What is an appropriate job title for my position?

I took a "Temp-to-hire" job directly through a healthcare IT company. It's been almost 4 months and they plan on transitioning me to full-time salary soon. Everyone here loves me, and they really do want to keep me around at this point. I am the only in house IT staff except for a couple database analysts and the director of IT.

When I accepted the position it was advertised as entry level helpdesk but I really don't feel like that's an appropriate job title and that will affect the salary that I get offered. I wanted to get some other opinions on if I'm right in thinking the job title is incorrect and if so, what would be more appropriate?

Here are some of my day-to-day responsibilities:

Manage all helpdesk tickets.

Receive, set up and deploy new workstations start to finish.

Manage our IP PBX phone system including phone programming, mailbox setup, extension creation/recording as well as physical phone set up.

Configure and maintain all office printers and copy machines.

Manage all user accounts and user rights.

Manage all exchange accounts, distribution lists and mailboxes.

Manage the company print server.

Manage our Embassy Remote Administration Server.

Make changes in group policy where necessary.

Additionally I also get into some stranger tasks such as editing some of our ASP.NET sites, changing SQL reports, automating processes through batch files and ensuring Section 508 compliance of our web site. Basically anything even remotely technical gets pushed to me and I handle it.

Any thoughts, comments or advice is appreciated!

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Comments

dave330i

Sounds like a systems administrator.

lsud00d

Ehhh sounds like a small IT shop that they want to pay you the least they can...the responsibilities are all over the place that it's hard to pin down what the actual title should be.

Tell them you want to be assistant director of IT

N2IT

Akaricloud wrote: »

I took a "Temp-to-hire" job directly through a healthcare IT company. It's been almost 4 months and they plan on transitioning me to full-time salary soon. Everyone here loves me, and they really do want to keep me around at this point. I am the only in house IT staff except for a couple database analysts and the director of IT.

When I accepted the position it was advertised as entry level helpdesk but I really don't feel like that's an appropriate job title and that will affect the salary that I get offered. I wanted to get some other opinions on if I'm right in thinking the job title is incorrect and if so, what would be more appropriate?

Here are some of my day-to-day responsibilities:

Manage all helpdesk tickets.

Receive, set up and deploy new workstations start to finish.

Manage our IP PBX phone system including phone programming, mailbox setup, extension creation/recording as well as physical phone set up.

Configure and maintain all office printers and copy machines.

Manage all user accounts and user rights.

Manage all exchange accounts, distribution lists and mailboxes.

Manage the company print server.

Manage our Embassy Remote Administration Server.

Make changes in group policy where necessary.

Additionally I also get into some stranger tasks such as editing some of our ASP.NET sites, changing SQL reports, automating processes through batch files and ensuring Section 508 compliance of our web site. Basically anything even remotely technical gets pushed to me and I handle it.

Any thoughts, comments or advice is appreciated!

To be brutally honest it depends on which percentage of work you do. If you are resetting passwords and fixing windows issues then help desk. If you are working on servers and restoring services etc then System Admin.

It just depends. I think you have to go with Help desk until you get a feel for what you are really doing. I do not believe in changing your title unless you are forced to. Time will tell.

terryfera

lsud00d wrote: »

Tell them you want to be assistant director of IT

How about assistant to the director of IT?

Sounds like "IT Guy" at a small shop to be truthful. I would suggest that you're help desk that's starting to venture in to a junior sys admin role.

Akaricloud

N2IT wrote: »

To be brutally honest it depends on which percentage of work you do. If you are resetting passwords and fixing windows issues then help desk. If you are working on servers and restoring services etc then System Admin.

It just depends. I think you have to go with Help desk until you get a feel for what you are really doing. I do not believe in changing your title unless you are forced to. Time will tell.

I usually reset ~5 passwords a day(which takes all of 10 minutes?) and focus on keeping everything else running for the rest of the day. We're not really that small of a company; Last year we brought in over $100 million in revenue with a decent sized IT budget.

Why would I want to keep a helpdesk title if that's not my actual position? -It's going to look bad on a resume, keep my payscale low and not allow me advancement opportunities. Yes I handle the helpdesk tickets, but that's only a small portion of my true responsibilities.

vCole

Akaricloud wrote: »

I usually reset ~5 passwords a day(which takes all of 10 minutes?) and focus on keeping everything else running for the rest of the day. We're not really that small of a company; Last year we brought in over $100 million in revenue with a decent sized IT budget.

Why would I want to keep a helpdesk title if that's not my actual position? -It's going to look bad on a resume, keep my payscale low and not allow me advancement opportunities. Yes I handle the helpdesk tickets, but that's only a small portion of my true responsibilities.

