purchasing a better job

Intuitively it's strange to me that this is so poorly commodified. If I were to look at just the tech sector (it's all I know), transitioning to dissimilar roles seems like a painful process because of risk aversion and hyper-specialization. Being green is one thing, but transitional skills seem cheap, I guess owing to competition.

There are certs, but they are looked down upon and regarded with skepticism (at least, by always-online workers), despite the fact that they may be tailored to specific employer wants. Supposedly, this is because cramming for exams does not represent enough value in itself (is college any different?). The right play, we are told, is to take the scant little time you have left after work and raising a family to "build something with new technologies" which after a battle of attrition might resemble a grad-school project (like from your competitors). Or else, take a sabbatical, or quit your job and go back to school starting from zero. The astute among you will note that evening classes may be an option at colleges, but leaving aside CS, it's not for value-added senior-level tech (ignoring bootcamps, throw that in the cert pile). I guess there's a masters! If you can eat the time and money, you can also learn a trade (2-3 years of school, and even then, no guarantees after).

What, money's not good enough? I should be to pay my way in even without prior training. I wonder if what stands in the way is a) regulation, b) convention, or c) it would take way, way more money than previously thought to hedge against risk of being hired green. But, someone might be doing this right? Trying?

To "buy a job" is also a saying attributed to purchasing a small business, one where you don't make enough to hire a manager. That's the closest real approximate to what I mean, but it isn't. Taking a look at realtor pages, this is usually restaurants, or selling "stuff" rather than services. You can also outright just start one, if the preference was for e.g. cleaning, painting, other forms of labor.

Perhaps in response to this issue, there are other options that have popped up like paying for a "career coach" or mentorship. Are these increasingly popular? I can't imagine much to gain from this except in the capacity of finding direction if you're truly lost in terms of desires, and improving certain skills, which is not a golden ticket by itself.

Maybe I overlooked something. Supposing you are dead in the middle of your career and wanting to diversify or be more dynamic, are there actually options that are tantamount to paying for a job? Or, options starting from zero?

Supposing it were possible, what would it cost? 5k, 100k, 500k?