u/TechB84

I made this post because the same questions keep coming up.

There is no degree, certification, or combination of credentials that guarantees an IT job.

The IT market is crowded, especially at the entry level. Every year, new graduates, career changers, bootcamp students, and certification holders enter the job market, creating more competition than available positions in many areas.

That doesn't mean degrees or certifications are useless. They can absolutely help and may be the reason you get an interview or get chosen over another candidate. The reality is that no one knows exactly what a hiring manager values most. Sometimes it's a degree, sometimes certifications, sometimes experience, projects, communication skills, networking, or a referral.

That's why one person can get hired with minimal credentials while another with a degree and multiple certifications struggles to find work.

Will a degree help? Probably.

Will certifications help? Probably.

Will either guarantee a job? No.

The best approach is to improve your odds from every angle: earn relevant certifications, get a degree if it makes sense for your goals, build projects, create a home lab, volunteer, network, and gain experience wherever you can. All of these can help, but none guarantee results.

Too many people view degrees and certifications as a ticket to a job. They're not. They're tools that can increase your chances in a competitive market.

Instead of chasing credentials blindly, study your local job market. Look at the jobs you want and identify the common requirements. If employers are asking for degrees, certifications, specific technologies, or experience, focus on building those qualifications.

The same principle applies to networking, projects, home labs, volunteering, and every other piece of career advice. They can all improve your odds, but none can promise an outcome.

At the end of the day, all you can do is stack the odds in your favor. Degrees help. Certifications help. Experience helps. Networking helps. Projects help. But there is no secret formula for getting hired in IT. Everything helps, but nothing guarantees.

Before I jump in, I just want to say I love working in IT, and I couldn't imagine doing anything else. As an older millennial, living through this tech evolution has been incredible.

From green monochrome screens in MS-DOS, to a Gateway 2000 with Windows 3.0, to 2400 baud dial-up internet and MS Encarta on Windows 95, I was hooked. Browsing tech magazines at Barnes & Noble was a weekly ritual. In college, working at Geek Squad gave me some of my favorite memories, fixing PCs and hanging out with great people after shifts.

I've always been the family tech person, and that spark never faded. Turning a real interest into a career makes the journey so much easier. Who else got into IT because of an interest they had as a kid? Do you still follow tech as a hobby?

A lot of the advice given in IT career discussions is highly location dependent.

What is true for one person may not be true for someone else. Someone living in Kansas will likely have different opportunities than someone living in New Jersey, New York, or California.

Before asking strangers what certifications, degrees, or experience you should pursue, spend some time researching the jobs in your area. Look at help desk, desktop support, system administrator, network administrator, and other entry level or mid level positions. See what employers are actually asking for and work toward those requirements.

Too often, people ask for a roadmap without first looking at the destination.

Also, when considering remote positions, remember that you're no longer competing only against local candidates. You're competing against applicants from across the country, and sometimes even internationally. That changes the level of competition significantly.

The best career advice is often found by studying the job postings for the jobs you actually want in the area where you plan to work.

I recently started thinking differently about Pocket Casts’ Trim Silence feature. It is great for saving time, but removing too much silence may also remove some of the processing time our brains need while listening.
Working memory can only handle a limited amount of information at once. While listening to a podcast, the brain needs brief moments to make sense of what was said, connect it to earlier information, and prepare for what comes next. Increasing playback speed reduces those moments, and aggressively trimming pauses may reduce them even more.
Research on accelerated speech found that people had more difficulty recalling information when speech was compressed. When researchers added pauses back at meaningful points, recall improved and listening required less effort.
Other research found that longer pauses helped listeners understand spoken information by providing additional processing time. Interestingly, slowing down the actual speech did not always produce the same benefit. This suggests that pauses between thoughts may be just as important as the speed of the words.
Playback speed and Trim Silence work together:
1.2x with Low Trim Silence speeds up the words but keeps more natural pauses.

1.1x with Medium Trim Silence slows the words slightly but removes more pauses.

1.2x with Mad Max speeds up the words and removes most pauses, leaving less time to mentally process what was said.