I had a similar role - and my title was IT Support Specialist II. I was in the same position, except I couldn't change my title even though I was essentially a Jr Sys Admin/Sys Admin.

tpatt100

When I was hired to work for the City they had an old school title of "PC Support Specialist". The problem was the system administrator was an old school AS400 operator who said she "wants nothing to do with Windows" so the PC specialists which was supposed to be the desktop support people became the Windows admins which was the majority of the network besides some green screen appps running off the AS400.

After a year two of us asked for our titles to be changed and our manager agreed. He just asked me to write down our day to day duties so he could get it approved by the union. I was doing the upgrades from 2000 AD to 2003 AD, Websense, Cisco PIX, I just got done setting up Citrix Metaframe running Microsoft Office for everybody in the City, etc, etc. It got approved pretty easily and they changed us to Systems Administrators.

jamesp1983

It sounds like Sys Admin/Jr Sys Admin

Hypntick

Looks like a Systems admin or Jr. Systems admin type role to me. However titles are so subjective in IT it seems. My initial title when starting this job was Network Engineer, despite not setting up any of the networking gear. My title based on job duties would be a bit closer to Systems Admin./Network Admin./Trainer. My actual title is Lead Support Engineer/Trainer, I will say I do enjoy that lead part on there, makes me sound like I know something.

Psoasman

I agree with the others, you are doing systems admin work. Perhaps, whey transition you, they could change your title.

N2IT

Akaricloud wrote: »

I usually reset ~5 passwords a day(which takes all of 10 minutes?) and focus on keeping everything else running for the rest of the day. We're not really that small of a company; Last year we brought in over $100 million in revenue with a decent sized IT budget.

Why would I want to keep a helpdesk title if that's not my actual position? -It's going to look bad on a resume, keep my payscale low and not allow me advancement opportunities. Yes I handle the helpdesk tickets, but that's only a small portion of my true responsibilities.

Titles are like nicknames you can't give yourself one. Your job title is help desk, so there for you are help desk. However you could market yourself as system admin. I would ask if you could change your title, if what you say is true, then they should change it.

My concern is if another employer ask your company what was John Doe's title and they say help desk you just took yourself out of the running for the job. They aren't going to want to take the time to hear your explaination. Of course that's only relative if you are planning on going to another job eventually.

My opinion of your job task

Here are some of my day-to-day responsibilities:

Manage all helpdesk tickets. [Help Desk]

Receive, set up and deploy new workstations start to finish. [Help Desk/Desktop Support]

Manage our IP PBX phone system including phone programming, mailbox setup, extension creation/recording as well as physical phone set up. [Telecom/Help Desk]

Configure and maintain all office printers and copy machines. [Deskside Support\Help Desk]

Manage all user accounts and user rights. [Access Control\Help Desk\System Admin]

Manage all exchange accounts, distribution lists and mailboxes. [Exchange Admin\System Admin\Access Control]

Manage the company print server. [System Admin]

Manage our Embassy Remote Administration Server. [System Admin]

Make changes in group policy where necessary. [System Admin]

I'd say with those responsibilities you are System Admin|Help Desk

Zartanasaurus

How many users? Servers? Any remote sites?

Akaricloud

Zartanasaurus wrote: »

How many users? Servers? Any remote sites?

~75 internal users, and around 150 that use a couple of our applications remotely through Go-Global. 14 servers in house, one remote domain controller and weekly remote backups.

When we start the process of transitioning to salary I'll definitely make sure the title gets changed so I can market myself appropriately.

Turgon

Akaricloud wrote: »

I took a "Temp-to-hire" job directly through a healthcare IT company. It's been almost 4 months and they plan on transitioning me to full-time salary soon. Everyone here loves me, and they really do want to keep me around at this point. I am the only in house IT staff except for a couple database analysts and the director of IT.

When I accepted the position it was advertised as entry level helpdesk but I really don't feel like that's an appropriate job title and that will affect the salary that I get offered. I wanted to get some other opinions on if I'm right in thinking the job title is incorrect and if so, what would be more appropriate?

Here are some of my day-to-day responsibilities:

Manage all helpdesk tickets.

Receive, set up and deploy new workstations start to finish.

Manage our IP PBX phone system including phone programming, mailbox setup, extension creation/recording as well as physical phone set up.

Configure and maintain all office printers and copy machines.

Manage all user accounts and user rights.

Manage all exchange accounts, distribution lists and mailboxes.

Manage the company print server.

Manage our Embassy Remote Administration Server.

Make changes in group policy where necessary.

