Career paths to six figures with A+?

I'm interested in pursuing a career in IT and am currently pursuing the basic CompTIA A+ certificate. I understand this is the most basic requirement for a job in IT.

Now my question is what pathway could I take to land a six figure job 10 years down the road? CISSP and PMP seem like good choices but after some research its become clear to me you don't just fall into those accreditations, it's all about work experience.

I would appreciate any information that may be useful to me regarding this, how to get myself in a position to obtain these later on in my career. I'm not trying to fast track this or anything but I don't want to waste time moving sideways if you know what I mean.

Thanks!

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Comments

pert

Here is my 2c

1. Go to School
1a. Get any IT related job and work during your entire time at school
1b. Get entry level certifications during summer.

2. Start applying for next level full time positions in whatever field youre in months before you graduate. If you get an offer before graduating I'd take the job and do whatever it takes to make sure I graduate. Youre going to get rejected over and over, get used it. The whole point of this is working on your resume and phone/personal interviews.

3. Now that you have a real job, start taking specialist certifications in your field. Once you have these and 1-2 years experience, start looking for a job that is a world leader in your field or can offer you experience in a way other can't. You're not looking for a pay bump, you're looking for a place where you can become an expert. The places that can offer this will hire you, but not at a high salary, and you will need to relocate.

4. Repeat step 3, except now for 2-3 years and start getting your expert level certifications. You're almost definitely going to need to find another place to work. because virtually no place in corporate america will give you huge bumps in salary if you stay within the organization, regardless of how much your skills or experience change. Look for a small to mid size company where you will be the sole engineer, or on a small team. Make sure this isn't a add/move/change sort of position. You want to find a position where you will be doing design/architecture for medium to large projects. Youre looking for a place that builds networks for other people usually. Now that you have expert level core certs, you need to start learning the design side and specialty tracks.

5. Use the experience in 4 to find a job doing the same thing for an industry leader.

Mrock4

How to make 6 figures

-Be ambitious
-Drive yourself to be better today than you were yesterday
-Learn from your mistakes
-Be open to change

About7Narwhal

^ That sounds like a plan to me. Both Mrock4 and pert. Though Mrock4's sounds more like a life success tutorial than an IT based one. lol

Mrock4

About7Narwhal wrote: »

^ That sounds like a plan to me. Both Mrock4 and pert. Though Mrock4's sounds more like a life success tutorial than an IT based one. lol

I don't believe in saying "get certification X, then make XX/year...then get cert X and make XX a year.." - too many variables. Degrees/certs don't earn money..the people who know how to leverage them to make the most of them in their career do!