New to the IT field

Enjoy your last few days of sanity, personal life and hair.

All kidding aside, the biggest thing in this field is Change. Be adaptable. And always remember to have an open mind and to think out of the box.

Certifications will get you in the door, but once you are in:
1. you will need people skills
-you have to be able to understand what users are asking or telling you.
2. how fast can you learn?
-not everything you encounter will be in the books
3. how good are you at troubleshooting?
-if user says "can't surf the internet", how do you start to find the problem?
4. you are not done when the bell rings at 5pm.
-You will be expected to stay until problem is fixed.
if you can handle all that, go for it.

Certification:
Depends on what certification.

Theres the universal CompTIA cert series that are not Company specific. Includes such certifications as
A+(general computer knowledge)
Network +
Security+
Server+
Linux+
i-Net+
etc


Then theres company specific certifications such as:

Microsoft certifies its operating systems, server systems, office systems, programming systems and the big kahoona is the MS Engineer certification which consists of over a half dozen different topics and tests

Cisco routing knowledge using their specific gear - another coveted certification

The other software and hardware companies of any size have certification programs for their gear.

You can get certified in specialty software like SAP too.

A significant number of these certification courses are given freely on the net. Just Google IT Certifications but be prepared to be overwhelmed. That particular Google search landed for me in first place The top five (5) in-demand IT certifications for 2013 which are:

MCSA (Microsoft Certified Solutions Associate) - the beginner cert
MCSE: (Microsoft Certified Software Engineer) : Private Cloud - MCSE is the biggie and looks like specialization in Cloud computing is in demand
PMP (Project Management Professional) the guys who make sure the coders, testers, documenter and the software projects get done
VCP (VMWare Certified Professional) Virtual computing platforms are all the rage these days
CISSP (Certified Information Systems Security Professional) - this one (1) will always be a good one because black hatters are not going away any time soon.


Career:
Anything from a system administrator, coder, network engineer, product designer, web designer, the list goes on and on.
Virtually all of them are well paid, say above 50k/year.

Must be willing and capable of constantly upgrading of your skills. Learning IT is like buying a stereo obsolete before you bring it home and take it out of the box. This will never change, it will only get worse because the technology is advancing so fast.

Learning basic business skills will also be a must if you plan on taking your bosss job and making the big bucks. IT continually becomes more involved in business decision making because of its importance and cost. If you cant talk the businessmans lingo theres little you can do to influence your companys direction and/or prosperity. Primer courses in the various business activities are available on the net most for free. IT is involved in all business activities from inventory through department management and everything in between.