Calling All Helpdesk/IT Support RS'ers
 

What's the career potential like for Helpdesk Anaylsts? Where can you possibly branch off within the IT industry?

I see that there are few quality entry-level IT support positions available. Alot of them pay like 10-12/hr.

What's a helpdesk analyst? If it's just a regular helpdesk agent, then imo it depends on the size of the helpdesk.

If its a huge helpdesk, probably very little room to go anywhere quickly, and the experience you get with windows/servers etc, will probably be limited, and be the same stuff over and over.

Our company has a smaller helpdesk, since i've been here i've seen 2 of the 8-9 helpdesk agents get promoted to sysadmin and DR planning/design roles. Being smaller they get more access to manage some critical systems like our citrix environment or our vmware infrastructure. I'll pass down network related tasks to the helpdesk sometimes when i get overloaded, and most of them seem to have at least a high level understanding of all our IT systems, AD/exchange/citrix/vmware etc.

If you use your helpdesk experience to find an area of IT that you like, and focus on it, (certifications etc) it will give you a good start on a career.

usually if you are starting out go with a company with a smaller IT team. This will enable you to learn more and can go after higher paying jobs like system admin.

I work at a small IT consulting company. I do helpdesk related things for the first 3 months, getting paid average, when i started and now moved on to system/network admin taking care of clients servers and networks, getting paid way more now.

Also in IT it all depends on experience and certs.

At large help desks, the agents seem to just be a number and statistic. About 1 agent a year makes it off our help desk and into middle tier support. However our help desk pays about $30/hr which ain't to bad starting out.

My recommendation, if you really like playing with technology, is finding a small tech savy company - 50 to 100 staff - that wants to invest in technology, possibly has one more senior person already there, is looking for a junior guy that is ready to work and learn. 3 years there and you will learn more about IT then anywhere else. 3 to 5 years experience with varying technologies is enough to land you into something decent specializing in a specific area with a larger / higher paying organization.

I like how they put the word "analyst" lmao.

Although I am not very familiar with IT, i can definetly give you a less technical perspective of it. Both my parents work in the industry and have 25+ years of experience under their belt. My dad used to work for a company that dealt with the ministry of family, and now works with a company that deals with the ministry of health. while he was working for the ministry of family, he was forced to do helpdesk, simply because the nature of the job required him to do so. He was forced to go from a contractor to a government employee because of a shortage in the companies budget. Having stayed loyal to the company for 20+ years, they decided to let him go. He went from a fulltime contractor to a govt employee to a laid off man. He seemed pretty chill about it, but as a son, i was unforgiving for what the careerpath had done to him. He hated doing helpdesk, and everyday I would see him come home stressed and bitter. I won't go into the ups and downs of IT, but one thing for sure is that it wasn't as easy as it used to be. Work for a company you feel comfortable with, and don't force yourself to do helpdesk if it's not something you can bear with.

Things dont always turn out bad though. My Mom on the other hand, has stayed within her cOmpany and has moved up the ranks from a computer analyst to senior analyst, to acting manager. She was offered the position of permanent manager, but she turned it down simply because it wasn't something she thought would have been for her best interests. She is in charge of hiring people, and the pay starts at $30/hr. But expect a paygrid, because unless you show results and move up, there won't be a drastic difference. There are a huge variety of companies out there. It all boils down to the risks they're willing to take, whether they give a shit, and whether they have the patience to see progress. However, patience takes time and time take money. Please don't hesitate to ask me some questions as my parents are indeed IT veterans.

One suggestion I will add is, be careful when working with smaller companies. Keep the mindset and goal of gaining experience and less on gaining a stable job, as a smaller company will not give you the luxury of that. The biggest mistake my dad made was getting too comfortable within the smaller company, that he began limiting himself from larger and more stable companies and upgrading his certifications and knowledge to become more competitive in the market. Eventually he got pressured to the point where he was so isolated, that he is even lucky he got the opportunity to work for a more recognized company. Sure it may seem easy in the beginning, but on the long run, it's a straight path to unemployment.
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Career path can be going in soooo many directions for someone starting off as a helpdesker.

I "started off" as one at UBC, and eventually got to do things like team lead for support staff (over 50 of them) at the Olympics. It really depends on how much you want to be more than just a helpdesker. This is KEY.

If you settle, you'll never get anywhere. If you show that you want something more, then you will get at least somewhere more than just a helpdesk job. Show that you have potential, and show that you have more "vision" than just what your own responsibilities are. That will get you noticed.

Yeah, I agree with this. Definitely way more opportunities for advancements at smaller companies.

If you're in a large company with lots of helpdesk members, and lots of system administrators, it's going to be pretty difficult to transition from helpdesk to sysadmin.

If you're in a small company that's growing, you won't even need to ask... you'll just naturally start assuming responsibilities usually intended for sysadmins.

Help desk / phone support is a good way to start off in IT. With larger companies, they're big enough that they'll have various IT needs, and there will be opportunities to advance. How far you advance depends on how good you are. It's good for experience, at least.

I started off my career doing phone support for a software company in Richmond. The pay started at around $19/hr. Keep in mind, this was 10 years ago, an I'm not sure what the starting pay is now. I must have done my job well, since they moved me up to research tech, and then supervisor.

There were other options for IT at that company. There was server support, you could be a trainer of the software, you could program. I thought I wanted to try my hand at server support, since you don't have to deal with annoying asshat customers, but I ended up finding a job elsewhere for what I really wanted to do, which was desktop support. It pays well, everybody is your friend, you get to to move around, and since requests come in sporadically, I can just surf the net and RS.:)

Also, one of my co-workers at my old job went on to work for Health Services Canada, and he's the IT manager for the region. He started off doing phone support there, and quickly moved up.

how do you go abouts finding the well paid tech support job? I just finished school and have been looking but most postings have pretty low starting wages and needs several years of experience.

I've been applying but no luck yet. Any help will be appreciated.

^ I'm in the same boat as you.

I suggest you keep applying. There are lots of over qualified people applying for helpdesk jobs. I was involved in hiring a few new techs at my place. I don't know if the following will help you guys out, but just some tips.

1. Education did not matter too much. I looked for tech skills. Can you do this, this and this? Mention specific job skills.
2. Do you at least have some job experience? People with more job experience are usually more skilled, and have a more professional attitude. During the interview, those who did not work too much did not portray themselves as a professional. Their attitude appeared to be more easy going and slack.
3. Almost everyone list a whole bunch of tech skills in their resume. I almost never read resumes. They're all the same to me. The first thing I do is to scan the cover letter. After reading so many letters, I can easily tell which is a generic one, and which is a customized one. Spend time writing a letter explaining why I should hire you.

Lastly, if you are applying to work at a somewhat big company, they will have an HR department. Your job application goes like this: application package goes to HR. HR reads the cover letter and see if you are a good fit. If you are a good fit, they will pass it on to the actual department (help desk in this case). What a lot of people don't realize is that HR gets a ridiculous amount of applications. Most big companies have a standardized method of screening them. They look for specific key words by doing a search (think Ctrl+F). If you don't have those words in your cover letter, you end up rejected. Big tip: use words mentioned in the job description.

Hope that helps.

some roles to branch into
 

It really comes down to what path you want to take. It also involves planning on your part because you will not be handed these roles, you will have to get visibility and earn them!

Application Support
System/Network Administration
Technical Training
Technical Writer
Helpdesk Supervisor
Business Analyst
IT Consultant

Oh yeah, and support is almost ALWAYS the armpit of the company.

That means low/no budgets.