GCIA Passed + What's next, advice

jmu200jmu200 Member Posts: 11 ■□□□□□□□□□
Hi All,

I passed the GCIA yesterday--was pretty thrilled. I wanted to say thank you to the forums and docrice for all the advice on preparing for the exam. Really important to just relax and take your time on the questions, as 4 hours is a good amount of time.

As far as study materials, I purchased the on-demand bundle from SANS. I'd have to say that going through all the materials and exercises that they supplied really taught me a lot. I think it's some of the best training material out there that I've seen.

I would basically type notes throughout the lessons and ended up with a lot of documentation at the end. Compiled to that I printed out various man pages for commonly used tools. I indexed all my printed output with little flags that stuck off the pages so I could quickly reach the material I was looking for through the exam. Concurrently, I setup Sguil to monitor for intrusions and utilize the various tools--the hands on experience I believe is very important for making the material stick.

I have an extra GCIA practice test that I can send to someone if they want it. Drop me a line privately and I will send it to your SANS account. If you don't hear from me that means I've given it away already.

So, my question is what's next. I'm thinking of going gold with the GCIA, so I'll do that. I currently hold CISSP, CCNP and now GCIA. I'm looking to get into a full time intrusion detection analyst position. What certifications do you think would compliment what I already have? I was thinking GCIH or GPEN would be a good next step. Was also thinking about attending TCP/IP Weapons School 3.0--do you think that would be a waste after going through the GCIA? Unfortunately, I have limited "real-world" experience relating to intrusion detection and am wondering was a prospective employer may want to see, short of directly related experience. What do you think?

Thanks!

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