I am a...

CISA as of last week.

I just wanted to post a brief message. I haven't had much time for posting here this year because I have been non-stop busy. Spending most of my time this year focused on SOA using WebSphere products, with a small touch of ITIL mixed in for good measure.

Regarding the CISA. I took the exam in December. I read the David Cannon prep book, but honestly studied very little. The test was long with many questions and I wasn't sure that I passed it. Several weeks later the results arrived and I did very well.

Upon receiving the results, the next step was to submit the information for experience verification. I've worked around and part of a number of IT audits in various capacities over the years, so the experience requirements were fairly easy to meet. Most recently, I set up an internal audit program for an ISO 20000 implementation. It takes a while for ISACA to verify the experience. I got the email from them last week that this was completed and they declared my CISA status.

I have no idea at this point if getting this will be useful to me. I expected that audit business would pick up in 2009, but honestly we are so focused on WebSphere training and implementation at this point that the bandwidth isn't really there even if we wanted to move heavy into the audit business. However, I do have an ITIL "gap analysis" likely to be on the plate soon, and that's sort of like an audit....

Don't know what to say for those of you that might be considering the CISA other than get some experience doing IT audits....

MS

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Comments

vCole

Congrats!!

Claymoore

Wow, congratulations.

Was the required experience easier to get because you own your own consulting business?

Do you have any recommendations on how to gain the required experience for the certification? (My wife is looking to expand her career opportunities and I am wondering if auditing and the CISA is something she should consider.)

skrpune

Congrats!

jryantech

Congrats, you making 6 figures now? :]

eMeS

Claymoore wrote: »

Was the required experience easier to get because you own your own consulting business?

I'm really not sure. I think if anyone wanted to get the experience they could either through self-employment or taking an audit-related position at a company. I don't really know if I can give you an indication if one way is easier than the other.

Claymoore wrote: »

Do you have any recommendations on how to gain the required experience for the certification? (My wife is looking to expand her career opportunities and I am wondering if auditing and the CISA is something she should consider.)

One thing that helps is education. They credit you with experience based upon the degrees you've completed. I don't have the forms in front of me right now, so I can't remember the exact amount of credit awarded.

One other thing that might help is joining ISACA and participating at the local chapter level. This might help by building the contacts that could help your wife get her first audit position.

Another thing that I think is useful is establishing expertise in something other than auditing. For example, building up expertise in databases or project management and then positioning oneself as being an auditor with specific skills and abilities might help.

Best of luck,

MS

eMeS

jryantech wrote: »

Congrats, you making 6 figures now? :]

Today I made a little less than that...but hey, there are still 2 billable days left this week.

Webmaster

Congratulations!

vCole

eMeS wrote: »

Today I made a little less than that...but hey, there are still 2 billable days left this week.

MS

haha

mikej412

Congratulations!

hypnotoad

Certifications: ITIL Expert (v3.0), ITIL Manager's Certificate in ITSM (v2.0), ISO/IEC 20000 Consultant, ASQ Certified Six Sigma Black Belt, CISA, MCITP: DBA 2005, PMP, MCT, IBM SD SOA, IBM CA SOA, IBM Certified Business Process Analyst - WebSphere Business Modeler Advanced v6.1

MS,

How old are you? I am intrigued.

Oh yeah, congrats. Looks like an interesting cert.

eMeS

hypnotoad wrote: »

Certifications: ITIL Expert (v3.0), ITIL Manager's Certificate in ITSM (v2.0), ISO/IEC 20000 Consultant, ASQ Certified Six Sigma Black Belt, CISA, MCITP: DBA 2005, PMP, MCT, IBM SD SOA, IBM CA SOA, IBM Certified Business Process Analyst - WebSphere Business Modeler Advanced v6.1

MS,

How old are you? I am intrigued.

Oh yeah, congrats. Looks like an interesting cert.

I will be 39 in July. I will hit 21 years in "IT" or "IT-related" work this year. My first IT job was literally at 17 (started about 1 month before my birthday) working nights in a large mainframe data center in 1988 after graduating high school. Attended college during the day and continued progressing from there both educationally and professionally.

Just for grins...my most ancient certification is a Novell 3.1x CNA (or whatever it was called) dating from the early 90's....I still have the certificate in my files at home....

MS