eJPT, my first cert, and what I actually think of it
Honest review of the INE eJPT certification the prep, the exam, the scores, and whether it actually means anything for entry level cybersec folks.
eJPT my first cert
got the eJPT. there’s a lot of “omg so easy” and “totally worth it!!” posts out there that don’t really say anything useful. this is my actual take.
how i ended up here
my last internship had a partnership with INE as an IT training vendor. they pushed me towards the eJPT pretty hard to the point of partially sponsoring the voucher. i also picked up the INE foundational subscription on my own.
tbh i also just needed a cert. no notable security projects on my resume, hunting for internships, and a blank certs section doesn’t exactly help. the eJPT felt like a reasonable first step into the cert world it’s practical, hands on, and it’s not gonna break the bank.
partially pushed into it, partially wanted it. either way, here we are.
prep
took about 2.5 months, while college was fully active. first two sems, maintaining a 9.5+ GPA, so not like i had unlimited time to throw at this.
honest breakdown:
- skipped roughly 40% of the lecture content
- did almost every single lab (wouldn’t recommend doing them all for kicks like i did, but it wasn’t useless)
- kept doing HTB machines on the side not as structured prep, just because i enjoy it
the course material is… fine. some sections go way deeper than you’d ever need for the exam, some sections leave obvious gaps. a decent chunk of it feels like it was reused from older INE courses and not really updated. but it covers everything you need as long as you’re doing the labs, you’re not going to get blindsided on exam day.
skip lectures if you want, but don’t skip the imp labs. watching a 20 min video about
nmapvs actually running it against a live target not the same thing. labs are where the muscle memory comes from.
doing HTB machines alongside wasn’t structured prep it’s just something i was already doing. but it definitely didn’t hurt. the exam environment rewards people who are comfortable poking at live machines, not people who’ve memorized slides.
the exam
48 hours of access to a live lab environment with ~45 scenario based questions. all MCQ you’re performing real tasks across the lab and answering based on what you find.
the setup is two networks: a DMZ and an internal network sitting behind it. multiple machines across both. you compromise machines, enumerate them, gather info, and answer questions based on what you find. to reach the internal network machines you need to pivot through a compromised DMZ host.
the part that actually annoyed me: the questions are completely scrambled. no clear separation between “this is asking about the DMZ” and “this is asking about the internal network.” some questions were clearly referencing the internal network but were just sitting in the middle of the list with zero context, so i genuinely couldn’t tell if i had missed something or just hadn’t pivoted yet.
if a question feels weirdly specific and you haven’t found that info yet bookmark it. it’s probably asking about something behind the pivot that you haven’t reached yet. don’t waste time on it early.
my approach:
- skimmed all questions first to get a feel for the scope
- picked off everything i could answer without pivoting into the internal network
- bookmarked anything that smelled like internal network territory
- fully compromised the DMZ machines
- pivoted through
- came back to the bookmarked questions and closed them out
for passing, you only need 70%. the first half of questions you can basically answer without ever touching the internal network. so if pivoting trips you up completely, you can still technically pass just barely.
timeline:
- saturday noon started
- ~2am sunday had about 80% done, got lazy, watched a movie, went to sleep
- sunday noon woke up, ate, resumed
- ~2pm sunday submitted
realistically this is a 6–10 hour exam if you actually sit down and focus. i just wasn’t in a rush.
results
| Domain | Score |
|---|---|
| Assessment Methodologies | 94% |
| Host & Network Pentesting | 90% |
| Web Application Pentesting | 85% |
| Host & Network Auditing | 80% |
| Overall | 88% |
passed first attempt. eJPT more like eZPT lowk.
It just wasn’t always obvious what exact output or format they were looking for. annoying but whatever.
the verdict
the eJPT is a checkbox. i’ll be dda about that.
it’s not going to make a hiring manager’s eyes light up. it doesn’t carry the weight OSCP does, and it’s not deep enough to genuinely separate you from the crowd on its own. but it’s a solid first cert.
if you’ve never held a cert before, it gives you something concrete to point at. more importantly, it teaches you the basics of an actual pentest workflow recon, enumeration, exploitation, pivoting in a live environment, not a multiple choice theory quiz. that matters, especially when your resume is light on real projects.
if you’re starting from zero and wondering “eJPT or straight to OSCP/CPTS?” do the eJPT first. building a working methodology before you throw yourself at OSCP is actually worth something. OSCP/CPTS will chew you up if you don’t have the fundamentals locked.
i’d recommend it ONLY as a first cert specifically. not as a destination, not as a flex just as an honest, practical, starting point.
what’s next
currently grinding through the HTB CPTS path. that’s the next cert target significantly more demanding, much deeper coverage, and honestly the course material is in a different league compared to INE’s. after that, depending on what i’ve saved up, i’d like to do smt in cloud security, maybe the aws one or smt.
Not the best path, but it’s mine.