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tl;dr - Over the years people have asked me; how do you rack up so many certifications and find the time to study. This post is my process, it might work for you, it might not :). The short of it is, go sign up, get practice reps in, level up your gaps, rinse -> repeat. People fail to achieve certifications in my experience, because they don't take action, signing up for an exam creates pressure.

Step 1. Where to start --> Sign up!

Over the years I've obtained a variety of IT certifications, everything ranging from CISSP, all the AWS certs, CEH, and various others. Some of the frequent questions I've gotten from fellow software engineers are:

1. How do you find the time?
2. How do you study for all these certs?
3. Where do you start?

In this blog I'm going to outline my entire process from start to finish, it might work for you, it might not :). It's my process I've found works well for me, but everyone is unique and ultimately what works for me may not work for others.

Alright, so where to start? It's simple. Sign up.

Huh?

You heard me (erm, well read it.). Go sign up.

But, uh, I don't know anything?

Well, you probably know some things, they may not be all of the things you need to know, but you likely at least have some idea. After all, you at least know the certification exists. So go sign up.

I'm not ready to take the exam

That's alright, neither was I. Here's the point. In life there's lots of things that grab our attention, especially as engineers, product managers, tech support or anyone working in the tech space. By signing up, you naturally will create a deadline where you must take action by, because if you don't then you'll be in a bad position where you may lose $200 if you fail the exam. It will create pressure and friction. And we all know the adage "pressure makes diamonds" - said someone.

When should I sign up? 30 days out? 60? 90?

I think it varies depending on the complexity of the certification you're after. If it is something really out of your depth or very complicated (for example maybe the CISSP or an advanced cloud certification) then I'd say slot it out about 90 days. No more than 90 days though. I've found that individuals who put something out there really far out tend to just not study until it gets closer to the deadline, because after all it's easy to say "ahh I don't have to worry about that for another 45 days" or whatever the target is.

So go sign up and make the commitment. Stop reading this and sign up now. You can always read these steps later :D

Step 2 - Practice makes perfect

Alright so you signed up, the date is live, and you're ready to get started. Go take a practice test.

Uhh, bro. Like what? This process is crazy, first you want me to sign up, now you just want me to take a practice test? I haven't even studied?! wt...

Yup. That's right, go take a practice exam, immediately. A complete practice exam. Why? The short answer is data. In order to improve you have to know where you stand and the only way to know where you stand is to take an exam and see what you know vs what you don't know. Once you have that initial data point then you can target the specific areas you are weak in. So take a practice exam, on any platform as long as that platform gives you some sort of report of your score, what domains and areas you were weak in and what questions did you miss kind of thing.

Step 3 - Pinpoint your weaknesses

Alright so you've taken the practice exam (your first one), take a look at the report, analyze it. What did you miss? Are there specific areas that you need substantially more help on than others? Are all the areas weak but you're getting 100-200 level questions correct? What can you study for over the next 2 weeks that would drastically change your score and have the most impact? These are all questions that I ask myself when I'm looking at these reports. Understanding what you're not good at is the only way to figure out what to improve.

Step 4 - Build stuff.

This step is somewhat optional, in the sense that some certification exams are more theoretical than practical. However, for many IT certifications in the industry today, especially AWS ones, they are testing your knowledge on a particular service, system, or architecture. I don't know about you, but for me, the best way for me to learn something is actually BUILDING something. No, not vibe code it, but actually writing the code myself or building the desktop, or troubleshooting and installing a printer (think CompTIA A+).

Why?

Because when you build something, it's not just learning about theory of how something works, it's actually requiring you to put some muscle memory into the process and figuring out what API calls do I actually need? How do I deploy this app on this specific infrastructure? My firewall isn't working; how do I fix it? etc. So whatever certification you're studying for, when you are lacking in a particular area I highly encourage you to take that particular topic and build something. Taking a Microsoft Active Directory exam? Deploy that AD cluster in the cloud and get to configuring.

Studying for the AWS Developer exam? Build a serverless app using Lambda, connect it to API Gateway and then load some data into DynamoDB. Build something practical, something that you can actually use. It doesn't have to be complex or a full blown app. Just something you can use to learn and upskill on the concepts.

Step 5 - Practice. Every. Day.

It doesn't have to be a lot of practice, but when I'm studying for an exam, every night (because night time works best for me, but if it's your lunch break then do it then.) I take 10 exam questions and do them before I go to sleep. If you scheduled your exam 30 days out that's 300 reps you're about to get in. So 300 more opportunities to learn something new and level up. This is on top of the regular practice exams you should be taking as an assessment periodically.

Step 6 - Go ace that thang!

Alright, it's exam day, get some rest, maybe take some time off work, do nothing. Wake up and go dominate that exam, that's it that's your mission for the day, forget anything else.

Step 7 - Accepting "failure".

"Failing" sucks. But failing is a mindset. In my opinion, what's always resonated with me is that there is no such thing as failure, it's about learning, improving, and growing. Kobe Bryant talked about his opinions on failure which I agree with, is that there is no such thing as failure, there's only improvement and refinement. You can only fail if you quit, if you don't quit, then you just keep getting better and better and better. It doesn't matter if you fail once, ten times, or even a hundred. Just keep working at it. The thing to keep in mind is to not get discouraged. If you fail ask yourself:

• Did you give it your all?
• Why did I fail?
• Is there some piece of information that I was unprepared for?
• Did a particular topic catch me off guard, meaning I didn't study that topic or missed it?
• How can I improve?

Last I checked we're all born dumb and naked, everything in life is learned behavior, so if you don't ace it on the first, second, third, or 100th try just keep improving.

Last thoughts

The key to success is consistency, regardless of the topic or the certification. Staying consistent with your study habits, keeping up with your practice exams and constantly improving. Also, know that you can do this, it doesn't matter if you don't know anything today, what matters is are you going to do the things today, so that tomorrow you can be better than you were today so that you can pass that exam and get that certification. We all start off (myself included) not knowing anything, but the key is to take action.

So you got this!

Random FAQs

Q: Will getting XYZ certification guarantee/get me a job?

A: No. No different than going to university for 4 years guaranteed you a job. Nothing in life is guaranteed, except death and taxes :).

Q: Will getting XYZ certification help me get a job?

A: Yeah probably. But not because of the certification itself, but because of the skills you actually learned while preparing for the certification. Employers today, especially in the era of genAI / ChatGPT, want engineers who not only can learn information and prepare for exams but who can actually think through problems and then tangibly build a solution for the problem in question. The critical piece here is being able to apply what you've learned and build something.

Q: Will getting XYZ certification help me get a raise?

A: Probably not, see above. BUT, you may acquire some new skills which might make you more valuable in which you may be able to justify a raise or promotion or finding a new role for which you are now more qualified.

Q: I want to get a certification I know nothing about, should I just go for it or should I ramp up?

A: This is really a judgement call and based on personal styles, but I've always believed in ramping up to a certain point. It's really difficult to ace an AI exam, if you don't even know what a regression model is.

Q: You've taken a lot of certifications, do you have any tips on a per exam basis?

A: Yup! I've published some of my study guides on my blog, feel free to snag em. Note: some of them may be out of date a bit. I don't regularly update it after I've passed a certification, generally.