CISA without experience :-)

[Alexandre Zglav <azglav () heritage ch>]

Dear list,

I hope not to be too off topic.

I've been reading through the posts concerning CISSP and required
experience lately. I am quite interested in the CISA ceritfiaction program
and I had a few questions to those of you who already are certified and
others:

1 -  Value of the certification
What is CISA worth on the market ourdays ? Do company's frequently look for
certified Information Systems Auditor? Is it really worth the effort and
investment? If I have such a certification, am I condemmned to work in
Insurance, Banking or Administrative companies for the rest of my days?

2 -  Requirements.
Same as previous thread on CISSP, I can see that there is a minimum
requirement of 5 years professional experience in the field of IS Audit
prior to obtain the cert. What can be considered IS audit experience? As
I've been working at my actual job for around 5 years now as responsible
for managing various IT projects and as, more recently, I've been working
very closely with the company's Risk Manager to assess the viability of our
information systems, could I count this experience towards the
certification ? Can I complete the certification while not meeting the
requirements and validate it once I have the required experience ? Finally
how is the validity of one's professional experience assessed ?

3 - Difficulty study time.
If you've got your certification, what was your average study time? How
long did it take you to obtain it? Was it difficult compared to other
certifications you have?

Thank you all for your help and (precious) time !

Cheers,

Alexandre Zglav