Some quick question about MSP- manage service providers jobs.

NetworkingStudent

Quick question about MSP manage service providers.

I interviewed with two MSP so far. I get the feeling that there is high turnover rate in this section of IT. here are my questions:
Why is there so much turn over in MSP’s?

Why is there such a push to get guys in up into the highest position( think help desk to field tech to senor project manager) as fast as possible? I get the feeling the there is a push to give the employee all the knowledge they can soak up at once and then some.

Is there more stress working at an MSP, versus a corporation with a larger IT department?

What are the pros and cons of working at an MSP?


Thank you for your replies..

Mishra

I don't have a lot of time to answer these questions but there should be a lot of older data on this forum that you can go read.

MSP VS IT Department varies in stress/likability depending on the company. It can go either way with either position. I personally like the IT department aspect better since I get to watch an environment grow as I improve it VS doing singular jobs here and there.

bigdogz

High turnover rate comes in the helpdesk. Other areas may not have a higher turnover rate.
Three things can happen: stay, move up, or move out. Some just cannot take the stress. Remember you get the customer complaining and giving you their cell phone number because their VoIP system went down. Here is a quick list that I put together:

Pro's of working at an MSP:
-Work on new technologies.
-Work in different environments (OS's, email, web, InfoSec, networking).
-Can move up quickly if you learn fast and do well.

Con's of working at an MSP:
-Long hours.
-Short/Small learning curve.
-On call (most people are today) When things go down you will have to be there to bring it back online.
-Stress of getting job done quick, fast, and right. In some cases the salesperson will promise the moon to get the job. Sometimes this means you may have to loose your planned evening, a few nights, or a weekend.

xocity

I currently work for a MSP and this has been a really stressful experience. There are a million things going on at one time and if your not quick on your feet and a quick learner, you get backed up with work really really fast. Sometimes you are required to go to a customers' site and expecting to fix A issue, then you get there and realize that you have a b c d and e to do.
A big difference between the 2 is that in MSP all customers are getting billed for time, so they get really annoyed if things take longer than they expect. Great thing is that I get to touch a lot of different technologies, everything from backups to routing to AD stuff to exchange. Where I'm currently at, there isnt much room for advancement since its a small I.T.

After 2 months I got tired of doing the regular, "my email isnt working" job and asked my boss to give me some harder tickets, now they're letting play with some Hyperv servers and doing migrations from exchange to the cloud and Basic Firewall/nat configurations and much more.

Its a good stepping stone in my career to get familiar with the technology that is out there, you will learn A lot in a short amount of time, but I think once I'm done with B.S / MCSA / CCNA , I'll look for something more centralized or specialized.

Overall I really enjoy what I do and anyone breaking into I.T and wants to learn a little of everything, MSP is the way to go.

Go MSP for a little while, Learn everything, cert up, and if you like it, stay , if not , move on, it will be a great experience regardless

Good luck