re: Career advice please - very odd situation here

Problem now days is, you could be head and shoulders better then the other person, but because of your sex and/or skin color could be easily let go.

Ive been in IT for 9 years, including two years of school.

I have been working Tier 2 for four years now.

I am studying for an M365 cert.

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Thanks. Should I consider interviewing with this position?

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Never hurts to do an interview, even if you don’t get the position you will still have gained experience doing an interview. A lot of IT folks are absolutely horrid with their people skills.

Side note: what level of formal education do you have? HR will routinely filter out people without that certain level of degree even it means absolutely nothing for the actual job.

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Bachelor in Business An associates degree in Networking.

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That’ll work, why are you going for the m365 cert?

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Good deal…keep at the certs. Do you have any home lab stuff? How do you stay current or learn new stuff? What industry are you in?

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I do have a home lab. I ran backups, enabled DHCP, WSUS, Updates, DNS, and AD.

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That’ll work, why are you going for the m365 cert?

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I saw that cert as a preferred skill on the positions I am aiming for. Do you feel it is a poor idea to go for that?

Do you have your certifications? CISSP, CSSK, CSSP? It not, you should take whatever job makes you most happy and rip through those as fast as you can.

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Do you feel it is a poor idea to go for that?

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It really depends on what you want to pursue within IT.

Check this list to see if any are of interest to you:

Top 10 IT certifications

Many may not like this advice, but have you looked at the feds yet?

Just searched IT specialist and filtered for open to the public and got over 1300 postings. Also a lot under "Urgent hiring needs" and bet a good bit under direct hire

For real though, someone mentioned it, get your resume checked. Whatever university you went likely has a free service for alumnus, I know LSU does. If not, it is worth paying for it. It matters. Especially if you can make very minor tweaks to match it to the job you are applying for

I almost posted this, check usajobs.gov. If you want some options. Have you considered starting your own business as a side gig to gain that experience that could be portrayed in resume. Ive been in federal/municipal govt and financial sectors for IT. At one point goal was a cio position, but times and priorities changed. Still work for govt while also growing side gig. One pays the bills, other feeds the passion.