You are standing at the edge of a career change, staring at a wall of IT certification acronyms, and every list you find reads like a restaurant menu with no prices and no waiter to tell you what is good. A+, Network+, Security+, Google this, AWS that. You do not want a menu. You want to know: if you are coming from outside IT, which one do you get first, and which ones can wait until you actually have a job.
That is the question those roundups quietly dodge, so let me answer it plainly.
The quick answer, if you only read one paragraph
If you are switching into IT from something unrelated, start with the CompTIA A+. It is the broad, entry-level credential built for general IT and help desk roles, and it is the cert most likely to get your resume past the first filter for an entry-level support job. Get A+, use it to land that first help-desk or desktop-support role, and then let your employer’s paycheck fund the rest. Once you are inside, Network+ and Security+ are the natural next two, and after that you specialize. That is the whole route. Everything below is just the reasoning and the timing.
The single biggest mistake career switchers make is collecting three or four certifications before they have ever held an IT job, when one cert plus an actual paycheck would have moved them further.
The order I’d actually follow
Here is the sequence, and just as importantly, where I would stop between steps to go get hired rather than pushing straight to the next exam.
| Step | Cert | Why it earns its place | When to move on |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | CompTIA A+ | The broad “start here” cert for general IT and help desk. Two exams (Core 1 = 220-1201, Core 2 = 220-1202 in the current V15 series), which means it costs roughly double a single exam, but it covers hardware, OS, troubleshooting, and support fundamentals. | Once you pass, stop and job-hunt. Do not buy the next cert yet. Land the first support role first. |
| 2 | CompTIA Network+ | Networking fundamentals (single exam, N10-009). The layer under everything you will touch in support, and the vocabulary that gets you off the phones and toward infrastructure. | When you are comfortable talking subnets, DNS, and routing at work, and you want to move toward network or systems roles. |
| 3 | CompTIA Security+ | Entry-level security (single exam, SY0-701, with performance-based questions). It is the DoD 8570/8140 baseline for many information-assurance roles, which matters a lot if you want government or contractor work. | When you have a paycheck, real experience, and a decision to make about which direction you specialize. |
| 4 | Specialize: security or cloud | Now you pick a lane. Cyber (building on Security+) or cloud (AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner, Microsoft Azure Fundamentals AZ-900 as on-ramps). | This is not really an “end.” It is where your actual job and your interests take over from the roadmap. |
Notice what the table is really saying. The certs are steps 1 through 3, but the most important instruction lives in the “when to move on” column, and it is usually “go get a job now.”
Where I’d stop to get a job
This is the part the listicles leave out, and it is the part that matters most.
After A+, stop. Do not immediately buy Network+ study materials. Go apply for help-desk, desktop-support, IT-support-technician, and service-desk roles, and apply widely. The A+ is designed to signal exactly that you are ready for those jobs. If you keep studying instead of applying, you are trading momentum for another badge that, on its own, does not make you more hireable than you already are.
One cert and a job beats three certs and a LinkedIn profile full of “aspiring” every single time.
The reason is simple. Employers are not really buying the certificate. They are buying the reduction in risk that you can do the work. A+ reduces that risk enough for an entry-level role. A second and third cert stacked before you have any experience does not reduce it much more, because the thing they are still unsure about is whether you can do the actual job, and only the job answers that.
If you have a family to support, bills that will not wait, or you are simply anxious to see the switch pay off, this ordering is not just efficient. It is kinder to your bank account. You earn while you learn the next two.
Let your first employer pay for Network+ and Security+ through the salary you earn, and study them in the evenings while your resume finally says “IT” instead of “aspiring IT.”
A cert is a signal, not a guarantee
I want to be honest with you about what these credentials do and do not do, because the marketing around certs tends to promise a straight line to a salary, and that is not how it works.
A certification is a signal. It tells a hiring manager, quickly and cheaply, that you probably know the fundamentals and that you cared enough to prove it. That is genuinely valuable, especially for a switcher with no IT job history, because it gives the resume something concrete to point at. But it is a signal, not a guarantee. It does not promise a job, it does not replace experience, and it does not survive contact with an interview where you cannot explain what you supposedly learned.
