended neighbors.
Speed detection: Pair OSPF with BFD to slash failover time without flapping.
Monitor state: Watch DR/BDR elections, neighbor states, and SPF run counts to spot design quirks early.
How to Display OSPF Skills on Your Resume
5. VLANs
VLANs carve a single physical network into logical segments, shrinking broadcast domains and isolating traffic by function or risk.
Why It's Important
Segmentation boosts security, reduces noise, and makes policy simpler. Cleaner boundaries, calmer networks.
How to Improve VLANs Skills
Design deliberately: Map VLANs to roles and security tiers. Keep IDs and names consistent and documented.
Trunk safely: Prune allowed VLANs, set an unused native VLAN, and disable DTP. Avoid VLAN hopping pitfalls.
Harden the edge: Enable DHCP snooping, Dynamic ARP Inspection, and IP source guard. Consider 802.1X for port authentication.
Voice and IoT: Use voice VLANs and isolate untrusted devices with private VLANs or dedicated segments.
Test and trace: Verify tagging, spanning-tree roles, and end-to-end pathing. Keep simple troubleshooting commands handy.
How to Display VLANs Skills on Your Resume
6. MPLS
MPLS forwards packets using labels, not long lookups. It powers traffic engineering, L3VPNs, and carrier-scale designs. In many shops, it’s evolving alongside Segment Routing.
Why It's Important
Predictable paths, efficient cores, and scalable VPN services. MPLS underpins serious WANs and provider networks.
How to Improve MPLS Skills
Know your signaling: Understand LDP versus RSVP-TE and where each fits. Learn fast reroute and bandwidth reservations.
Map QoS end-to-end: Set, preserve, and remark EXP/DSCP consistently. Align queuing on PE and P/CE edges.
Build VPNs cleanly: L3VPN route-targets and route distinguishers must be tidy. Summarize where practical.
Operate with OAM: Use LSP ping/traceroute and performance monitors. Watch label stacks, MTU, and penultimate hop popping.
Explore Segment Routing: Learn SR-MPLS and SRv6 concepts; simpler control planes and deterministic paths are becoming the norm.
How to Display MPLS Skills on Your Resume
7. IPv4/IPv6
IPv4 addresses are scarce. IPv6 opens the floodgates with 128-bit space, along with cleaner auto-configuration and mandatory IPsec support.
Why It's Important
Dual-stack networks are reality. Smooth migrations and secure operations demand comfort with both versions.
How to Improve IPv4/IPv6 Skills
Addressing mastery: Subnet smartly, plan aggregates, and document. For IPv6, understand SLAAC vs DHCPv6 and stable addressing.
Transition fluency: Practice dual stack, NAT64/DNS64, and tunneling options. Choose the least complex approach that meets requirements.
Security posture: Permit essential ICMPv6, apply ACLs thoughtfully, and use IPsec where it makes sense. First Hop Security features matter.
Neighbor discovery: Grasp NDP, RA Guard, DHCPv6 Guard, and how PMTUD behaves differently.
Monitor and validate: Track address assignments, DAD failures, rogue RAs, and mismatched MTUs.
How to Display IPv4/IPv6 Skills on Your Resume
8. Wireshark
Wireshark captures and dissects packets so you can see exactly what’s happening on the wire. Truth, laid bare.
Why It's Important
It’s the fastest way to learn protocols, troubleshoot sticky problems, and prove where a fault really lives.
How to Improve Wireshark Skills
Filter like a pro: Separate capture filters from display filters. Build reusable display filters and custom columns.
Follow the flows: Trace TCP streams, analyze TLS handshakes, inspect retransmissions, and watch RTT/window behavior.
Visualize: Use IO graphs, flow graphs, and expert info to spot latency, loss, and jitter patterns.
Decrypt when allowed: With proper keys in controlled labs, practice TLS and Wi-Fi decryption to deepen understanding.
Capture safely: SPAN/port-mirror, use ring buffers, and avoid capturing on production endpoints unless necessary.
