From no professional experience to $30/HR in one year

I’ve seen a lot of posts for inspiration lately and I wanted to chime in. You can do it! All I can say is that you have to put yourself out there and network.

I quit my job as a property manager beginning of 2023 as my wife was employed so she could support us while I focused on my career change. Due to unforeseen circumstances she got laid off a month later which put us in a difficult position. I studied my butt off for certs and got my A+ with about 2 months of study. By this time it was April and I started applying like crazy. I was getting no responses at all and had to pick up a server job to support our bills as our savings was running out. I was getting interviews here and there but no results until one day I was serving a customer and they were wearing an IT shirt. I asked him how he got into the business and what I can do to propel myself and get noticed. We chatted for quite a bit and he ended up passing me a number to a recruiter. I reached out to the recruiter and was set up with an interview immediately and got the job about a week and a half later as a PC Tech I for the city government as a 6 month contract employee. The pay was $20/HR with zero benefits or holidays but I made sure to keep improving and gained my Security + a few months later and stood in great standing with my peers.

They ended up offering me a full time position but by this time I got an offer for Technical Analyst II at an MSP as a fully remote employee. This job was for a small MSP that paid $55K a year with benefits. Within 4 months I was up for promotion and was promoted to a Cloud Solutions Analyst which brought my pay to $60K. I enjoyed working there but the growth didn’t align with what I wanted to do so I started applying again with my newly learned skills and updated resume.

I ended up getting an interview with a real estate software company and negotiated my salary to be $30/HR which is roughly $62,400 a year with full benefits and more flexibility albeit in the office 2 days. Currently, I am enjoying my position here and learning as much as I can. Also making sure I’m putting myself out there to expose myself to different technologies.

So from August 2023 to August 2024 I went from a $20/HR contract job to full time $30/HR full benefits job. I know if I can do it then you can do it! Don’t give up!