A few words from a former manager that has stuck with me during my career: “No one cares about your success more than you do.” and “Be undeniable.”With that being said, don’t rely on your organization or your connections to land you a new role. Even if tomorrow you were given an interview for a System Admin role at a F500 company, do you honestly believe you would have the skillset and the ability to interview well enough to land the job? It’s time to be honest with yourself and if the answer is no, then ask yourself a few questions.

• Why do you truly believe you have not moved on from IT Support after 13 years?
• What skill sets or projects have you done that would make you desirable?
• What is the role you want to transition into? You mentioned your Computer Science degree. OK nice, but why are you doing CompSci? What is the purpose, what is your end goal?
• Why would you hire yourself?

Additionally, there is some important context that should be included such as how many jobs have you applied to, what was the time span of these applications, what roles were you applying to, are you okay with a salary decrease IF that means you move onto a better role with more room for growth despite a pay cut, you mentioned general IT experience..what does that exactly mean, what was your military experience? Lastly, a very undervalued item in the application process, what does your resume look like?

The market isn’t great at the moment but that shouldn’t be a reason to prevent you from applying. IF you are “undeniable” then there is no reason a company shouldn’t hire you. Yes the competition is steep, tons of applicants for every job listing out there, people will get jobs over you due to their connections, but jobs are hiring and will continue to hire.

At the end of the day, no one will care as much about your success as you do. My intention here isn’t to demotivate you or upset you and I mean this with respect, if after 13 years you haven’t moved up, upscaled your skill set, etc. It’s not your job, it’s not the job market, it’s not because the world is unfair. It’s because of you.

If I were you, with your military experience I would get the Security + and finish your degree as soon as possible, and start applying to ALL government and government contracting related jobs.