Help desk position in downtown Chicago

If anyone is looking for an entry level help desk position in downtown Chicago please PM me. Nice SaaS company, with 200 users 100% Windows. Some experience would be great. CompTIA or Windows cert are a plus.

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NOLAJ

Do you have any System or Network Engineer positions in the Orlando area?

cyberguypr

If you wait several years we may open up a branch office there.

keeranbri

Hello cyberguypr,

How much does the entry level helpdesk salary start at? I am currently a contractor here in the suburbs of chicago for about 5 months now
doing tier 1 level help desk and supporting a big pharmaceutical company. I also have my bachelors degree but no certifications.

cyberguypr

keeranbri wrote: »

Hello cyberguypr,

How much does the entry level helpdesk salary start at? I am currently a contractor here in the suburbs of chicago for about 5 months now
doing tier 1 level help desk and supporting a big pharmaceutical company. I also have my bachelors degree but no certifications.

Sorry, don't have the info yet. We had an unexpected departure and we are right in the middle of a move to a new building. It will take a few weeks for us to sort it out.

jjasso21

I'm also interested in the Entry-level Help Desk position. It is a full-time position? I have my Master's in Information Systems Management and CompTIA A+ and Network+, Getting Security+ next week. I would love to get more information when it becomes available.

phaneuf1

Wait you have a master and you are looking for a helpdesk position? The job market in USA is sicker than I thought.

YuckTheFankees

jjasso21 wrote: »

I'm also interested in the Entry-level Help Desk position. It is a full-time position? I have my Master's in Information Systems Management and CompTIA A+ and Network+, Getting Security+ next week. I would love to get more information when it becomes available.

Have you tried applying for any other jobs in IT?

You might be considered over-qualified with a Master's.

white96gt

phaneuf1 wrote: »

Wait you have a master and you are looking for a helpdesk position? The job market in USA is sicker than I thought.

A master degree is nice to have and will help down the road. But to get an upper IT job your going to need experience.

Turgon

phaneuf1 wrote: »

Wait you have a master and you are looking for a helpdesk position? The job market in USA is sicker than I thought.

That's a little unkind to be fair. Years back when I wanted my first job in IT I spun out of University with a Masters degree. Many more people have them these days. It helped me get my start in the industry as a systems administrator, where to be honest, I had it all to learn on the job. Today, self starter roles are much more defined than the one I landed in 1997. where I was responsible for everything involving a computer in the office and the factory, so helpdesk is the beginning these days, unless you can get taken on by a big company in the graduate fasttrack. You won't be in helpdesk long if you can pull that off. You will be assisting with projects.

ptilsen

phaneuf1 wrote: »

Wait you have a master and you are looking for a helpdesk position? The job market in USA is sicker than I thought.

I disagree. Few Master's degrees qualify someone to do much of anything in IT infrastructure. I'd more likely let a high-school drop-out with an A+ fix a computer than a CompSci MS with no experience. I certainly wouldn't let a Master of anything with no experience or certs touch a server or a production router. That pretty much leaves entry-level helpdesk, NOC, and DST positions.

I actually think getting a Master's degree before taking a cert of getting a real IT job is a mistake for a prospective IT professional, and a costly one at that.

jjasso21

Wow, harsh comments! But I can definitely see the potential problem of getting a Master's with no experience. I have been in the hospitality field for the past 8 years and have been looking to switch into IT. Unfortunately the hotel I work at uses Swank AV. Their role in IT is very limited as they mostly do AV setup for receptions and meetings. I myself have been doing freelance support for years repairing desktops and laptops. In the past couple of months I have been volunteering at a non-profit organization that receives used equipment and ships them out once repaired to third world countries.

In Chicago I have gone on quite a few interviews, but it seems so many experienced out of work people apply to the bigger companies as well. So that may be my problem. Also I just went on an interview that went very well and am hoping on some sort of a favorable result. On a side note I have gotten many compliments on my resume in which I will post in a later thread.

Turgon

Yep, certainly some very harsh and myopic responses to you. Congratulations on your Masters degree and your valuable experience with hardware helping developing countries.

