Roadmap to Six Figures

Hey Guys, I'd like to hear your stories of what certifications were the most beneficial to your career. What specialty are you in? Systems/Networking/Security/Other

How did you go from first entry level IT job to making six figures? and what certifications helped you get there?

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dave330i

1. Find out what's in demand in your area.
2. Become an expert/get certified.
3. Land a 6 figure job.

SteveLavoie

Easy to get 6 figure salary... it all depend on where you put the comma

Sorry late friday joke

odysseyelite

I moved. In Florida, i had hard time breaking past the 50k mark. The recession and the lack of major corporations didn't help.

Don't stop studying. Find a path. I took all the comptia and early MS 2003 certs. I let my studies slide and I found myself having a hard time getting a job. I took the CCNA and started looking at other areas, including Dallas. I got a contract offer making double what I was making. Moved and got my VCP because I was hired for a Wintel\Vmware role.

I just had a call with a recruiter and I'm back to studying for new certs for my next jump. Vmware certs have been great, I'm going for the NSX\virtual networking route. I was also told to check out amazon certs. They are really hot right now.

It also depends what route you want. Customer or VAR\Manufacture\MSP. I've been advised to go The VAR route and look at pre-sales engineering, account management and professional services.

CryptoQue

LOL...good Friday humor SteveLavoie

Listed below are my personal 10 Career Advancement Commandments:

1. Build your technical expertise with some OJT.
2. Stay informed about the latest trends and best practices.
3. Obtain relevant certifications that will help advance your career.
4. Work on selling yourself in an interview process.
5. Don't be complacent in one role or company that does not have opportunities for growth.
6. Don't be afraid to ask a Sr. IT professional to be your mentor
7. Build your professional network with IT professionals at different companies
8. Be willing to negotiate job offers and also willing to walk away if it doesn't meet your minimum expectations.
9. Be a leader even if you're not in management
10. Set high expectations for yourself....so don't make 6 figures the goal but the standard

Good luck!!!!

I might post these in a new thread as well

SweenMachine

mikey88 wrote: »

Hey Guys, I'd like to hear your stories of what certifications were the most beneficial to your career. What specialty are you in? Systems/Networking/Security/Other

How did you go from first entry level IT job to making six figures? and what certifications helped you get there?

This question is just too vague really. 6 figures in Cali is not 6 figures in Indiana. The title should be Roadmap to Stability or Roadmap to Success or Roadmap to Security... low 6 figures in my market of Chicago isn't all that it's cracked up to be, let me tell you... If you include Illinois terrible taxes, high cost of living in my area, I could live the same way in Montana for 40k... I just cringe when people are making "six figures" the goal, or the end game. Happiness should be the end game no?

-scott

EANx

I agree, the question doesn't work as posed. What does "six-figures" mean to you? Gross pay? Including benefits? Opportunity for a lot of paid overtime? A really good health plan vs. a basic one? What about intangibles, what's it worth to work in a place that has few layoffs? What about a place that still offers a pension?

Then, the route I took to get there really isn't available now. If you want the most money, you have to become proficient in the next shiny object and hope you guessed right.

Blucodex

Roadmap to 2-3x local median wages?

Press ANY Key

With all the people around the world dumping exams, I don't think certs are as meaningful as they used to be. I've seen people with MCSEs not be able to describe what DNS does.

I think being passionate and having a solid working knowledge in your profession are keys to getting over the six figure hump. Another important key for me is not becoming a one trick pony. Learn as much as possible and broaden your scope of knowledge.

To directly answer your question, a clearance can get you to that level very fast.

JoJoCal19

dave330i wrote: »

1. Find out what's in demand in your area.
2. Become an expert/get certified.
3. Land a 6 figure job.

Dave on point as usual. You'll notice in every thread like this his advice is the same, because it works

Some other points:

1. As stated, six figures in CA/DMV/NY is not equal to six figures in FL/NC/etc.
2. Be prepared to move to where the jobs/money are.
3. Sitting in one job/company will rarely ever get you there. Be prepared to make several job moves every 2 years to get there.
4. The more narrow focused of an expert you become, the higher the wage potential, but also lower amount of opportunity.

My personal story, stuck doing IAM work at a large global bank for 4 years with only Net+/Sec+ and no Bachelors. Got my BSBA in 3 years, then got my CISSP. CISSP was they key to getting hits on recruiters searches and the floodgates opened up after. The BSBA helped meet the Bachelors requirement in most all job listings. After that job, started on more certs, kept building knowledge, moved jobs again, and again and again (all for different reasons and not the money actually, but each came with jumps in pay). So I went 57k>72k>85k>102k>mid six with bonus in the span of 4 years. To what Dave said, obviously the hot areas are Cloud and InfoSec. Don't purse an area just because of money though. Find out what its like in a Cloud or InfoSec job and if it's something you'd like. Making six figures doesn't matter if you're miserable for 40-50 hours a week.

LittleBIT

I decided to go oversea's and be a DOD contractor in a war zone. Fastest way to get 6-figs.

BUT...

Be prepared to lose your skill sets as you will become reliant on others to handle every other aspect outside of your job role. I came from a MSP, and there I had rights to work on servers, routers, DNS, plan deployments, work with every vendor or try different products, websites, backups etc. It was fun looking back.

Now I'm lucky if I can even ping an exchange server, and I spend all day telling people to restart their machines.

Though the money is good, the work is mind numbing.

To echo everyone else --

Cloud and InfoSec are hot topics. I'm ditching Windows and learning Linux/AWS and getting a job doing that stuff. Even if I take a huge pay cut doing junior stuff, I'd be comfortable/happy building and expanding my skill set for better paying jobs.

Dakinggamer87

I will share my story to six figures and it's a lot of what has been discussed previously. It is a combination of certifications, degrees, and experience. I always continue to improve myself and look for opportunities for growth even when a company wouldn't provide an avenue or have a path of progression.

If a company didn't give me growth I would leave and move onto somewhere that would be more beneficial to my career. This in combination with my faith and determination is what helps me continue to climb. My current role is more in the lines of management so my focus on technical certs is slowly decreasing.

My advice is to focus on what you want to specialize in and the money will come over time. The most important thing to consider is your overall health, quality of life, and happiness. Life is too short to be miserable even if your making a ton of money.

I started as a contractor doing help desk/desktop support in the beginning of my career and now I'm a manager of a team of students and techs.

I started going to college and got my Associates and completed an internship before graduating. Afterwards, I completed many CompTIA, Cisco, and MS certs to move from help desk/desktop support roles into a Systems Admin. The next steps I took going into engineering included finishing my BS, VMware, and some security/network certs. I recently moved into management after finishing my MS and an MBA program online training course.

Six figures in Cali is nothing tho when you can't even buy a house so it varies by location how much your dollar goes... Points to moving to Texas or WA eventually

I hope your path and journey continues to progress well into the future.