OSCP start date Nov 5th and career advancement

[Deleted User]

Well TE members

After a long journey through college and getting into the real world, I have accomplished a lot with certifications and life in general. Starting Nov 5th through all of 2017, I am going to be investing my time into a career change to move into penetration testing with studying for the OSCP along with the GPEN at the same time since they involve penetration testing I thought why not kill 2 birds with 1 stone! I'm hoping that with my current certifications plus an OSCP and GPEN (hopefully), I could possibly become a penetration tester with my current company. Since I am just starting my career and only 24, this is going to be the biggest move I have ever made. I'm excited and nervous at the same time as I am passionate about penetration testing studying on the weekends, reading books on hacking, taking courses with Metasploit etc. What i'm really hoping for is that someone on the penetration testing team @ my company will recognize that i'm investing in myself and hopefully they will invest some time in me or give me the time of day. I almost feel as if I'm not worthy of asking the penetration testers at my company to let me shadow them or anything like that or let me interview. I'm really hoping that by the end of 2017, all my hard work studying will pay off and I reach my dream job! Time to kick it in high gear and become a 1337 h@ck3r!

winona_ryder

kMastaFlash wrote: »

I am going to be investing my time into a career change to move into penetration testing with studying for the OSCP along with the GPEN at the same time since they involve penetration testing I thought why not kill 2 birds with 1 stone!

I wouldn't recommend running another training with the OSCP, unless you are very motivated, have great time management skills. The 90 days goes quickly.
Is you work paying for any of these course?

kMastaFlash wrote: »

I almost feel as if I'm not worthy of asking the penetration testers at my company to let me shadow them or anything like that or let me interview.

Please don't feel this way. They started somewhere too. Some of them may not even be as good at their job as you think.
I would suggest that you do network with them and tell them of your interest, and of your training that you have planned. I'm sure that there are many pen testers that will be happy to give you advice or encouragement where you need it - and hopefully they are within your company.

636-555-3226

I find it humorous your 2016 goals are OSCP and GPEN while a 2017 goal is Server+. Bail on the Server+ and spend that time honing your l33t hax0r skills. speaking of which, how is your command line kung fu? good with windows/powershell/linux/unix/ scripting and owning? If not, add that to your list of things that take the place of server+

McxRisley

I have signed up for the OSCP and my course starts on December 25th. While I havent yet started the course I can offer you some advice. All of that reading your doing and videos your watching....stop it....just stop. Unless it has to do with programming. Download virtualBox or VMware, get the latest Kali image from Offensive Security, go to vulnhub and download some VMs, see how far you can get. If you need help pull up some walklthroughs. I to readup a bunch and watched tons of videos but all of that barely even prepared me for the real thing. The sooner you login to Kali and start hand jamming your way through some VMs, the better prepared you will be. Make sure to pay close attention to the different methods people use to enumerate and exploit the various VMs as this will help figure out what to look for and pick up some handy tricks.