IT Help Desk - Advice

bankintheroll

I'll get right to the point. I eventually want to get into networking, but have no professional experience so I will have to start with an IT help desk job. I had a couple interviews last week and will have a couple more coming up. I think I can land a help desk job with my 4 year degree and Cisco CCENT certification, despite not having professional experience.

I am studying for CompTIA A+ right now. I'm wondering what other things I can practice or study to help me be more prepared for a help desk job. For example, are there common applications or anything that I can get more familiar with? Anything else?

Thanks in advance.

markulous

With a bachelors and CCENT you should be able to find an entry-level help desk job. They will likely be more concerned with your attitude and customer service. If it's really basic, then it's going to be simple end-user things such as web browser issues, troubleshooting email, etc. Wouldn't hurt to familiarize yourself with basic AD stuff like new user creation and password resets. If you can perform basic Windows troubleshooting, you should be okay.

Depending on your area it may only be around 12-15 an hour, but you definitely need to start somewhere and you'll be much more marketable in the future with experience in combination with what you have now.

Rocket Impossible

I've found you can never know too much about Office, especially Word, Excel and Outlook, as well as Windows 7 trouble-shooting, assuming you'll be working in a MS environment. Knowing some Active Directory and Group Policy is helpful as well.

bankintheroll

Thanks for the quick replies guys. I am really not concerned with the pay at this point (although I don't want to work for free - lol). I'm more concerned with obtaining professional experience at this point.

Most of the jobs I have looked into deal with Windows, so I am concentrating on XP, 7, and 8 mostly. I am most familiar with Windows 7.

I think maybe I'll give Youtube video tutorials a try for Microsoft Office, Active Directory, and Group Policy. Would that be the best place to start, or do you guys have something else in mind? I am semi-familiar with Office, but not the others.

shauncarter1

I would grab a Microsoft certification for sure. Since your goal is help desk, you would be well served to take the Windows 7 certification exam. With the A+, M$ cert, CCENT, and a degree you should be fine to get interviews.

ande0255

Be sure in interviews to give examples of how you go above and beyond to resolve issues, and keep your customers happy, as that is what any help desk I've worked on has interviewed specifically for. They hired people with no IT experience, and no aspiration to even be in IT, just people looking for a job that had customer service background - good luck!