You should start off with industry standard certifications to get yourself in the door. Security+ should be your first certification so you can start off with

You should start off with industry standard certifications to get yourself in the door. Security+ should be your first certification so you can start off with a good base security foundation. Then move on to Linux+, A+ and Network+. These would take care of your vendor neutral certifications and cover security, linux, computer builds and general networking. Now you can at least have a good conversation and have have a base level of understanding with an interviewer. If you want to move past the journeyman level you could go for a CCNA or CCENT Routing and Switching (to improve your networking skills), RHSA to get performance based Linux skills that will work for RedHat Enterprise Linux and CentOS, MCSA to get official Microsoft base competency. Jobs in this range should pay from $50,000 to $79,000. To kick it up a notch you will hopefully have a job by now along with work experience, and can work on the career changing certifications. I would recommend going for MCSE if your in a Microsoft shop, else RHCE for Linux, CCNP to cover professional routing even if your not doing networking at your job, there is nothing better than knowing how networking really works. Normally this range of jobs pay around $80,000 to $170,000 depending on how good you are. You can normally get paid towards the high end by blowing away the interviewer by having an extreme in-depth knowledge of Networking, Linux, Microsoft and Security. After some years of experience (normally 10+) and you are at or entering the expert level you can work on getting a RHCA (RedHat Certified Architect), CCIE (Cisco Certified Interconnecting Expert), CompTIA CASP, CISSP and ISSAP, ISSEP or ISSMP. By this time you should be in or applying to a job after having at least the CCIE or RHCA paying around 180,000/year base. Just having CASP or CISSP will be around $90,000 to $130,000 a year depending on how in depth your knowledge and challenging your previous work experience appeared to be.