Did you start at Helpdesk

ArabianKnight

Was your first IT job helpdesk? If not, what made you so special!

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blargoe

dave330i wrote: »

Curious to find out what important skills you learn at a helpdesk that they shape the rest of your IT career.

I guess it depends on the environment, but someone that is able to handle themselves well in a helpdesk role, and is able to emerge from there into another role, is someone that can handle rapidly changing priorities, can perform some level of troubleshooting, and can work with people from different business areas. When I think of help desk, I'm not thinking about a call center, I'm talking about the first levels of actual support.

I think the people that are not able to think critically, and are not able to do more than follow a script will remain in the helpdesk or burn out and change careers... eventually.

PurpleIT

dave330i wrote: »

Curious to find out what important skills you learn at a helpdesk that they shape the rest of your IT career.

For me, helpdesk taught me how to think and troubleshoot.

I was pretty sure I knew how to do that before I got the job, but the variety of issues I was presented with opened my eyes and really changed how I approached troubleshooting.

Given that I worked in a call center, I improved my communication skills (listening and speaking), I quickly became a leader in the department (unofficially at first and then moved into management), and my already good customer service skills quickly expanded.

I won't say I couldn't have had the same growth otherwise, but it came by the bucket at that job and I can't think of any other way I could have expanded so many skills so fast. That said, when it was time to get out of there, it was time and I have never looked back! The one advantage to a job like that was I never took it home with me like I do now.

Meditator

Started off as a Help desk (technician- more like Desktop support). Really liked going to different department, listening/talking to people- fixing problem, always something to learn and do- until the move to NOC (current) and hopefully to Network related role. Don't mind doing it again if I have to but time to move on. I find even when the client(s) were not happy, it was easier to look them in the eyes and calm thing down. I avoided Help desk w/ 100% phone support as I will go crazy sitting/answering phone all day- not to mention the lack of face to face interaction w/ clients.

cw3k

For everyone that started in Helpdesk role, was it all OS helpdesk?

I was, and still consider myself is helpdesk, but supporting enterprise applications. Don't know if this count?

FloOz

I had my start in desktop support. Thankfully I never had to work the phones

alan2308

I started out as an admin with an MSP right out of college. I occasionally help out on the phones if needed, but its pretty low on my list of priorities.

CCNTraining

I started out doing contract break/fix work and then one of the companies I was contracted to hired me after my 3 months was up. Now i'm somwhere between 1st and 3rd level support, I do everything from help people with applications to write scripts that get deployed enterprise wide.

BTW This is my first post so hello everyone

Psoasman

dave330i wrote: »

Curious to find out what important skills you learn at a helpdesk that they shape the rest of your IT career.

You can learn very valuable skills working Help Desk.

1. Soft skills - you can be the best tech / admin in the world, but if you are a jerk, people will not work with you or they will lie about the true cause of the problem. Building rapport with end users is important.

2. Troubleshooting - trying to figure what a person is talking about. They may say one application, but really mean another. Learning to think on your feet and without scripts. Being able to triage calls. There are days when the phone won't stop ringing and a lot of the calls are similar in priority.

3. Dealing with stress - Having the phone ring constantly or having to walk to the other end of the building because someone won't push a power button for you, while you are trying to fix 5 other things. Having to deal with someone berating you over the phone and having to sit back and take it - within reason, of course. Profanity gets you hanged up on and a call to our supervisor.

4. Continual learning - I will sit and chat with our admins and watch them work, pick their brains, offer to take on small assignments for them. That initiative looks good when management is looking for internal candidates.

About7Narwhal

@ CCNTraining

Welcome!

@ Thread

I started off as a "Service Desk Associate." But I was more along the lines of Production Support. Yeah, I did all the phone calls and stuff, but it wasn't all technical. Some of it was critical call handling for production stoppages, contacting control centers and letting them know the line was down, etc etc. After about 8 months on contract I was hired in for a massive .25 cent raise and took over as Lead Tech on 3rd shift without any title change or pay change.

I learned a lot about IT and corporate politics at my first major IT job...

Trifidw

Nope. The high school I went to employed me to do some project work during holidays then got a junior networking job at 18, I'm now 22 and in a senior networking role at a 5000 employee organisation.

