Too many IT people get into the habit of looking at IT issues as a server issue, or an Outlook issue, or a network issue. The help desk guy who goes around asking "how do I become a linux admin? Office jobs are stifling and soul crushing in a way those jobs aren't. You may also want to include a headline or summary statement that clearly communicates your goals and qualifications. Apply to Front Desk Agent, Scheduling Coordinator, Administrative Assistant and more! They're not going to like this (or take you seriously, or like you). Ubuntu is a fine choice. Being an IT help desk tech is a fast-paced job. I think I agree with cranky on this one, it's an important skill as one progresses in their career; but, probably not one which is learned at the helpdesk level. A help desk technician must have both hard and soft skills because the position requires a strong technical understanding as well as the ability to communicate clearly with others. Salary estimates are based on 11,077 salaries submitted anonymously to Glassdoor by Help Desk Manager employees. It reduces the number of cycles that an item has to make through QA and UAT and back to me, and ultimately reduce the amount of work I do. how do I do it too? I have worked as a 1099 IT contractor, replacing networking equipment, running cables and troubleshooting. Looks like you're using new Reddit on an old browser. but "how does this affect the business"? Good luck to all, Can't get a help desk job with a CCNA + education. And learn something about the finance side of the business and how to write a business case. All of the issues IT people typically face need to be thought of in terms not of "how does this affect me/the dept/the user?" Job market is extremely rough. You do get angry users, sure, but I haven't spoken to that many. Somehow he can't grasp how to research this alone which wouldn't take that long and feels like he has to get an entire Windows cert to learn about it. Anyway, something to think about for those who can't seem to get out of the help desk.. A helpdesk lead should have some insight into the business and what makes for a high priority versus lower priority ticket. Some in-demand fields today are mobile, networking, data security, cloud products, healthcare and advanced server hardware. Not based on what an article in a trade magazine says; rather, what does the business need to do (or need to do better, faster, cheaper) that technology can implement? Job market is extremely rough. Yes, this is crucial. Cookies help us deliver our Services. Thanks for this. Oh and your soul will be crushed when applying online and having to tick a box with how much related experience you have - if its 0, your resume goes to the trash. Some people in this category turn it into kind of a game where they'll reply to a user's ticket, but usually just a bunch of questions and send the email at 4:59 to kick the can down the road for another day (or three). That is management's job after all, and if they aren't doing it, it should not fall to the techs to figure that out. Well, as the title says. By using our Services, you agree to our use of cookies.Learn More. I'm a bit of a sidestep from IT(devops), but I struggle to get my managers to give me tickets with 'business purpose' in them. Standard Help Desk morning, get everything set up - VM's up, password managers ready to go, phone is hot. Definitely not a Helpdesk trait. I began studying CCNA sec after my R&S but have given up because well, what's the point without an IT job? Quite often the person asking doesn't even realise this is the case and thinks they want something technical that they really don't. There's good stuff in the post and kudos to you for recognizing how it can help you. Offer to help out with something. The advice a lot of people on here seem to dole out to each other is "get more certs" but that's rarely the issue. When writing your resume, be sure to reference the job description and highlight any skills, awards and certifications that match with the requirements. 100% correct. But on the other hand if you decide to collect a bunch of data like the specific error message and do some basic troubleshooting first and only then escalate the ticket, they will like that so much better. Help desk technician. Can't get a job anywhere in IT, nothing at level one, help desk, just.. nothing. The site may not work properly if you don't, If you do not update your browser, we suggest you visit, Press J to jump to the feed. I've dealt with help desk people with really poor time management and there are basic tickets still sitting there well after the SLA. Help Desk Support Resume Examples. Reddit 101 The basics to help you get started Using Reddit Information to better understand Reddit Rules & Reporting Information on Reddit policies, reporting, copyright, and more And, just like a bartender, you need to be friendly while you listen. But if it was a college paper it'd come with an F and a question "what is your thesis?". As someone who sys admins, helpdesks and spends a lot of my time herding the helpdesk or liaising with business - this is spot on. Your job is to take a business problem and apply a technical solution. Starting a new helpdesk job soon? Besides maintaining computer systems and running diagnosis programs, they also need to answer to inquiries, give instructions and follow up with customers. Not understanding how to learn how to learn. The resulting 27 roles pay as much as $267,020 a year, and while we can't promise you'll never have to sit a desk and fill out a report, for the most part you won't be staring at … Managers and supervisors want to see what you’ve accomplished. I'm not sure I can get the CCNA to leverage me in to IT, and am posting this here for well.. informative purposes. If you don't have any, get your hands dirty. This is a really interesting perspective, i haven't really thought of it that way. I love that you can indulge your