Fwiw, my company hires people seemingly without qualification to work in our NOC. The really bad ones get asked to leave, the so-so ones stay, and the ones that have a brain and show actual responsibility get promoted into a pseudo-sysadmin role, where we give them important, but repetitive and highly documentable tasks. The ones that show ambition and aptitude there get promoted to be junior SREs, and we mentor them and help them grow.

At the same time... if you start with the help desk, you're only going anywhere significant if someone higher up quits. If you're doing Linux, you want to try to get a job in a production environment, as opposed to an internal IT department if you can.