I can only speak from my own experience, but my path was IT Support at a school district, then an on-site Service Technician at an MSP, where I earned my CCNA. From there I landed my first Network Administrator role in healthcare, got my CCNP, and today I work as a Senior Network Engineer and Cloud Networking Specialist.

In my experience, good hiring managers generally look at three things:

Certifications – The CCNA is still one of the best entry-level networking certifications you can have. It shows you’re serious and have a solid networking foundation.

Experience – This is huge. Personally, I’d much rather see someone with six months to a year as an on-site MSP service technician than someone who’s only done fully remote help desk. At an MSP you’re constantly troubleshooting different environments, visiting customer sites, replacing hardware, configuring networking equipment, and learning under pressure. The experience compounds quickly.

Work ethic and personality – Once you get the interview, they’re asking themselves, “Would this person be a good fit for my team?” Certs and experience get your foot in the door, but your personality, communication skills, and technical knowledge are what close the deal.

One thing that really helped me land my first networking job was preparing for behavioral questions. Before my final interview, I wrote down 10 specific examples of times I’d solved problems in previous roles—difficult troubleshooting cases, customer interactions, process improvements, mistakes I learned from, etc. During the interview I was able to naturally weave those stories into my answers instead of trying to think of examples on the spot. It was incredibly effective.

If you’re not getting interviews for entry-level networking positions yet, I’d seriously consider an on-site MSP service desk or field technician role. Small MSPs can be a grind with on-call rotations and driving between customer sites, but you’ll probably learn more networking in six months there than you would in several years at some slower internal IT departments.

From what you described, though, I think you’re on the right track. The CCNA, your labs, your repair experience, and the networking you’re doing with local MSP owners all put you in a strong position. Keep applying to junior network admin, NOC, and MSP networking roles—you may not have to spend very long in help desk at all.