Even if you’ve been working in technology for years, earning an IT certification can bump your status, job title and even pay grade. Certifications show your coworkers and higher ups that you’re committed to the job, have special skills and are willing to keep learning to stay on top of your game.
“In the legal and medical fields, you get more degrees or get published in journals, and that’s how you distinguish and establish yourself with peers. In the IT space, you do that through certifications,” said Logan Murphy, a consultant who helps IT pros set specific career paths and used his own set of certifications to build his technology career.
You can follow specific certification pathways and roadmaps, or jump in at any point based on your experience and specialty. Use tools like CompTIA’s Certification Roadmap to get an idea of where you want to go, or design a path for yourself.
“They say, ‘Dress for the job you want,’” Murphy said. “I say, ‘Get the certs for the job you want.’”
1. Chart Your IT Job Path
Once you start looking into certifications, you’ll realize there’s one for just about everything: project management, development, hardware, products and vendor-neutral certifications like CompTIA’s, which are developed using the knowledge of people working in the IT industry.
“When you first get into this, you run into this mountain of acronyms that don’t make any sense at all,” Murphy said. “There’s Security+, GCDF, CISSP — Google those and see where they go.”
Find out where in IT you want to be, and plot out the certifications and experience you’ll need to earn along the way.
“A lot of IT jobs have requirements like, ‘Have this amount of time doing X things in project management or security operations,’” Murphy said. “When you’ve got your certification, you can start looking at gaining experience you might not need until you’re four years down the road. Think, ‘How can I start doing that now?’ so you don’t have to come up with years of experience later on.”
2. Copycat the Career You Want
They say, ‘Dress for the job you want.’ I say, ‘Get the certs for the job you want.’
Zero in on someone you know, or know of, who has a career you’d like to replicate. Do some light digging to find out what certifications they hold.
“Look around,” Murphy said. “Ask yourself, ‘What certifications do the people around me have? What about the people who are doing the jobs I want?’”
Whether you want to do networking support, work in hardware or get a job in cybersecurity, do some sleuthing on LinkedIn or TechTalent Portal powered by CompTIA to find job listings and resumes that fall into that world.
“Find someone doing that job and look up his or her online resume,” Murphy said. “It’s such a good way to figure out what you should do to figure out where you want to go.”
3. Find Your Specialization
Certifications can help you specialize in areas that best suit your skills. For those who care less about the work and more about the Benjamins, a certification can set you up for a bigger paycheck in an area where those skills are in high demand.
The IT skills gap can work in your favor here. Jobs that appear over and over signal a need in the market, like IT security specialists, for example. Most of those jobs require a certification like CompTIA Security+ as well as related experience.
Talk to your boss about your plans. See if the company has specific needs, if they’re willing to cover the cost of training materials or a certification exam, or how you can use your position to gain hands-on experience in the area you’d like to pursue.
“Some certifications are prohibitively expensive, but any employer worth their salt will encourage you to get certified and advance your career,” Murphy said.
You can reduce a lot of the cost by studying on your own rather than signing up for an expensive boot camp, he said. Sometimes the only expense can be the test, and you can find vouchers and coupons for those.
“There are a lot of ways to cut costs if you’re willing to put in some time and work on your own,” Murphy said. “That’ll lead you to a better job, which will help with the next round of certification.”
Read More from Logan Murphy
Once you’ve earned the certification, let your supervisor know and then update your online resume.
“When you earn a certification, put it on your LinkedIn profile so when a recruiter is looking, they’ll smash right into those acronyms,” Murphy said.
Even if you’re happy in your job, there’s always room for growth.
Ready to get started? Follow our four steps to certification.
Michelle Lange is a writer and designer living in Chicago.
