Just starting out and trying to decide on a path...

I'm currently working as a Service Desk Tech in a call center type environment doing remote support for a couple different companies. It's an entry level help desk job, I had minimal troubleshooting and plenty of customer service experience prior and lucked into this job.

They pay for pretty much any certification you want to get, they offer study material, practice tests and things like that and then give you a voucher for the exams. It's a nice opportunity to learn and get certified.

I just dont don't have any idea what exactly I want to do. I know one thing: I don't want to do service desk for too long. At least not in a call center.

I'm required to get my A+ for this position so I'll be doing that soon but I want to start thinking about the different fields and what I'd like to do. I know there are many and networking is one people tell me most I should look into. That, programming and database administration. Obviously I want something that will be in demand in the future and I don't want to get into a dying area so to speak. I figured this would be a good place to start. Does anyone have any thoughts or suggestions on some of the rising areas in IT? I don't know what I like to do because I'm just starting out, I've been doing this for about 6 months. I've also started doing some admin stuff with active directory, exchange...etc.

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Comments

srabiee

What are you interested in the most?

Just about anything in IT can be lucrative if you dedicate your time and energy into it.

Do you have a degree?

There are tons of articles that you can find on Google regarding the hottest or most lucrative IT skills for this year and next. I wouldn't invest TOO much faith in those, but they are an interesting read nonetheless.

Ultimately, you want to choose the path that interests you the most. What are your thoughts?

Snrussell09

Thanks for the response.

I really don't know yet to be honest, I have never done any networking(though I can get a decent idea from a friend doing this) or database work. I took a part of an intro to Java programming class which was interesting but I don't have the math skills to go for a software engineering/development or computer science.

I am almost finished with my degree which is not IT related(Clinical Services Management). My plan was to complete this, get an entry level IT job, gather certifications for what I wanted to do and go from there. Possible get my HIT masters degree from UT Dallas.

I've read a ton of articles over the past couple years about the "top" fields and "hottest" fields but it seems like they're mostly websites looking for clicks. Like you said, it's tough to rely on these. MIS was a top IT field I looked into but it's more of management IT processes and things, more of a business degree with some IT sprinkled in.

I work the evening shift so I have a couple hours almost every night to focus on it.

techfiend

Some things that helped me decide is answering questions like:
Do you prefer point and click or typing?
Would you rather work with a lot of people or in a small group/independently?
Would you rather work with less technical but more outgoing or would like to be able speak geek with your colleagues?

The former leans more towards system admin/analyst, latter more networking/virtualization.

Studying for certifications can help you decide, especially the more focused ones from cisco and microsoft. I would suggest after the A+ go for the Network+ which should give you a good introduction to networking and see if you'd like to do it.

Snrussell09

Interesting, I'm kind of mixed on those questions.

Do you prefer point and click or typing? I haven't done a lot of typing work(I assume this equals programming). So probably point/click.
Would you rather work with a lot of people or in a small group/independently? Preferably in small groups or alone.
Would you rather work with less technical but more outgoing or would like to be able speak geek with your colleagues? This one I'm mixed about, I don't currently speak much geek so that would be acquired.

techfiend

I should have said gui vs cli for the first question. Networking has a lot of cli while sys admin is a lot of gui but powershell is becoming more popular.

The way I've been described sys admin being the goto for offices that aren't necessarily associated with IT. You might work with a few other admins depending on the size of the office. Depending on the environment there can be quite a bit of down time.

The way I've been described networking and virtualization is usually working in small groups that share the same type of position but maybe alone depending on the situation. It's more crucial back room work that doesn't regularly associate with people in other fields.

People with experience in these roles have told me this but feel free to correct me if anything is inaccurate.

While not able to speak 'shop' is it something you would like to do or would you rather discuss other things on the job?

Beowolfj

The road to success is to do what you love, and then find a way to get paid for it. So first thing is first, figure out what you enjoy doing, when in doubt, google it. Look at the requirements for the position you think you might be interested in, and then sit and ask youself if you'd enjoy doing it for say....five or ten years.

As for the certs, be sure to look at the fine print, most companies that offer vouchers and pay for any cert you can think of have a specail cause that reads something like this:
We will pay for any certification you can pass, but you once you have obtained your certificaiton you are not permited to use it for any other employer that directly compleates for the same type of work we do for 'X' years or the certification is hereby null and void.
The 'X' is typically two years in my experience. Now that doesn't say you cant get the cert and leave for the compeditor after a few months two a year and then reaquire the cert again, but you may have to come out of pocket to do so.

Snrussell09

techfiend wrote: »

I should have said gui vs cli for the first question. Networking has a lot of cli while sys admin is a lot of gui but powershell is becoming more popular.

The way I've been described sys admin being the goto for offices that aren't necessarily associated with IT. You might work with a few other admins depending on the size of the office. Depending on the environment there can be quite a bit of down time.

The way I've been described networking and virtualization is usually working in small groups that share the same type of position but maybe alone depending on the situation. It's more crucial back room work that doesn't regularly associate with people in other fields.

People with experience in these roles have told me this but feel free to correct me if anything is inaccurate.

While not able to speak 'shop' is it something you would like to do or would you rather discuss other things on the job?

I really don't have experience with either but I'd imagine gui would be better but then again, I'm not sure.

Regarding the second part of your post, both of those things appeal to me in different ways. I wouldn't mind the non-IT environment at all actually. The downtime sounds great but probably not when I'm first starting out since I'd want to get as much experience as possible.

I would definitely want to be able to speak shop pretty fluently just so I can if needed.

I suppose the system admin type of thing appeals to me more than the programming/coding/command line screen type of stuff. The reason I worry about doing this is because the engineers and more technical people are in more demand and (I assume) have better job security and opportunities right? The money seems better too.

Snrussell09

Beowolfj wrote: »

The road to success is to do what you love, and then find a way to get paid for it. So first thing is first, figure out what you enjoy doing, when in doubt, google it. Look at the requirements for the position you think you might be interested in, and then sit and ask youself if you'd enjoy doing it for say....five or ten years.

As for the certs, be sure to look at the fine print, most companies that offer vouchers and pay for any cert you can think of have a specail cause that reads something like this:
We will pay for any certification you can pass, but you once you have obtained your certificaiton you are not permited to use it for any other employer that directly compleates for the same type of work we do for 'X' years or the certification is hereby null and void.
The 'X' is typically two years in my experience. Now that doesn't say you cant get the cert and leave for the compeditor after a few months two a year and then reaquire the cert again, but you may have to come out of pocket to do so.

That's been my problem since highschool, I haven't really found anything I love doing but I've always been interested in technical things and seem to be drawn to that kind of work. They say you should try to make a career centered around what you do in your free time since you obviously enjoy doing it but I pretty much watch sports in my free time when I'm not working or in school. I've been doing helpdesk for about 6 months now and I can say with some confidence that this call center help desk is not what I want to do long term. I don't mind working with users but not necessarily remotely and outsourcing which is basically what we do here. We have contracts with different companies. I imagine help desk for actual companies on site is very different.

So I can kind of rule out the help desk route but I'm learning and getting experience so it's fine now. I know it's tough t get your foot in the door and it was relatively easy for me so I was lucky.

I checked into our voucher policy and it doesn't mention anything like that anywhere, maybe when you actually request the voucher and obtain it, they tell you. I did see that if you request to do instructor-led training (which pays for the class, test and your salary) you have to remain with the company for 6 month or you have to reimburse them. Plus this is probably for different parts of the company, there's no way I could take time off my account to train for a cert and get paid (hourly employee) for it!