Additionally I also get into some stranger tasks such as editing some of our ASP.NET sites, changing SQL reports, automating processes through batch files and ensuring Section 508 compliance of our web site. Basically anything even remotely technical gets pushed to me and I handle it.

Any thoughts, comments or advice is appreciated!

The director of IT is accountable to the business regarding availability of services and systems. It's your job to maintain them and keep them running at an application, system and server level. You are a systems administrator. Ask for a job description change but dont expect that to require a bump in salary. Same job you have now, different title. For bumps in pay leverage what you are learning about the infrastructure on your hands and play back improvements to your director so he can sign up to a strategy to deliver better IT for the company which you will execute for him. Make sure the improvements you suggest have a positive commercial impact. Killing yourself to upgrade things just because its cool is pointless. Doing it to deliver on bottom line results your director can brag about in C level meetings will turn him on. Look for efficiencies and savings but also ways to exploit IT to make your company money. All the IT certifications on planet earth combined will not teach you how to do that. Experience and understanding what your company is about and its costs will.

thenjduke

I used to do alot of similiar tasks as a Help Desk. I would say the title is more Junior System Administrator. I am a Senior System Administrator / Engineer and I barely touch accounts. I worry more about network and systems now. I look at alot of reports and deal with more vmware, citrix, exchange, cisco, ad, and things of that nature.

Everyone

N2IT wrote: »

Manage all exchange accounts, distribution lists and mailboxes. [Exchange Admin\System Admin\Access Control]

I'm going to disagree here. Creating, modifying, and deleting mailboxes, and distribution lists is a Help Desk level task. An Exchange Admin or Systems Admin would only get involved if an issue was escalated to them from the Help Desk (i.e. Help Desk couldn't do it due to an issue).

N2IT wrote: »

Manage the company print server. [System Admin]

I'm going to disagree and say this is a Help Desk level task, as it usually involves just adding and removing print queues and printer drivers, which is not a System Admin level task. Actual maintenance of the server itself would be a System Admin task.

I'm also going to disagree with everyone saying you're any sort of Systems Administrator too. You're a Help Desk Technician.

If I received your resume, and it had any sort of "Systems Administrator" title with this list of responsibilities on it, I'd laugh and say "No you weren't, you were a Help Desk level tech here". However, based on the couple of slightly more advanced responsibility, I'd probably give you a shot at a Jr. level Systems Administrator position.

Now, you've made it pretty clear that yes, you are a small shop. ~225 total users and 14 servers is small. Is the IT Director really hands on? I'm guessing he is based on your environment size alone. Who actually maintains those 14 servers? Is it you, or does the IT Director step in to patch/upgrade/fix them? (I doubt database analysts do, and those are the only other IT staff you indicated exist). If you had to add an another domain controller, Exchange server, or SQL server, who would install and configure it? If one of those servers failed, are you the one fixing it? If your answer is "No" to either of those, don't delude yourself into thinking you're a Systems Administrator. If it is "Yes" to all of them, then you need to focus on highlighting your responsibilities and accomplishments in that arena, instead of the lower level tasks you've mentioned, if/when you try to get a Systems Administrator level job.

advanex1

Everyone (the person),

Those that you disagreed with above are Site/System Admin jobs here in Iraq. Help Desk does not touch those issues. They are used for basic user support, some password resets/account unlocks, and baseline shops. Basically they are just a middle man from the customer to the Sys Ads.

Turgon

Everyone wrote: »

I'm going to disagree here. Creating, modifying, and deleting mailboxes, and distribution lists is a Help Desk level task. An Exchange Admin or Systems Admin would only get involved if an issue was escalated to them from the Help Desk (i.e. Help Desk couldn't do it due to an issue).

I'm going to disagree and say this is a Help Desk level task, as it usually involves just adding and removing print queues and printer drivers, which is not a System Admin level task. Actual maintenance of the server itself would be a System Admin task.

Actually that was my initial reaction as well, however I get the feeling that the OP is responsible for the servers in this small shop and everything involved with them like I used to do. He will have to qualify that. If so, hes a systems administrator.

Everyone

advanex1 wrote:

Everyone (the person),

Those that you disagreed with above are Site/System Admin jobs here in Iraq. Help Desk does not touch those issues. They are used for basic user support, some password resets/account unlocks, and baseline shops. Basically they are just a middle man from the customer to the Sys Ads.

That's Iraq, that's not how the rest of the IT world works. Those DoD contracts out in that part of the world are hard to fill. They have over inflated titles and salaries so they can get someone to take a job working 12 hours a day, 6+ days a week near a war zone in a desert. 7 years of my career have been working for the DoD in some capacity full time, plus an additional 3 years with them part time.