interests in weird cat memes as … Often times if something is concisely written and presented to upper management/your team as a plan, it'll have to be explain in different ways to different people. The odd hours, always on call, and customer's poor attitudes don't help, but where I am there isn't really a way … If that is what you like and you are good at it then that is fine. Can’t Find a Job? Help desk staff, especially Tier 1 workers, need to be able to deal with unhappy people and diffuse difficult situations. I have done servicedesk work now for just under 10 years and I am finally movin to our companys server team (Been 3 years in this company). Can't get a job anywhere in IT, nothing at level one, help desk, just.. nothing. Reddit communities reflect how varied, sprawling and ever-changing we are as a society, and as people. Initiative to learn how to learn for yourself. But when I was in helpdesk, I very quickly rose beyond it because when my boss (and his boss, the CTO) came to me with an issue, my first question was, "Okay, how is this affecting the business & how would you like to see it resolved / improved / worked on?" By Tyler Regas . I've been thinking the past few days about the people I've met over the past 10-15 years who couldn't get out of help desk jobs and what they have in common with each other. But in terms of money and benefits, I just can't leave it. The CCNA pathway may seem like a good idea, but damn if I'm not jaded over the whole thing. Screenshots help. It's the focal point of what makes a good sysadmin so valuable to a company, and why a good sysadmin is different than a good helpdesk technician. No big deal, but he's not super savvy with tech and what should be 5 minute process is taking 35. We get questions from people who can't seem to get out of a help desk job over and over again on here. Congratulations. A reddit dedicated to the profession of Computer System Administration. Learn about what they do and what their department does and then how all the departments make the business run. You guys seem to have such a cool job? Tell me about a time you went the extra mile. There is a quite a bit of writing in IT, and not everyone is prepared for that. Nevertheless, a list such as the following can help you avoid the most sedentary choices.” Here are 15 of the best jobs not behind a desk featured in 50 Best Jobs … In short, don't let it get to the point where they blow a fuse. Hell I pulled down damn near 60K on a help desk for several years. Consider These 13 Tips – 1. Communication in written form is more important than most people know. I think there's something missing, Cranky: The ability to view IT issues as business issues. I’m at my wits end and sick of dealing with help desk type jobs. i tend to see this show up in two different ways. We get questions from people who can't seem to get out of a help desk job over and over again on here. No working IT experience, have an Australian Diploma of IT Networking and a CCNA R&S. when I do interview, I don’t have the “right” kind of networking experience. I was curious what web server you guys manage here" will be considered someone who is curious and they'll be willing to tell you more about what they know. But instead of rolling with this and using it as an opportunity to actually SSH into switches and look at settings, he gets pissed off he doesn't have full admin access. When clients call about a crashed computer, a glitch in their software or a suspected virus, chances are they were working on a deadline. They simply don't have the breadth of knowledge and insight about the company to make those decisions.As the techs move up to team leads or sysadmins, they absolutely need to be taught this skill. Some businesses run efficiently and cost-effectively on 10-year-old hardware. 6 free IT help desk ticketing systems; ... they save money and you get a job. If you can’t fix it […] In fact, when I see a help desk person has a ton of certs, it makes me even more sure there's probably an issue. The help desk guy who says "Hey, I've been playing around with apache and nginx on my linux box at home. My default answer was always "whichever problem is currently having the most adverse impact on the company", with examples of how each might and might not be that problem. Considering how large the market for Mac OS X has grown, you should do your best to get a handle on that platform, as well. 2. Job boards and recruiters aren't helping here. For example, when a user has a question, the help desk technician must be able to diagnose the IT issue, identify a solution and then explain it to the user. To meet the qualifications for upper-tier support jobs, it doesn’t hurt to specialize. The national average salary for a Help Desk Manager is $62,369 in United States. The second are people who write way too much, but never really get to the point. Yes you can stay help desk your entire career and do quite well. Thanks. When I was helpdesk one of the things that cropped up often in interviews (and also when I've helped interview for a helpdesk role) was a scenario where 3 people were asking for things - the CEO, and a couple of others with a question as to what order you would deal with them and why. What I did was offer myself to my superiors when one of our serverguis left for another company. Press question mark to learn the rest of the keyboard shortcuts. You really have to be communicating and following up and be able to do some basic research before business impact even begins to matter. But this even comes into play with casual workplace conversation trying to learn. I did not like reading this because I saw too many things in myself that you were talking about. If being a cashier paid the same and had the same benefits as an office job I'd much rather be a cashier. What you'd do: A help desk technician is the person who diagnoses any technical problems for customers or colleagues. So frustrating