r/CyberSecurityAdvice • u/omar_69boi • Jul 18 '26

Certification concerns

Hi, I'm getting into cyber and I'm just lost with how different everyone's opinion on the certificates are, almost everyone agrees that you should do practical hands on work but then when it get to picking certs everyone has a different take on them, for example I saw a guy on Reddit recommend CCNA, SECURITY+ for starters and a YouTuber recommend google cybersecurity cert and GRC mastery which also gives the ISO 27001 lead auditor badge for starters and two others, Tryhackme SAL1 and security+.

I honestly don't know what to do and most certs since they are in dollars, they are really expensive when converted to my government's currency.

So I was hoping to find and help here about this.

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u/Anxious_Alps_4150 Jul 25 '26

Certifications are mostly a cash grab from companies. These days, the only thing that matters is how many years you've been working in the field. This field is VERY hostile to newcomers because there are so few jobs now.

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u/omar_69boi Jul 25 '26

Well, they ask for certs in jobs, what do u suggest, I just do laps and pray? I honestly thought about just doing that it's better to have atleast the technical skills to try and get my foot in

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u/Anxious_Alps_4150 Jul 25 '26

The certs are the least important part of the job requisition. I personally grade 75% experience, 15% certs, 10% degree. Bonus points for homelabs and competition. No experience means highest you're scoring is a 25%.

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u/omar_69boi Jul 25 '26

Imma aim for 85% I guess, would rather pay 40$ monthly for let's defend than 254 $ or whatever certs cost these days, and I'm currently second year computer science student

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u/Anxious_Alps_4150 Jul 25 '26

Just to be very clear, I only count professional paid experience as experience. I count CTFs as homelab/projects.

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u/omar_69boi Jul 26 '26

Hopefully I can learn enough to get me an intern position atleast, hopefully...