Turgon wrote: »

Actually that was my initial reaction as well, however I get the feeling that the OP is responsible for the servers in this small shop and everything involved with them like I used to do. He will have to qualify that. If so, hes a systems administrator.

I have the same feeling. My point was, if you can't demonstrate Systems Administrator level knowledge and experience, no one is going to call you that, or hire you for that.

All of the people I recently interviewed for a contract position we just filled (A Systems Admin/Tier 3 Operations/Support level role), were from similar sized environments. The candidates that focused too much on these sorts of lower level client side tasks were passed over. The person that person that focused more on the back end/server side tasks, is the one that got hired.

advanex1

Everyone wrote: »

That's Iraq, that's not how the rest of the IT world works. Those DoD contracts out in that part of the world are hard to fill. They have over inflated titles and salaries so they can get someone to take a job working 12 hours a day, 6+ days a week near a war zone in a desert. 7 years of my career have been working for the DoD in some capacity full time, plus an additional 3 years with them part time.

I have the same feeling. My point was, if you can't demonstrate Systems Administrator level knowledge and experience, no one is going to call you that, or hire you for that.

All of the people I recently interviewed for a contract position we just filled (A Systems Admin/Tier 3 Operations/Support level role), were from similar sized environments. The candidates that focused too much on these sorts of lower level client side tasks were passed over. The person that person that focused more on the back end/server side tasks, is the one that got hired.

Maybe so. I'm not sure why the difficulty in filling them. I work the same hours + some for less pay and Iraq was considerably less stressful than Afghan. I suppose you would then only see the Enterprise Operations guys as actual system administrators then. We typically only have a handful of sys admins per site and they are pretty large sites most of the time. (5,000+) troops/civilians at any given time.. until we started the draw down.

Turgon

Everyone wrote: »

That's Iraq, that's not how the rest of the IT world works. Those DoD contracts out in that part of the world are hard to fill. They have over inflated titles and salaries so they can get someone to take a job working 12 hours a day, 6+ days a week near a war zone in a desert. 7 years of my career have been working for the DoD in some capacity full time, plus an additional 3 years with them part time.

I have the same feeling. My point was, if you can't demonstrate Systems Administrator level knowledge and experience, no one is going to call you that, or hire you for that.

All of the people I recently interviewed for a contract position we just filled (A Systems Admin/Tier 3 Operations/Support level role), were from similar sized environments. The candidates that focused too much on these sorts of lower level client side tasks were passed over. The person that person that focused more on the back end/server side tasks, is the one that got hired.

Yeah I agree. You need to be able to build and restore an Exchange server as opposed to just setting up mailboxes.

SteveLord

Joat!

10joats

Version4

OP:
I will have to agree with the majority of folks that classify your job functions as being a Jr. System Administrator or a System Administrator.

You are in a very small environment with only a few people in IT. Usually in these cases you have one or two specialists, in your case database people, and a few generalists – only you in this case, which is what you are describing yourself as.

In my experience:
I’ll try to give you an idea of what I saw in my last environment.

At my last position, they had a medium sized environment so the organization could afford a lot of staff. It also helped that the IT department was seen as a source of revenue instead of “that place where we **** millions”. They had about 150 in IT, give or take.

Going off of your responsibilities, all helpdesk tickets were managed by the helpdesk technicians. The helpdesk technicians were the first point of contact for every single issue in the environment. Tickets that needed more work and expertise were escalated to the appropriate departments including Accounting, Real Estate, IT, etc. Those departments had direct access to the ticketing system and were expected to document their progress.

Desktop and Operations were responsible for setting up and deploying new workstations. Telecom was responsible for the phone system. Desktop was responsible for configuration and maintenance of office printers and copy machines. Anything to do with managing AD, rights, accounts, or Exchange was the Server team’s responsibility. The ASP tasks were managed by our SharePoint team, SQL reports were managed by the Database team. The batch file is a tough one, more often than not, that was handled at the Helpdesk.

Naturally then, the question will be, well what did the Helpdesk do, sit on their bum? Not really, the average call volume in that position was 5000 calls per week for that department spread across about 25 to 30 people. Granted about 25% of these calls were quick fixes 5 or 10 minutes each, but a large majority required detailed troubleshooting 30 minutes+. These calls ranged from simple operational "How do I do this" to common technical issues.

What I have observed is that people are not given the correct title, as is in your case, for the job functions they perform. With that said though, the size of an organization will also play a role in what title you receive, as is in your case too. Use this opportunity of being the JOAT to learn all you can about everything business, IT, accounting, etc.