to explain. Maybe you can phrase it better, or get to the root of what I'm trying to say. Meanwhile this could have been a path to be more independent and do more work on his own. Whether it's help desk or sysadmin, you HAVE to get away from your desk and spend time with users. is a really annoying person. After six more months though, I'm starting to feel the drain. It's brilliantly simple and is great advice. When interviewing I had to stop myself visibly cringing if a candidate immediately answered the CEO without giving it any thought. What they're up to is anyone's guess. Job boards and recruiters aren't helping here. If there's no business value, IT is pointless. The other option is a help desk job at a very small ISP. Help Desk Support staff are responsible for offering technical assistance to customers on the phone or via email. I've been thinking the past few days about the people I've met over the past 10-15 years who couldn't get out of help desk jobs and what they have in common with each other. Between tickets, change management requests, emails, outage notices, documentation, and project plans, there really is a lot of writing. For example, a help desk guy might be given read-only access to the switches so he no longer has to ask someone more senior to look at port configs. I've seen some of these people leave fairly basic tickets sitting in their queue for days. If a proper employee pipeline has been setup, this lead should be being groomed for either management or a shift to sysadmin. I originally thought you wanted out due to the wording of your question. Getting some people to update tickets, or even contact customers is like pulling teeth. Workers in desk and non-desk jobs were equally likely to experience high stress levels at work (30 percent and 29 percent, respectively), but workers in non-desk jobs had a somewhat higher tendency toward burnout. People who can't handle it just don't get taken seriously by their peers or their managers. So after 1.5 years in a service desk and 1.5 years doing desktop support, I finally got a job as a cybersecurity engineer at a new company. There are certain skills that you will need to have if you want to be a successful IT service desk agent. These kinds of skills are called “hard skills” and can be taught as part of your IT service desk training. Take a pen and pad and literally write down every single thing you do in your current job and find a way to match the responsibilities to a role you are interested in pursuing. They only care how it will either make the company more money or save money. 5. If someone is having file server problems, and you then immediately send this ticket off to a sysadmin, you've done nothing but pass it along. You don’t need to quit your job search entirely, or even take a months-long hiatus, in order to give yourself a break from job searching.Even taking just a day off every now and then can recharge your batteries so you’ll feel ready to jump back in, refreshed and ready to go. All help desk personnel need excellent problem-solving, communication and interpersonal skills, along with patience, a customer-friendly attitude and the ability to work in a team environment. I'd appreciate that :). Initiative to follow through on items, so that you can learn. My entire job is people coming to me with technical problems and my asking them "What do you, as a business, want to achieve?". 47,164 Help Desk jobs available on Indeed.com. Ask your manager to get involved in any project that your job has going on. Key to working on a help desk is knowing Microsoft Windows. Absolutely. Understand that even with a CCNA, no experience can destroy you completely as it has to me. New comments cannot be posted and votes cannot be cast. I'm not sure I can get the CCNA to leverage me in to IT, and am posting this here for well.. informative purposes. Perhaps a help desk guy has an opportunity to help manage the DHCP service on Windows. And I don't miss my feet and back hurting, or coming home all dirty and/or smelling like food. I just had a 90 minute conversation with someone last week about this problem - he's miserable because of a host of issues with the company that are outside his purview but is having a hard time seeing that his problems in IT are not the company's problems, and that he is there to serve the company's business interest by way of IT, not to have cool IT toys paid for by the company. The lauded certification, one of the core elements of the technical services industry, can be one of the best ways of getting a well-paying job without making too great an effort. This is particularly true on the help desk, where most customer touches are related to a fault or system failure. Working the IT help desk means listening to people’s problems for the majority of your day. I just finished a master's program whose slogan is "delivering business value through IT." Plenty of Sysadmins suffer from this. Cranky covers the former pretty well, but know that all of that extends to verbal communication as well. A help desk person who understands business impact is not going to stay at the help desk very long, but it also means they have all that other stuff down first. Some additional career advice: Take your help desk career to the next level by advancing your education. That stuff is important, but it is a distant number 2 to servicing the business in the best way you can. Sixty-one percent of workers in non-desk jobs said they have felt burned out at work compared to 57 percent of workers in desk jobs. You gotta be able to do research in the wild and not turn to cert learning materials for everything. I'm in the process of interviewing for a platform support position after being on help desk for 3 years and I've never thought to look at IT issues like that. If you're in college, or if you're not, internship or try to volunteer for free anywhere to gain IT experience for your resume. I'm struggling a