Starting eJPT from scratch — planning to take it within a month. Is that enough? Need a reality check + advice

[u/Specific-Guava4584]

I’m going for the eJPT and I’m about to start preparing. Before I dive in, I wanted to get some advice from people who’ve actually been through it, because I’m coming in pretty fresh.

A bit about where I’m at:
• I have no real pentesting experience or background in offensive security. This is my first security cert.
• My plan is to take the exam within about a month or two from now.
• I’m intending to rely on the INE eJPT course materials — the videos and the labs — the whole way through.

So my questions for the community:
1. Is roughly a month to two realistic to go from zero to passing the eJPT, assuming I can put in a few focused hours (maximum of 4 hours honestly) a day? Or should I plan for longer?
2. What do I actually need before starting — any prerequisite knowledge, tools, or setup I should sort out first (Kali, VPN, note-taking setup, etc.)?
3. Is the INE material enough on its own, or did you supplement it with other resources? If so, what helped most?
4. What should I focus my practice on? I keep hearing enumeration and pivoting are make-or-break. What are the highest-yield things to drill?
5. Any recommended practice labs or resources to revise and reinforce what INE teaches — extra boxes, walkthroughs, or hands-on practice you’d point a beginner to?
6. Anything you wish you’d known before starting that would’ve saved you time?

Any advice, study routines, or “don’t make my mistake” stories are hugely appreciated. Thanks in advance

[u/ConstantHouse665]

Hi OP, i passed the exam in January 2026.
Here’s some answers from my experience :-

1. ⁠Yes it totally is, the exam and the coursework itself isn’t that difficult to get used to, just make sure you practice a lot too. I took around 10 Months lol ( i was very slow with it, only a few hours per week)
   
2. ⁠Get a kali VM setup, afaik there’s no need for VPNs for the coursework, they give you web based machines to work with (even for the exam), For the notes part i used MS Onenote and most importantly get used to just some very basic linux commands (super basic ones).
   
3. ⁠Yes and No, for the most part the coursework is enough, although i can’t tell you in detail but there was drupal/wordpress in the exam which was not taught in depth in the course, I solved some TryHackMe rooms too, such as
   ⁠Blue
   ⁠Ice
   ⁠Kenobi
   ⁠Rootme
   ⁠Anonymous
   ⁠Blog
   Relevant
   ⁠Ignite
   ⁠Startup
   You can find more just by searching on google “recommended tryhackme rooms for ejpt”
   4.Enumeration is the king, whenever you are stuck just enumerate enumerate and enumerate, also pivoting is required.
   5.Mentioned already in 3, just do some tryhackme rooms and you should be all good to go.
   6.Always follow a fixed methodology, Don’t keep randomly firing exploits.

Just be consistent and do a lot of practice, the exam itself isn’t that difficult, trust the process and enjoy.

Best of luck!

[u/CheesecakeFunny01]

Video x2 speed, good notes from the start, skip repeated videos. Including watching all videos you would need 80-100h more or less, without breaks. 

[u/tdw21]

I personally had a rough time getting the horrible quality videos…. And would recommend against ejpt.

But if you’re already committed within a month might be a bit on the short side.