You will also hear a loud counter-argument, especially on Reddit: that certs are overrated and a home lab or a portfolio matters more. There is real truth in it. For some paths, particularly cloud and development, hands-on projects can outweigh a certificate. But for the specific case of a switcher with zero IT job history trying to land a first help-desk role, the A+ is still the cheapest, fastest, most widely recognized way to get past the resume filter. The honest answer is not “certs or projects,” it is “the A+ to get in the door, then projects and experience to climb.” The career gets built by the work; the cert just opens the first door.
For a deeper walk through how the three CompTIA exams connect and how I would study for each, I wrote a longer piece on the full CompTIA certification path that pairs well with this roadmap.
A few questions I get asked a lot
Which IT certification should I get first?
CompTIA A+, in almost every case, if you are coming from outside the field. It is the broad entry-level cert built for general IT and help desk, and it is the one most likely to get an entry-level resume taken seriously. Start there, then Network+, then Security+.
Are IT certs actually worth it for a career switcher?
Yes, with one caveat: the first one is worth the most. A+ gives a no-experience resume a real, verifiable thing to stand on, which is exactly what a switcher lacks. The value drops sharply if you stack certs without ever getting hired. If you want a framework for judging any single cert honestly, I wrote about how to decide whether a cert is worth it based on where you actually are.
Can you get an IT job with no experience but a certification?
Yes, this is the normal path into help desk and support. A+ plus a decent resume and honest interview answers lands entry-level support roles for people with zero prior IT jobs all the time. The cert is doing the job of standing in for experience you do not have yet, which is precisely why the first one matters so much.
A+ or the Google IT Support certificate?
If you can only pay for one credential and you want the strongest hiring signal, get the A+. The Google IT Support Professional Certificate (on Coursera, subscription-based) is an excellent absolute-beginner on-ramp and a common stepping stone toward A+, especially if you are starting from close to zero. Many people do Google IT Support first to build confidence, then sit the A+. They are complements, not rivals, and the A+ is the one employers recognize as the entry-level standard.
What about cloud certs like AWS or Azure?
If you already know you want cloud rather than general IT or security, the AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner or Microsoft Azure Fundamentals (AZ-900) are legitimate beginner on-ramps and are cheaper than the full A+ pair. The catch is that they point at a narrower set of first jobs. For a true switcher who is not yet sure of the lane, A+ keeps the most doors open, and you can pivot to cloud once you are employed and know the field better.
Who I am, and what I’d actually use to study
Quick honesty, because you should know who is handing you a roadmap. I am a software engineer by training (NUST), and I have spent years building machine-learning systems and product tools before becoming a founder. I do not hold the A+, Network+, or Security+, and I am not going to pretend otherwise. My connection to this world is real but specific: across 2022 and 2023 I delivered cybersecurity webinars for a software vendor, GFI Software, sometimes solo and sometimes alongside their regional channel manager, on topics like security directives, email security, network performance, and firewall-as-a-service, plus a good deal of general marketing work with cybersecurity companies. So I have watched a lot of people build these careers, and I have built one of my own, just not through these exact exams.
That vantage point is exactly why my team built PrepClubs. The single highest-leverage study habit for any CompTIA exam is doing realistic practice questions until the format stops surprising you, and PrepClubs is where we put ours. You can work through original practice questions for A+, Network+, and Security+ in one place as you climb the exact ladder in this article. A couple of honest notes: the questions are our own, written to mirror the real objectives, not scraped from the actual exams, and PrepClubs is not affiliated with CompTIA. Access is a one-time payment with 30-day access and a Pass Guarantee, not a subscription you have to remember to cancel.
Start with the free diagnostic. It is genuinely free first, then paid only if it helps, and it will tell you fast whether you are closer to ready than you think, or further, which is worth knowing before you book anything.
The route is not complicated. One cert, one job, then the next two on your employer’s dime. Go get the first door open.