Yeah, I started out with Comptia Network+ and the A+ which I did as self study courses around 16 years ago, I think I only did the exam for Network+ though. In themselves they are not what employers are looking for, some will be willing to consider taking you on apprenticeship/internship schemes and the like and possibly provide you with further training. They're also a good stepping stone into more advanced courses like the Cisco or MS Certification schemes.
As for me, I've been working in telecoms for the last 13 years (via a few helpdesk and installation engineer roles) and have gained further certification with the more specific technologies I work with.
One bit of advice I would give though is that I've found experience to be way more valuable both to you and to a potential employee. If it was a choice between studying for 200 hours or getting some hands on experience helping out in an unpaid job at a local charity or something along those lines I'd go for the latter as long as they'd be happy to give you a reference or give you a letter of recommendation when you find a paid role.
OK, I lied about one bit of advice, I've got another, getting into a paid job in the industry is the hard part, once you're in the IT industry at the bottom of the ladder it's then easier to move around and get the role you want in the IT sector… as long as you don't piss too many people off along the way as it's quite a small world.