Just received my MCSE:Security on Sunday!

ScottFern

I passed 70-299 on Sunday with a score of 700!!!!! I went through a Boot Camp and did fairly well passing all my exams.

My question is now what?! Does the Security specialization help any in job hunting? Are there anymore complementary exams to take in addition to MCSE Security?

ScottFern

Did I say something wrong?!

snadam

ScottFern wrote:

Did I say something wrong?!

nope, must have fell through the cracks! CONGRATS!!!

I hope to be in your shoes soon!

sprkymrk

Congrats Scott!

Besides boot camp, what did you find useful to prepare? Was the boot camp any good?

Slowhand

Congratulations, both on passing 70-299 and the new designation as MCSE: Security. As for other exams, I'd say that you should probably think about doing something along the lines of SSCP or CISSP, maybe C|EH. If you don't have it already, Security+ is also a good choice. If you're looking to do something more specific, lots of vendors have specialized security certs, just like Microsoft with the MCSE: Security. (CCSP and SCSECA come to mind.) I'm sure that the security-designation will help, as would other certs, but what companies are going to be looking for in a security admin is experience and expertise with security practices and tools. I'd say checking out tools like Snort, WireShark, Nagios, and Nessus are a good idea. And that's only a few of the tools that are good to have in your bag of tricks, there are countless others, open-source and otherwise. (ForeFront and ISA 2006 are some tools from Microsoft that you're bound to come across in your security career.)

Other than that, all you can really do is get yourself out there and work as much as possible. You may have to start in a position which doesn't focus on security and work your way towards the good stuff, you might have to do some pro-bono work to get some experience, that sort of thing. Good luck, and let us know how your journey goes.