An effective IT professional will not only be the “go to guy” for the technical issues of an organization, but he will also have a mastery of the organization’s business model so he can be a partner in the vision to provide effective solutions. If you can be that professional, you don’t have to worry about a job title.

Learn all you can!

it_consultant

The things that jump out at me is the phone switch and editing the ASP.NET sites. Those are really the two things on there that move you beyond the helpdesk realm. Things that put you into sysadmin roles:

MS Exchange - set up, configure, migrate, troubleshoot, load balance, advanced configuration, advanced troubleshooting. Think, 'have I had to use MFCMAPI to work on a mailbox?', 'have I migrated mailbox and public folders from EX 2003 to 2010?', 'have I configured a firewall to properly present my server publicly?, 'have I configured IMAP and POP for public use on Exchange - including the common ports and TLS?'.

Firewalls - Set up site to site VPNs with like an unlike firewalls. PIX/ASA to Watchguard, etc. Set up at least 2 major brands of firewall with remote access SSL vpn including AD LDAP tie in. Configure both the manufacturer client and the windows client (for PPTP) and or set up open VPN client to work with proprietary firewall. Publish web servers and various other services publicly. Configure built in web filters or mirror a port to a separate web filter - transparent to the user or the browser.

Phone Switches - Intelligently describe the difference between SIP and H.323 communications. Change port and extensions on at least two of the major brands, digital and analog. Set up faxing through the phone switch. Manage inbound 10 digit dialing. Modify short codes. Phone tree routing holiday hour greetings.

Windows Server and Domain - Recover a DC from backup. Remove a "tombstoned" domain controller. Set up distributed file system. Set up MS Cluster for SQL and MSTDC. Set up NLB cluster for terminal services (2003) or terminal server session broker (2003). Deploy and mange citrix and citrix printing.

Misc - Configure LDAP for spam filters, printers, Linux applications, etc.

When you are doing those tasks 50% or more of your time. You are full time sysadmin. It sounds like you are straddling the line of sysadmin and help desk. We have all been there, it is an important time to learn to break you out of help desk permanently.

thenjduke

it_consultant wrote: »

The things that jump out at me is the phone switch and editing the ASP.NET sites. Those are really the two things on there that move you beyond the helpdesk realm. Things that put you into sysadmin roles:

MS Exchange - set up, configure, migrate, troubleshoot, load balance, advanced configuration, advanced troubleshooting. Think, 'have I had to use MFCMAPI to work on a mailbox?', 'have I migrated mailbox and public folders from EX 2003 to 2010?', 'have I configured a firewall to properly present my server publicly?, 'have I configured IMAP and POP for public use on Exchange - including the common ports and TLS?'.

Firewalls - Set up site to site VPNs with like an unlike firewalls. PIX/ASA to Watchguard, etc. Set up at least 2 major brands of firewall with remote access SSL vpn including AD LDAP tie in. Configure both the manufacturer client and the windows client (for PPTP) and or set up open VPN client to work with proprietary firewall. Publish web servers and various other services publicly. Configure built in web filters or mirror a port to a separate web filter - transparent to the user or the browser.

Phone Switches - Intelligently describe the difference between SIP and H.323 communications. Change port and extensions on at least two of the major brands, digital and analog. Set up faxing through the phone switch. Manage inbound 10 digit dialing. Modify short codes. Phone tree routing holiday hour greetings.

Windows Server and Domain - Recover a DC from backup. Remove a "tombstoned" domain controller. Set up distributed file system. Set up MS Cluster for SQL and MSTDC. Set up NLB cluster for terminal services (2003) or terminal server session broker (2003). Deploy and mange citrix and citrix printing.

Misc - Configure LDAP for spam filters, printers, Linux applications, etc.

When you are doing those tasks 50% or more of your time. You are full time sysadmin. It sounds like you are straddling the line of sysadmin and help desk. We have all been there, it is an important time to learn to break you out of help desk permanently.

Yes we all have been on that borderline. It is a hard line to cross over but once you do wow so much more experience. What IT consultant said above will make you a sys admin. I was doing this about 80% of my time at my current employer but I started to do more maintance and configuration on the network side. I been doing alot of routing, firewalls, wireless, switching configs. It is entire other beast too. This is about 60% of my time on network side and 40% on the admin side. I enjoy it alot. The problem is that the admin side of things tend to be same things over and over again but when new technology comes out that is where the fun side of things are for me anyhow.

BradleyHU

IT Support Technician...covers all bases...

ptilsen

There's a lot of discussion in here. I'll keep it short: IT Support Analyst/Technican/Dude/Guy/[Arbitrary Number]/Just IT Support or Jr. Systems Administrator.

If you are required to touch group policy, that is not a helpdesk position to me.