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IT certifications do two jobs. The first is obvious: they force you to learn a structured body of knowledge. You study routing, switching, security controls, or cloud services and walk away knowing more than you did before. That matters. But knowledge alone does not pay the rent.
The second job is the one most people under-plan for. A cert has to get you interviews. If it does not help your résumé clear an Applicant Tracking System (ATS), survive a keyword scan, or give a hiring manager a reason to call you, then the time and money you spent have limited value in the short term. That is why planning your certification journey carefully is more important than collecting the “highest” cert on the market.
Maximum leverage for your time and money
Every cert costs something: study hours, exam fees, lab gear, and opportunity cost. The smart question is not “What is the hardest cert I can pass?” It is “What is the maximum leverage I can get for the time and money I put in?” Anything else is madness in my humble opinion.
Leverage means interviews, callbacks, and offers relative to effort. A cert that takes three months and reliably opens junior networking, systems, or operations doors can outperform a multi-year project that impresses peers but does not move the needle on job applications.
Take a common example. Someone spends two or three years chasing a CCIE. The technical depth is real. The respect inside engineering circles is real. But for many roles, the CCNP already satisfies the keyword and credibility bar that recruiters and hiring managers use. If the CCIE does not produce more interviews or higher offers than the CCNP meaningfully at that stage of your career, the extra years may be poor leverage. You can always pursue the expert-level cert later, once you are employed and the employer is helping fund the journey. I’ve seen this with countless people passing IT degrees only to find themselves with no skills an employer will find useful (or pay for).
The same logic applies across vendors. A+ or Network+ can be high leverage early on. Security+ is high leverage for many security-adjacent roles. CCNA is high leverage for networking and infrastructure paths. The “best” cert is the one that closes the gap between where you are and the jobs you can realistically get called about right now.
How job searches actually work (keywords matter)
Modern hiring is largely a keyword and filter problem before it is a skills problem.
When you apply online, your résumé usually passes through an ATS. That system looks for phrases that match the job description: “CCNA,” “Cisco,” “routing and switching,” “Security+,” “Active Directory,” “Azure,” and so on. Recruiters then search LinkedIn and internal databases using those same terms. Hiring managers scan résumés in seconds looking for familiar signals.
Here is the hard truth: you can know more than the next candidate and still never get a call if the right keyword is missing from your profile. The system does not interview “people who understand networking deeply.” It surfaces people who match the search terms the company decided to use.
That is why the cert on paper is not just a learning badge. It is a searchable token. It puts a recognized string into the places automated systems and busy humans look. Without that token, your knowledge stays invisible.
Real-world case study: CCNA three months later
A recent post in r/ccna illustrates this cleanly. The writer graduated in April with a bachelor’s in IT from a Canadian university and passed the CCNA in May. He wanted network engineering and data-center work, but most of those roles asked for years of experience. So he targeted junior IT operations, technician, and support roles instead.
After about a month of applying—mainly on LinkedIn, plus company sites—he landed three interviews and an offer as a systems analyst at a telecommunications company. His peers from the same degree program who did not have the CCNA were getting far fewer interviews. Every interview he did get revolved around the cert. It showed both technical grounding and the willingness to go beyond the degree. When he negotiated the offer, the CCNA also helped him push the salary up by about 10%.
He did the practical things that turn a cert into leverage: applied consistently (around 100 applications), tailored résumés for ATS, and aimed at roles where “CCNA” actually appears in the requirements rather than only chasing senior network engineer titles he was not yet competitive for.
What he did right—and why CCNA was the best call
He chose a cert that matched the market he was entering. Fresh graduate, limited experience, networking and infrastructure interest: CCNA is widely recognized, vendor-specific enough to signal real networking study, and common enough that junior and mid-junior job ads still list it.
He treated the cert as a job-search tool, not only a learning goal. He put it on the résumé, used it in applications, and let interviews center on it. That is how keyword systems and hiring managers are designed to work.
He stayed realistic about role level. Instead of waiting for a pure network engineer job that required two or three years of experience, he used the CCNA to break into a systems analyst role inside telecom—adjacent to the path he wants, with a company that lives and breathes networks. That is often how careers actually start.
He stacked the cert with a degree rather than treating either as enough on its own. The combination is stronger than either signal alone for entry-level screening.
Would a CCNP or CCIE have helped more at that exact moment? Unlikely. Those certs demand far more time. For someone with almost no experience, the marginal gain in interview volume is often small compared with the cost. CCNA was the high-leverage move: enough recognition to open doors, attainable on a realistic timeline, and directly usable in the job search.
Plan the cert for the interview, not the ego
Certifications still matter for knowledge. They structure what you learn and prove you can finish something hard. But if your goal is employment, knowledge is only half the product. The other half is visibility in the systems that decide who gets a phone call.
Before you commit to the next cert, ask three questions:
- Does this cert appear in the job ads I am actually applying to?
- Can I complete it in a timeframe that keeps me moving, not stalled for years?
- Will it give me more interviews per hour of study than the next option on my list?
If the answer is yes, it is probably high leverage. If you are choosing it mainly because it is prestigious, pause. Prestige is nice. Interviews pay the bills.
The Reddit graduate did not collect the rarest Cisco cert. He collected the one that got him into the room. That is the standard worth using when you plan your own path.
The 101 Labs – Cisco CCNA course here will help you study for the exam. It includes labs, PBQs, practice exams and access to our Cisco racks.