CodeBlox

Heh... And I can't wait to get the bachelors degree over. I had something set me back two years and I'm finally back on track with that, currently a junior. I was advised here at the school to "go to work for a few years after undergrad and then go back for a masters". I'm a computer science major.

cyberguypr

Well, we are finally moving aggresively to fill this position. We are pretty flexible on requirements if we determine you are a god fit. Although experience and certs help they are not imperative.

Duties include:
- "Own" the Helpdesk. Prioritize and assign tickets
- process on/offboarding (account creation, asset allocation, orientation)
- AD tasks: pwd reset, memebership changes, etc.
- Exchange tasks: new accounts, add smtp addresses, create resources, manage permissions
- Communication and people skills are very important
- Imaging of desktops and laptops
- assist sys admins in projects as required (Lync, Exchange 2010, vm consolidation are a few on the table right now)
- Articulate, professional demeanor with ability to think out of the box

Please hit me via PM if you are interested or have any questions.

powerfool

jjasso21 wrote:

Wow, harsh comments!

People's experiences are all different; shake those haters off! My first reaction was that you will appear over-qualified for positions and that you may have went straight into a masters program after finishing your undergrad.... something that is extremely common these days. However, your situation is another example of a unique experience. For many people, a masters degree is an opportunity to switch careers... because your masters can be in something entirely unrelated to your undergrad, in most cases.

Hiring managers may have a knee-jerk reaction as well... just make sure that you explain your situation and hopefully the person on the other end has some sense and will realize what is going on. If they don't and pass on you, it is probably for the best... you wouldn't want to work for them anyhow.

Try to get your first real IT job. Keep in touch... in a couple of years (late 2014/early 2015), I might have exactly the job that will be a growth opportunity for you and it won't be far from Chi-town, if that is a geography you are comfortable. My company will be bidding on something that will start then.

erpadmin

cyberguypr wrote: »

- process on/offboarding (account creation, asset allocation, orientation)

Is this process still manual at your shop? We're working on automatically kicking off our onboarding process. When HR *hires* a person, our process kicks off where an AD account is created (and yeah, a number will be added if a user name exists) as well as the Exchange mailbox is created. A good number of third party tools will handle all of that.

I just see a lot of shops going in that direction.

N2IT

@ Erp

I hope so it's 2012 and it's time to freaking automate.

My last gig the asset management piece was automated. EOL hit's in the asset management system triggers a email with a link to a portal page. You pick out your machine, software, etc. If the cost is higher than the "normal" rate it shows in the line items, in red. Employee selects a time they want the machine deployed-installed, email goes to cost center manager. If the cost center manager doesn't approve, it goes to his manager, etc.

The deployments are batched by location so that deskside team is maximized. It was a pretty cool tool, very database heavy and automated.

BTW thanks for sharing your automated process. Very cool!

cyberguypr

Yes, still manual. We have issues with HR where they are feeding us incorrect or incomplete info so we have to double-check everything. This battle is being fought on the upper arena which are outside our control. In the meanwhile we do what we can. Good thing is we don't have much turnover so it's not a burden.

erpadmin

cyberguypr wrote: »

Yes, still manual. We have issues with HR where they are feeding us incorrect or incomplete info so we have to double-check everything. This battle is being fought on the upper arena which are outside our control. In the meanwhile we do what we can. Good thing is we don't have much turnover so it's not a burden.

That argument is definitely outside of the help desk realm. This would be discussed with management, etc. When IT gets involved, it's pretty much higher level admins or a programmer (depending on if you're going to use third party or have the solution developed with the data pooled from the HR ERP database. In a lot of shops, by the time the new hire goes in, all help desk would have to do is just set up the phone and PC.

At N2, a lot of shops haven't done automated onboarding...it depends on the size and layout of the org, what HR system is used, what onboarding process will get done...and everything in between. Much of those discussions are handled by mid-upper management.

MichaelR69

I'm interested in this job, but the system won't let me PM you. Maybe it's because I just signed up. Can you PM me please cyberguypr.

Thanks.