How did you made the jump from Desktop Support?

What helped you to make that jump to Sys Admin or even Engineering? Was it self-study, luck, connections, etc... I'd love to hear some stories since I am trying to move from being in DS.

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Essendon

Self-study, some luck and good references helped me make the switch from Desktop to Server Engineering. A guy in our Server Engineering team left since he couldnt (didnt) extend his visa and about the same time I finished my MCSA. Our hiring manager called me and asked me if I would like to make the move from Desktop to Server, to which I very gladly said yes. I was the Desktop Support guy for 3 sites at our company and very good references from the folks and a GM helped me a lot too.

Key to moving forward is work hard at your job, get them certs, have a good relationship with employees and managers and with some luck the opportunities to move forward will come. You just go to keep at it, it took me about 2 years to go from Desktop to Server Engineering.

To the OP, what certs have you been working on to strengthen your chances to move forward?

mikedisd2

I was never in a desktop role/team but I was stuck in hardware for a long time. I told my manager I was sick of printers etc and wanted to do more services. I coincided this with studying for the 70-270 and 70-290 MCPs.

After awhile I changed jobs to being the sole IT guy for a consulting company of ~100 users. This allowed me to do server/networking while finishing off my MCSE. This kind of position means I had to take charge of all the areas of IT (VMware, DNS, AD, RRAS, security, router/sw, Exchange, SQL, Blades, asset mgmt, doco, KB, etc) and learning is greatly accelerated. My resume entry for that period highlights only the system admin side, not the desktop support.

From that point, I'm sold as a server admin and the only way is forward (except when there's a GFC).

So study for those certs and get any server hands-on possible that can then be iterated on your CV.

it_consultant

passcert23 wrote: »

What helped you to make that jump to Sys Admin or even Engineering? Was it self-study, luck, connections, etc... I'd love to hear some stories since I am trying to move from being in DS.

I had to get another job. I might have embellished a little of my experience if I remember correctly. I was in help desk for a while and I got my CCNA, which opened a lot of doors even thought I am primarily a Windows and Exchange guy.

Don't be afraid to take a risk, I took another job that only lasted a couple of months but the experience was invaluable. I am definitely better off now then I was just working help desk. There is certainly a cut of people who are just not willing to jump off the ledge, don't be one of them.

N2IT

Thanks for the post guys.

It's always good to see the stategies used by others.

higherho

When I first started on the Help Desk (Help Desk Coordinator) at my job, it took me 3 weeks to get used to how they did things and how their network was. After that, I tackled all my responsibilities really well and during an emergency when our network share drives were being turned to read only I got assigned a project to setup / move all our stuff to an online repository and teach the users how to use the system. I was also in-charge of our Video Teleconferencing system (Scheduling, patching the system ,etc).

Also during the time as help desk I was very nice to everyone and did everything in my power to help them with their issues or made sure that a System admin came to help them that same day. 6 months later a System Admin left to a government spot and I got offered the job and said that I did very well as a Technical Support Consultant (Help desk). They said that the new guy will have big shoes to fill and a good bit of people from every division said how they will miss me as the help desk person.

So now I am a System Administrator for HP its been 2 months since I been in my new position. 8 months total since I been working at my job.

As a System Admin I am trying to get my CCNA and then a Microsoft Active Directory cert.