Get in the IP field first then do advanced certifications. Find something, then impress your employer. I started as a guy who did shipping in the afternoon, and soldering in the morning, for a very small company, did some IT work, used that experience to get a job a deployment of desktops. They saw I was comfortable in a wiring closet, and let me be the network engineer?s hands and eyes. Used that experience to land a job in a NOC, got my CCNA there. Took a contracting gig as a jr network engineer, move back to field services but in the network arena. Well current job is with a Fortune 50 company as a Sr. Network Engineer.
Small steps, no short cuts, work hard get rewarded. BTW I have been on this path for 12 years now.