How to Get into IT in 2026 Without Going Broke or Losing Your Mind

A zero-BS checklist for surviving helpdesk, skipping useless degrees, and staying sane in tech

5 min read

Look, if you're reading this because some LinkedIn influencer posted a video about making $120k a year working two hours a day from a beach in Bali, do me a favor and close the tab. Go buy a farm. Go raise alpacas. Literally anything else.

Because entry-level IT isn't slick, and it sure as hell isn't glamorous. Some people just grind through it on their way to Cybersecurity others, like me, actually love this stuff.

It’s sitting in a room that smells like cheap carpet tile and old coffee while a user screams at you through the phone because their wireless mouse died. Spoiler alert: the battery was upside down.

If you still want in after hearing that, fine. But stop asking me about four-year degrees or high-dollar bootcamps. Nobody really cares about a piece of paper from a university, and the HR algorithms only care about acronyms anyway.

Here is the actual, in my experience, zero-BS, real-life tested,... checklist you need if you want to land a job and not get fired in your first ninety days.

The "Get Past the HR Wall" Phase

• Get the CompTIA A+ Look, the test is boring and half the stuff on it is outdated before the ink even dries on your certificate. Doesn't matter. HR managers don't know what a subnet mask is, but they know how to look for those two letters on a resume. Just swallow your pride, cram for a month, pass it, and move on.
• Build a homelab out of garbage Go on eBay or hit up a local e-waste pile. Grab an old Dell OptiPlex or some beat-up enterprise server someone threw out. Install Proxmox, throw up a domain controller, and break it on purpose. If you come into an interview with me and tell me you broke your own home network trying to set up custom DNS, I will hire you on the spot over the guy with a Computer Science degree who hasn't touched a screwdriver.
• Stop buying five-thousand-dollar bootcamps If a company is promising you a guaranteed tech job after an eight-week course, they are taking your money and laughing all the way to the bank. Everything you need to learn basic networking and sysadmin work is free on YouTube or hidden in some obscure forum post from 2011.
• Fix your resume so it doesn't sound like a textbook Nobody cares that you are a "hardworking self-starter passionate about leveraging technology." Tell me you can set up a printer, wipe a drive, and talk to an angry user without rolling your eyes out of your head.

The "Surviving Day One" Reality

• Learn how to Google like a professional Half of this job is pretending you know what you're doing while frantically searching an obscure error code on your second monitor. Master the art of keeping a straight face while reading a Reddit thread that explains how to fix a broken registry key.
• Accept that printers were built by demons You will spend at least twenty percent of your early career fighting print spoolers. They don't make sense, they smell fear, and they will stop working five minutes before the CEO needs to print a contract. Just accept it now and save yourself the high blood pressure.
• Get comfortable saying "I don't know, but I'll find out" The fastest way to get fired or destroy a production server is pretending you know what a button does when you don't. Lie to the users about how long a fix takes if you must, but never lie to your senior tech about what you just clicked.
• Realize you are actually in customer service Computers are easy. They run on logic. Humans are chaotic, weird, and constantly unhook server cables to plug in their space heaters. If you hate people, you're going to burn out in six months. You're not a basement wizard, you're a therapist who knows how to reset passwords.

The "Actually Moving Up" Move

• Document everything you touch If you fix a weird issue, write down how you did it. If you build a process, put it in the wiki. The tech who hoard information to keep their job safety are the exact techs nobody wants to work with.
• Learn basic scripting before you think you need it You don't need to be a software developer, but if you're manually clicking through fifty machines to install an update, you're doing it wrong. Learn a little PowerShell. Automate the boring stuff so you can sit back and drink your coffee in peace.
• Keep your head down and stay out of office politics The sales team is going to fight with accounting. The executives are going to complain about budget. Just keep the network running, log your tickets, and leave at five.

I know, it's a weird industry. You're going to spend hours hunting down a problem only to realize someone unhitched a patch cable with their foot. But when you finally automate a garbage process that used to take three hours, or you bring a dead system back to life right before a deadline... yeah, it feels pretty good...
oh and if you want to know how to get into Cybersecurity/InfoSec? Just click here.