A+ Cert in IT is fairly basic and isn’t all that useful besides a general overview of some aspects of the field. However, the most valuable portion of the cert is on troubleshooting methodology and that carries you through the rest of your career. It’s pretty common in a nutshell, try known fixes to previous issues first, then work from simple solutions (check power/cable connections, reboot, etc) to more complex solutions (reformat disk, clean wipe, etc).

The amount of times I’ve been on a million dollar salary engineering troubleshooting call and things like “checking that the credentials are working” get skipped in favor of looking for an issue in a newly written script is hilarious and happens far too frequently.

It’s not that simple solution are necessarily the most likely but that you can rule them out quickly.

It’s a skill like you say, just funny how that cert always comes to mind (it’s the entry level cert for IT for people not familiar).