Qord

Sort of, officially the title is Desktop Support but I do have to man the helpdesk line after hours. I'd say it's a 40/60 split between helpdesk and "other" support.

YFZblu

Psoasman wrote: »

You can learn very valuable skills working Help Desk.

1. Soft skills - you can be the best tech / admin in the world, but if you are a jerk, people will not work with you or they will lie about the true cause of the problem. Building rapport with end users is important.

2. Troubleshooting - trying to figure what a person is talking about. They may say one application, but really mean another. Learning to think on your feet and without scripts. Being able to triage calls. There are days when the phone won't stop ringing and a lot of the calls are similar in priority.

3. Dealing with stress - Having the phone ring constantly or having to walk to the other end of the building because someone won't push a power button for you, while you are trying to fix 5 other things. Having to deal with someone berating you over the phone and having to sit back and take it - within reason, of course. Profanity gets you hanged up on and a call to our supervisor.

4. Continual learning - I will sit and chat with our admins and watch them work, pick their brains, offer to take on small assignments for them. That initiative looks good when management is looking for internal candidates.

1. Yes, I started in helpdesk
2. The above is a really good post

nestech

I started as a Jr. System Administrator Intern right after I got my A+ for free for three months before they hire me on full time.

paul78

Interesting thread to read...

For me, I didn't start off at a help-desk. I've always had a job ever since I could legally hold a job, whether it was delivering papers or doing data entry. My first computer related job was as a teaching assistant for a computer science professor at college. I graded homework, provided tuition to students with their assignments, and I taught basic Unix classes for first-year students. My first full-time job was a summer job writing Windows graphics libraries for an education application.

Personally, I have never seen any correlation with an individuals first job versus success of career progression. Helpdesk is certainly one place that someone can start in. It's an area of most organizations that has the highest turnover or it's likely easier to get into. IMHO - The important part is to just start someplace.

pert

NetworkVeteran wrote: »

I did not, and a degree. Most of my colleagues never worked at a help desk for similar reasons.

I am a "good IT person". If your bias were typical in the IT world, I would've done a short stint at the helpdesk, but carriers, ISPs, and vendors really prefer relevant experience, certifications, education, etc. Bypass low-paid grunt work if you can!

You can learn a great deal from working with people who can't find the "power" button on their PC, but you can learn even more from working with people who can't get their network to converge fast enough. Both jobs afford you opportunities to communicate with both laymen and techies, but the latter affords you opportunities to hone more relevant technical skills.

I think you're being incredibly condescending here. You can learn a ton in Help Desk that you will not get from any certification or coursework. It's not about helping people find the power button. It's learning how non technical people communicate technical problems and learning to communicate back to them. Learning general troubleshooting methodologies based purely on logic and not specific system knowledge. Learning the ins and outs of ticketing systems and best ways to communicate through them.

I think its equally condescending to say every good IT person started in Helpdesk too, there's plenty of smart and competent people out there. People should stop making statements like that, they serve no useful purpose. I started in help desk and it was incredibly valuable, though not in the ways most people pretend it is. I wouldn't say I gained a lot of technical knowledge. I gained a lot of soft skills in the things I mentioned previously that are incredibly important. It taught me to troubleshoot in a different way than is typically used in the network engineer world. Helped me understand things that wouldnt be obvious otherwise, i.e. "The route is good, the ports are up, there's nothing wrong with this, so why can't I ping this host?!?!?!" | "Um, is windows firewall on?"

The condescension really makes me angry too, because I dealt with tons of Engineers who treated me the same way when I was coming up. They always ended up changing their mind later. It's also impossible for some to jump straight into networking. I would've had a better chance getting into the NBA than becoming a network engineer when I left school. Unless you live in an area with large IPSs, NOCs, or the like getting entry level jobs in Networking is like pulling teeth.

NetworkVeteran

pert wrote:

It's not about helping people find the power button. It's learning how non technical people communicate technical problems and learning to communicate back to them.

I addressed this directly--

NetworkVeteran wrote:

You can learn a great deal from working with people who can't find the "power" button on their PC, but you can learn even more from working with people who can't get their network to converge fast enough. Both jobs afford you opportunities to communicate with both laymen and techies, but the latter affords you opportunities to hone more relevant technical skills.