Create profiles: Tailor layouts for voice, security, or general troubleshooting. Save time on every investigation.
How to Display Wireshark Skills on Your Resume
9. SNMP
SNMP manages and monitors network devices via a standard query/notify model. Old, yes, but still everywhere.
Why It's Important
It centralizes visibility and alerting. When configured right, it’s a quiet, dependable signal for network health.
How to Improve SNMP Skills
Prefer SNMPv3: Use authentication and encryption. Retire v1/v2c wherever you can.
Limit exposure: Bind to a management VRF/VLAN, restrict source IPs, and define tight views and groups.
Trim the noise: Choose MIBs that matter, send traps for actionable events, and rate-limit chatter.
Harden the pipeline: Time-sync devices, protect the control plane, and log access attempts.
Look ahead: Explore streaming telemetry (gNMI/JSON/gRPC) for richer, faster data where platforms support it.
How to Display SNMP Skills on Your Resume
10. QoS
QoS prioritizes traffic classes so real-time and critical applications don’t drown when links get busy.
Why It's Important
Voice, video, transactional apps—these hate jitter and loss. QoS puts them at the front of the line.
How to Improve QoS Skills
Define classes: Identify business-critical apps. Build a lean class-map structure and avoid over-classification.
Mark at the edge: Set DSCP where traffic enters. Trust boundaries matter; don’t trust the wild west.
Queue with purpose: Use LLQ for real-time, separate bulk from interactive, and size queues based on bandwidth and RTT.
Shape vs police: Shape for smoothing egress, police to cap bursts. Know when each is appropriate.
Prevent congestion collapse: Enable WRED where it helps long-lived TCP flows behave.
Validate: Test with synthetic traffic, then verify counters and drops on each hop. Adjust, don’t assume.
How to Display QoS Skills on Your Resume
11. Firewall Management
Firewall management is the day-to-day shaping of policy and inspection to keep threats out while keeping business moving.
Why It's Important
Done right, it reduces attack surface, enforces segmentation, and gives visibility when things go sideways.
How to Improve Firewall Management Skills
Patch promptly: Keep images current. Track advisories and plan maintenance windows.
Prune rules: Remove unused objects, collapse duplicates, set rule expiration dates, and review access regularly.
Segment with intent: Enforce least privilege between zones and microsegments. Block east-west sprawl.
See the traffic: Enable detailed logging, forward to a SIEM, and alert on denies, scans, and unusual volumes.
Policy hygiene: Use application IDs where available, validate SSL decryption policies legally and ethically, and document exceptions.
Stay available: Configure HA pairs, test failovers, and back up configs automatically.
Audit and test: Run rule recertifications, change control, and periodic validations with safe test plans.
How to Display Firewall Management Skills on Your Resume
12. VPN Configuration
VPNs create encrypted tunnels between users, sites, or clouds so sensitive data stays private across untrusted networks.
Why It's Important
Remote access, partner connectivity, and site-to-site links all rely on robust VPN designs that don’t crumble under load.
How to Improve VPN Configuration Skills
Choose protocols wisely: IKEv2/IPsec is a strong default; WireGuard shines for simplicity and performance where supported.
Harden cryptography: Prefer modern suites (AES-GCM, SHA-2), enable PFS, rotate keys, and avoid weak algorithms.
Strengthen identity: Use certificates over PSKs when possible, and add MFA for user tunnels.
Design split tunneling carefully: Go full-tunnel for higher security, or use per-app split tunnels with strict DNS handling and posture checks.
Optimize performance: Offload crypto in hardware, size MTU/MSS correctly, and tune keepalives/DPD for stability.
Build for resilience: Deploy HA peers, diverse paths, and dynamic failover. Test cutovers, don’t just hope.
Monitor continuously: Track tunnel counts, rekey events, auth failures, and throughput. Alert on anomalies fast.
Think beyond VPN: Learn ZTNA concepts; in many orgs, it complements or replaces broad network access.
How to Display VPN Configuration Skills on Your Resume