The research on faster playback is mixed. Some studies show that people can understand accelerated audio without a major drop in performance. Other research found that faster playback hurt retention for some unfamiliar material. Results can vary depending on the listener and the complexity of the information.
The main point is that silence is not necessarily wasted time. Some pauses give the brain a chance to catch up. Removing every possible silence might make a podcast shorter, but it could also make listening more mentally demanding and make some information harder to remember.
I had been listening at 1.2x with Mad Max Trim Silence. I have now switched to 1.1x with Medium Trim Silence to test whether the slightly slower speed and less aggressive trimming help me process and remember more of what I hear.
Pocket Casts’ individual Trim Silence levels have not been directly studied, so this does not prove that one specific setting is best. It is simply applying what research says about speech rate, pauses, processing time, and memory. A moderate playback speed with less aggressive silence trimming may provide a better balance between saving time and remembering what you heard.

I'm not sure if others have noticed this, but after replying to some comments and posts, Reddit began showing me similar content from various communities. Many of these posts are from people eager to enter IT, often setting highly unrealistic expectations and without understanding the fundamentals of what IT and technology truly involve. I'm especially surprised to see individuals without any technical background or interest in technology talking about how to get into cybersecurity or become a network engineer, despite not knowing how to use a computer properly. Maybe I’m influenced by these recurring posts in my feed, but I find it hard to understand why some believe IT is an easy career to pursue. Unlike other professions, IT appears to be viewed as a straightforward way to advance. In some ways, I find it a little insulting that so many think they can easily do my job, switch careers, and start working in IT without much difficulty. I would get it more if someone were genuinely passionate about technology, had tinkered with hardware, built their own computer, and kept up with technical advances. But too many of these people seem to have only used an iPhone, and that’s about it.

Here’s my story.

I’ve been into computers since I was a kid. I was one of the first people I knew to get the internet, I built computers, and I followed all the technology news and culture. It was always a passion of mine.

When I got to college, the IT industry was a mess, so I decided to major in history and secondary education and become a teacher. While I was in college, I worked for Geek Squad at Best Buy.

After graduating, I started applying for history teaching jobs. One school called me in for an interview, and while they were going through my resume, they noticed my Geek Squad experience. They started asking if I was into computers, so I told them about my background. Instead of a history position, they offered me a job as a computer teacher. I figured, why not?

After my first year, I was promoted to technology coordinator. I was still teaching, but I also helped maintain the computer labs and took on other technology-related responsibilities. The following year, the technology director left, and I was promoted to assistant director of technology.

Eventually, I applied for an IT manager position at a university and got the job. My boss later told me that having a master’s degree was one of the reasons they selected me.

I never earned an IT certification or even studied for one. The only additional degree I pursued was a master’s in IT, and my employer covered half the cost. Now I’m working toward the ITIL Version 5 certification to improve my chances if a better opportunity opens up within the university.

What originally got my foot in the door was a combination of my teaching license and my Geek Squad experience. The teaching license gave me access to a computer teaching position, while Geek Squad showed that I already had some hands-on experience with technology.

The funny thing is that Geek Squad came up in interviews far more often than I ever expected. It may not carry the same weight now, but back then, Geek Squad was a popular and recognizable brand, and interviewers were always interested in it. That experience helped me get my first opportunity, which I then used to gain more experience and move into increasingly technical roles.

I'm looking on Amazon and there are a few options. I prefer getting a textbook since it gives me a break from looking at a screen.

I'm looking on Amazon and there are a few options. I prefer getting a textbook since it gives me a break from looking at a screen.

I suspect this will be introduced with the rollout of Tesla YL later this year in the US

I started my EV journey with a Cadillac Lyriq on a very affordable 24 month lease, and I just moved into a Honda Prologue on a 36 month lease because the deal was too good to ignore. With so many EV models being discontinued and automakers focusing on fewer vehicles, it made me wonder. If these kinds of lease deals go away, would that change how you approach EVs in the future? Would you consider purchasing instead?