As far as your other remark--

ArabianNight wrote:

Was your first IT job helpdesk? If not, what made you so special!

NetworkVeteran wrote:

I did not, and a degree. Most of my colleagues never worked at a help desk for similar reasons.

pert wrote: »

I think you're being incredibly condescending here. It's also impossible for some to jump straight into networking.

Well, that's why I never worked the help desk, and it's true for many of my colleagues. I worked hard to earn an in-demand degree, and higher starting pay and skipping the help desk were rewards. I stand by my words, but I'm sorry they offended you. On a forum, we will not always agree with one another, and that is okay. May all our perspectives help the OP.

About7Narwhal

I'm not so sure I would consider skipping Service Desk a "reward" per se. Perhaps for you, going into Networking which I assume is primarily IT to IT work, you might be fine. But for those of us who go onto Desk Side, the Service Desk provides great user control training, de-escalation techniques, and valuable communication experience.

I guess it really depends on who your "Client" would be. IT to IT should not require the above skills and you can easily learn troubleshooting in any IT position, given the proper amount of time an opportunity.

NetworkVeteran

NetworkVeteran wrote:

Both jobs afford you opportunities to communicate with both laymen and techies

About7Narwhal wrote: »

Networking which I assume is primarily IT to IT work

Networking can be more IT-to-IT or more IT-to-Laymen, whichever speaks to one's abilities and/or desires. If someone in networking wants to focus on IT-to-Laymen skills, there are many options, for example working as a sales engineer or TAC.

It's a big field, which is a good thing, so it never gets boring.

paul78

pert wrote: »

.... learning to communicate back to them.... People should stop making statements like that.... a lot of soft skills....

I read all the posts and its interesting how I had a different reaction. I never thought that any were condesending in the least. Just goes to show how tone and intent can be hard to communicate - especially in a public forum. And I think its human to speak in absolutes and anonymity on a forum makes everyone an expert

I do agree with a lot of your points though. Learning soft skills and customer service can be so crucial. I do think that its less important where you learn it though and just have the experience. When I used to hire software engineers, one type of job background that I always considered a big plus is food service. I noticed that people that waited tables tend to be more customer oriented.

ps. speaking of finding the power button, I will shamelessly admit that after installing Windows 8 into a VM to play with recently, it took me a few days to figure out how to turn it off.

wintermute000

Yep started on helpdesk like most here. Not coz I wanted to but because at the time a job was a job (my degree is not IT related).

NetworkVeteran, that is hilariously condescending. Wanna brag about your high school scores too? ROFL

ChickenNuggetz

wintermute000 wrote: »

Yep started on helpdesk like most here. Not coz I wanted to but because at the time a job was a job (my degree is not IT related).

NetworkVeteran, that is hilariously condescending. Wanna brag about your high school scores too? ROFL

I dont think his comment was condescending. I'm not sure how things in IT are in Australia, so I cant speak to that; but in some markets in the US, having a degree may not be a requirement but can most certainly set you apart from others, especially if you are applying for a job in a market where higher education is not the norm.

By no means is a degree an instant pass to a dream job and high salary, but there are a few who get lucky and are able to land them right after college with little to no experience. Again, in the US, this is possible depending on the region in which you are applying to jobs.

To answer the OP's question: I was fortunate enough to not have to go through the Help Desk, I started out in Desktop Support not tethered to a phone. I definitely agree with many people here though that the soft skills you need or pick up at the Help desk will go a long way to helping you be a successful communicator and team player throughout your career.

TLeTourneau

No helpdesk for me, started as a Systems Engineer back in the NT days. :)I don't knowthat I missed much by not being on the helpdesk, my troubleshooting and people skills are just fine. I will say I respect the people that do work the helpdesk, it canbe a tough gig.Aslo, I didn't find NetworkVeteran's remark condescending at all.

jeepster78

No, my first job was a network specialist which was basically a junior network admin position and then got promoted really fast to network admin.

Lets see, multiple degrees, multiple certs, 134 IQ, the ability to communicate clearly and effectively during a interview, and good looks looks. Well maybe not so much the looks