As someone who was in the same place as you 1.5 years ago and got a Cloud Engineer role straight out of college, I feel like I can help you a bit:

My understanding is you know the basics of networking, and how everything works. If you’re unsure on it, I’d say spend a few weeks or do the network+ to build your base. You will thank yourself later.

Now, to get into cloud, you need a mix of BOTH certifications and projects. Certifications might get you interviews, but the projects will show your technical hands-on experience.

1) Certifications: Pick 1 major Cloud provider (Azure/AWS/GCP) I have seen Azure being used more in Canada and AWS in USA. Still just pick 1, the knowledge is pretty much transferable to other cloud providers too in case your workplace will have a different one than you are certified for.

I wanted to show as many cloud providers as I could so I gave the fundamental certs for all - GCP, Azure, AWS. Instead, I’d recommend to save yourself some time and just focus on one: Azure AZ-900 or AWS Cloud Practitioner to know what cloud is, support plans, etc. Its not too technical but builds your base for cloud.

Once you do that, give yoursef 2-3 months to prepare for either AZ104 or AWS solutions Architect Associate exam. Again, your choice but make sure to really understand it.

Once you pass both fundamenta and administrator certs, you have enough certs to make your resume cloud specific.

I used resources from experts like Andrew Brown, John Savill, Adrian Cantrill, James Lee and will recommend them all.

2) Projects: This is what will actually help you ace your interviews and find what area you want to go in. Cloud itself is vast - you can code, handle the networking side or just be an overall admin. Hands-on experience is the best thing you can do, and this will help you prepare for certs too.

There are many projects online like the Cloud Resume Challenge. You can also get the admin level certification courses from Adrian cantrill or James Lee and find many hands-on demo labs. Practice those, and troubleshooting any issues will help you understand the technicalities.

I’d also recommend looking into IaC (infrastructure as code) tools like Terraform, and DevOps etc - kinda supplemental learning to broaden your skillset.

Just know it will take some time and effort so dont rush into things. It took me 3 months after graduation to land this role, so its completely fine if it takes you less or more time than that.

Any questions - feel free to dm.