Why Beginners Should Not Start With Random Certifications

A certificate chosen before a target role is a bet placed before you know the game.

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The problem

The most common first move for someone entering IT is to buy a certification — usually the one a forum recommended most loudly — and start studying that night. It feels productive and official. But a certificate chosen before a target role is a bet placed before you know the game, and it is one of the most expensive false starts in an IT transition: real money, three months of evenings, and often a badge that no job you actually want asks for.

Why this matters now

Certifications still matter, and providers like CompTIA and Microsoft keep their exam objectives public and current. But the marketing around them is louder than ever, and it pushes beginners to buy first and think later. Workforce research such as the WEF Future of Jobs report keeps pointing to demonstrable, role-specific skills as what employers reward — and a random certificate proves neither a role nor a skill you can show. As AI makes it trivial to grind practice questions, 'passed a popular exam' says less about you than it used to; what you can demonstrate for a specific role says more.

The practical framework

The fix is not 'never get a certification'. It is to move it from first to fourth. The order that works:

1. Target role. Pick one realistic first role you could reach in 6-12 months.
2. Baseline skills. Read ten real job descriptions for it; the repeated skills are your syllabus.
3. Proof. Turn each core skill into a small artefact an employer can see.
4. Certification. Now choose the exam whose objectives match that role and back it with the proof you already built.
5. Positioning. Rewrite your CV and profile in the role's language.

A certificate at step four confirms skills you can already partly demonstrate. A certificate at step one is a guess dressed up as progress.

What beginners often get wrong

Choosing the certificate by popularity or marketing instead of by a job. The most-recommended exam on a forum is optimised for forum upvotes, not for your local market or your target role. Two costs follow. First, opportunity cost: the months and money spent on an unaligned exam are months not spent choosing a role and building proof. Second, sunk cost: once you have paid, you keep going even after you realise it does not match any role you want. And because you studied to pass rather than to do, the interview still goes badly — a certificate cannot answer 'what do you want to do here, and can you show me?'.

A better path

Spend the first two weeks not buying anything. Choose one target role, collect ten job descriptions, and build your skill list from the words that repeat. Only then look at certifications, and judge each one by a single test: do its published objectives overlap with that repeated list? If yes, it is worth your money; if no, it is a hobby.

This also makes the famous 'which cert first?' question easy instead of agonising. The answer is never universal — it is whichever exam's objectives match the ten postings you are targeting. For broad support roles that is often a vendor-neutral foundation; for cloud-leaning roles, a cloud-fundamentals exam; for networking, a networking path. The role decides, not the marketing.

Example roadmap

What the first month looks like when you resist buying a cert on day one:

• Week 1: choose a target role; read ten real job descriptions; write the repeated-skills list.
• Week 2: start learning the most-repeated skill and produce one small artefact (a documented lab, a troubleshooting write-up).
• Week 3: shortlist certifications whose objectives match your list; pick one.
• Week 4+: study that exam with a lab open, turning each objective into proof as you go, so by exam day you have both the certificate and a portfolio.

Same money, same effort — but now aimed at a role instead of a guess.

What to do this week

• Do not buy a certification in your first week.
• Choose one target role first.
• Build a skill list from ten real job descriptions.
• Shortlist certifications only by objective-to-job overlap.
• Study with a lab open, turning objectives into proof.
• Skip any exam no target job actually asks for.

How to tell it is working

Progress in an IT transition is easy to fake to yourself and hard to fake to an employer, so measure the things employers can see. You are on track when, each week, you can point to one new artefact (a lab note, a troubleshooting write-up, a small script) and explain it in plain language. You are on track when you can name your target role without hesitating and list the skills it asks for. And you are on track when your CV and profile use the same words as the job descriptions you are reading. If a week passes with hours of video but nothing you could show or explain, that is the signal to change the routine, not to push harder at the same thing. Keep a short log of what you produced each week; over a couple of months it doubles as both a portfolio and proof of consistency, which is exactly what a hiring manager wants to see from someone changing fields.

A realistic note on pace

Career-change advice tends to swing between two unhelpful extremes: 'anyone can do this in a few weeks' and 'you need a four-year degree first'. Both are wrong for most people. The honest answer is that it depends on your starting point, the time you can protect each week, the language you are working in, and the roles your local market actually hires for. Be sceptical of anyone promising a fixed timeline, instant placement, or a specific salary on day one; realistic guidance talks in ranges and trade-offs, not promises. What you can control is consistency and visibility: small, steady, documented progress toward one clear role beats sporadic bursts of enthusiasm aimed at everything at once. Protect a few focused hours a week and defend them like any other commitment, because steady beats heroic almost every time.

Turn your non-IT experience into an asset

If you are coming from manufacturing, hospitality, retail, logistics, finance, administration, customer support or the trades, you are not starting from zero. Those jobs build exactly the skills IT teams complain are missing: calm problem-solving under pressure, clear communication with frustrated people, documentation, prioritisation and reliability. The mistake is to hide your old career as if it were an embarrassment. Instead, translate it. 'Handled escalations on a busy shift' becomes evidence you can triage and de-escalate, which is most of helpdesk work. 'Reconciled daily figures' becomes attention to detail and process discipline. Write one or two lines per past role that map a real responsibility onto an IT-relevant strength, and use them in your CV and interviews. Career changers who do this well often interview better than fresh graduates, because they can talk about real situations, real stakes, and real people.

Where SHIFT 2 IT fits

Inside SHIFT 2 IT, I go deeper into turning your current background into a realistic roadmap toward your first target IT role — including how this fits the bigger sequence of learning, proof and positioning.

Final thought

Certifications are a good fourth step and a poor first one. Choose the role, learn what it needs, build a little proof, and the right certificate becomes obvious — and worth every euro. Start with a random exam and you are paying to postpone the decision that actually matters.

Key takeaways

• A certificate before a target role is a guess, not progress.
• Move certifications from the first step to the fourth.
• Pick a cert only by objective-to-job overlap for your target role.
• The right first cert is decided by the role, not by marketing.

If you are planning a move into IT, start by choosing a target role before choosing certifications.

This article is part of my SHIFT 2 IT series for people moving into IT realistically.