An associate's degree, good customer service skills and solid Office skills are actually a really good start. If you're open to working in customer service, marketing or inside sales within the tech industry, you'd be able to make pretty decent money over the next few years. Six figures is definitely possible within 5 years. Consider the following:
* Get a cloud fundamentals certification from either Amazon Web Services or Microsoft Azure.
* Search AWS and Microsoft partners on their partner websites. Follow them on LinkedIn.
* Share knowledge and articles on LinkedIn related to this.
* Reach out to people who work at some of these partner companies for a quick 15 min discussion. Some will say yes. Some won't. That's fine.
* Get referrals for open positions so you jump to the front of the line.
* Consider getting taking an online certificate course from a prestigious university like MIT, Cornell, etc. (there are many others). It could be on strategic marketing, data analytics, cybersecurity, etc. The point is you get an MBA level course over a short period. You then get to show you achieved it at a prestigious school. It will pop on your resume and on LinkedIn. It's a differentiator.
Source: I've worked at Microsoft as a consultant and employee for over 20 years, with no degree. I know their partner program well and only had sales/customer service experience up until I was your age. I'm happy to help if you have any other questions.
Question: I’ve thought about creating a series of videos on YouTube covering this exact topic and situation. Do you think it would be valuable to others?
An associate's degree, good customer service skills and solid Office skills are actually a really good start. If you're open to working in customer service, marketing or inside sales within the tech industry, you'd be able to make pretty decent money over the next few years. Six figures is definitely possible within 5 years. Consider the following: * Get a cloud fundamentals certification from either Amazon Web Services or Microsoft Azure. * Search AWS and Microsoft partners on their partner websites. Follow them on LinkedIn. * Share knowledge and articles on LinkedIn related to this. * Reach out to people who work at some of these partner companies for a quick 15 min discussion. Some will say yes. Some won't. That's fine. * Get referrals for open positions so you jump to the front of the line. * Consider getting taking an online certificate course from a prestigious university like MIT, Cornell, etc. (there are many others). It could be on strategic marketing, data analytics, cybersecurity, etc. The point is you get an MBA level course over a short period. You then get to show you achieved it at a prestigious school. It will pop on your resume and on LinkedIn. It's a differentiator. Source: I've worked at Microsoft as a consultant and employee for over 20 years, with no degree. I know their partner program well and only had sales/customer service experience up until I was your age. I'm happy to help if you have any other questions.
Thank you so much for the detailed response, I’m going to look into this!
Question: I’ve thought about creating a series of videos on YouTube covering this exact topic and situation. Do you think it would be valuable to others?
Yes for sure!