little applying it to my own job though... Would you happen to have an example? Filter by location to see Help Desk Manager salaries in your area. The help desk technician is the first stop for almost anyone that is having trouble with their IT assets, printers, laptops, desktops, email, passwords, printers, printers, printers (ok, you get the gist). Been applying for more than 6 months and not a single interview. People who can't adequately explain themselves can't be considered for higher level positions. Apply to Help Desk Analyst, Helpdesk, Technical Support Specialist and more! While technical knowledge is desired, don’t be put off if you feel that you don’t know enough about fixing hardware, installing software, or troubleshooting PC issues. I am going to be honest with you. If you’re a real go-getter, then you can add Linux to the mix. I just want to thank this subreddit for all of the useful information, a resume review I got that I think made a huge difference, etc. Use social media to your advantage. Initiative to ask question and ask the right questions. I didn't want to make the list too long. Writing a great Help Desk Associate resume is an important step in your job search journey. It is the single most important question in IT. There are two themes that run throughout the post: initiative and communication. No one likes angry people, and most service desk workers are less inclined to help someone that's called them a complete nincompoop (or stronger words to that effect). 797 No Experience Front Desk jobs available on Indeed.com. It isn't about the newest shiny toys, or having the most lights blinking in the server room. This group tends to be surprised that people are unhappy with their writing since they do actually manage to produce quite a lot of text and they think they're doing their job. Far, far too many techs do not understand this and get hung up on the right "IT" way to do things or whatever else. Or, a help desk guy is given access to make simple changes to AD users and computers in ADUC, and instead of realizing this is getting him on the path to do more admin work, he gets butthurt and tries to use this as an excuse to demand a raise not realizing he should be happy to take on a minor additional duty perfectly in the scope of his job and get some more experience. Frustrated callers are part of any customer service job. Apply to Help Desk Analyst, IT Technician, Customer Service Representative and more! 14. Document everything. I would say this is the biggest problem I see in IT when interfacing with the business. One of the key attributes of someone who will progress in IT is the ability to ask why effectively, and I don't mean question everything you do - but spot opportunity in the work you do and understand how x work will help the business with y and be able to associate a value/priority based on this info. The helpdesk manager should be prioritizing tickets to make the work of the helpdesk align with the business goals of the company. Few folks outside of IT care about the speeds and feeds of the new hardware or software you're proposing. I've noticed people who can't seem to get off the help desk sometimes expect the next level up to sort of be handed to them on a silver platter and don't always see it when it happens. There's nothing to read. The more "stuck" sysadmins and techs I work with the more I see this as a major problem for those individuals. What's the problem that needs to be solved for this business? Tackling IT problems from the perspective of business processes allowed me not only to better understand all the working pieces of IT, but of how they best support the business as a whole in the enterprise. Take a Break. Also because of my mental health, I think the help desk job would be great, because I can work part time and don't have to … Do You Need Certifications to Get an IT Help Desk Job? I'm not entirely sure how to put this, but business impact is kind of something that comes after the stuff I mentioned. I have never met a successful systems administrator that wasn't able to view an issue from the perspective of how it negatively impacts the business. Here are some tips from the helpdesk experts on Reddit that can get you headed towards that first raise and promotion. I was learning new things, and had new responsibilities. The infamous IT Helpdesk Wheel of Responses (hat tip: reddit/ITdept) 1. I get a call in, older man and needs his password reset. The first are people who write the minimal amount possible. I will take this advice to heart and try to change my habits. Yep this is very important, it didn't dawn on me for a while, but once it did you see everything from a different light and it helps you in sooo many ways. 5,937 Level 1 Help Desk jobs available on Indeed.com. Been applying for more than 6 months and not a single interview. Do you need certifications for an IT help desk job? Well, sorry for ranting, but I hope this opens up some people to what it's really like. If you have an office job where you sit hunched over a desk, clicking away at a computer most of the day, you need to take steps – literally – to reduce your sedentary habits. 13,935 Part Time Help Desk jobs available on Indeed.com. Apply to Help Desk Analyst, IT Technician, Receptionist and more! What’s more important is your ability to stay calm under pressure, be sup… People expect results and you have to keep things going. Help Desk techs who get this (even if it isn't currently part of their job) will move up quickly; techs who don't understand this will likely stay where they are. Get training. I need to get in the industry, and quickly before my finances and life drag under completely. You want to be concise, but also make the damn point. Six months in, I enjoyed my Help Desk job. Knowing how to do this is critical. Communication verbally is also extremely important. Maybe even manage a help desk and make good money. what should I learn?"