Oct. 22, 2023, Post by Curtis
Help Desk jobs are easy to get. If you have customer service experience or experience working in technology, you should be able to get in. If you don't have these qualifications, they are easy to get. Go get a customer service job, start studying, and you should be able to get into Help Desk in about 6 months.
By no experience, I mean you’ve never had a tech job or a customer service job. In this situation, there are a few different things you can do, but I think to maximize your chances for success I would do several of these things. If you have had a customer service job you should start applying for Help Desk jobs but if you are not getting hired, you may need to take the extra steps below to make it happen.
There are all kinds of jobs that will help prepare you for Help Desk. A computer repair shop or Geek Squad, would be great, but there are many different jobs with all kinds of titles that will also be a great start.
Traditionally Help Desk has 4 tiers, levels 0-3. A Level 0 Help Desk job is not really a Help Desk job as you won’t be working with the users or solving technical problems. These jobs require very little skill but they expect you to be eager and ready to learn. These jobs will be helping the IT department do any number of menial tasks, shipping, configuring computers, installing computers at desks, etc. While you're doing these low-level tasks, if they get comfortable with you they will quickly have you doing more advanced jobs and you will soon be ready for a real Help Desk job.
Help Desk, and the IT field in general, invent a lot of different names for essentially the same job. This is hiring managers trying to make it sound like they are offering something better than what it really is. There are plenty of level 0 Help Desk jobs out there, but they are rarely called level 0 Help Desk.
Identifying these jobs is a little tricky. The job title will be something like this:
You’ll need to do job searches with a lot of different keywords. Look in the job description that the job responsibilities and qualifications are low-level and easy. Keep in mind that these requirements are always overstated so if the requirements are 1 year of experience and you have none, you should apply.
A customer service job will look good on your resume, but may not be enough by itself to get you into Help Desk. A customer service job with an IT certification or just about any type of experience with technology should be enough to get you an interview.
You do not need a certification to land a Help Desk Job although having one will certainly help.
Certifications look great on a resume and will go a long way to getting you an interview, but I would not get a certification to get a Help Desk job. I would, however, start working toward a cert now that will get me the next job after Help Desk.
A CompTIA A+ will go long way toward getting you a Help Desk job, but your time would be better spent just taking a level 0 job and studying for a higher level cert while working.
If you do a good job at your level 0 job and study for a more valuable cert, you should be able to get a Help Desk job in 6 months. By that time you’ll be about ready to get that certification also. The CompTIA A+ will have no value after you get your Help Desk job because just a couple of months at Help Desk will look much better on your resume than the A+.
If you are planning on using Help Desk as a step into a better job, then you should start working on getting the cert that will help you get that job.
Consider what direction you want to go in after Help Desk, and start studying for a cert in that field now. The basic directions that you might go in would either be Network Admin, System Admin, Cloud Practitioner, or Security. There is a fair amount of overlap between Network Admin and the other categories, as Network is a foundational skill that is a part of all other IT fields. It would not be a bad idea to spend a few years as a Network Admin no matter which direction you end up going in.
Bring up the fact that you are studying for the cert in your interviews. That will let them know that you self-study and are ambitious, which is exactly what they want.
Labs are one of the best ways to learn the skills that you need for a great IT career. The sooner you start labbing the sooner you will be proficient in these in-demand skills.
It’s one thing to be a to recite the definition of something, and quite another thing to have functional, first-hand experience using it. This will help you when answering technical questions in an interview.
For your Help Desk position, you will want to know about Active Directory, DHCP, DNS, and Windows Server. You can get an evaluation version of Windows Server for free. With that, you can set up an Active Directory domain, and set up a DHCP server to assign addresses to virtual PCs in your lab. Windows Server can also run a DNS server that you can assign to these PCs for name resolution. These are the main ingredient that almost every business uses the create its network.
You can run your lab on software like GNS3, or my favorite EVE-NG, which has a free version. You can run this software on either your computer (you will need a pretty beefy computer), a used server (you can get it for about $700 on eBay), or run it on the cloud and only pay for the computer resources that you are using while you are running the lab (this will get you some cloud experience also).
Just getting the software up and running to start labbing does take a fair amount of effort but is worth it in the long run. If you plan on making a career out of IT, using labs will be helpful throughout your career, so taking some time to figure out how to run it now will pay off big time!
Look for volunteer work with community or charity services. This will not only get you some hands-on experience but will get you the references that you need.
You do not need any formal education to get a Help Desk job nor do you need any degrees for most IT careers. Some companies will require it, but there are plenty that don’t. If you have the skills and experience, you will be in high demand.
Some people that have a college degree still have a hard time getting a Help Desk job. Lots of companies will take someone with experience over someone with a degree.
Just keep applying, work on your interview skills, and you will get a Help Desk job if not a better job. It’s not uncommon to apply to 100 or more jobs just to get a job. Be persistent. If you do have to start at Help Desk, Start applying for a better job a few months after starting at Help Desk. Just a little bit of experience should be all you need to get the ball rolling.
Getting a job at Help Desk is pretty easy, although working at Help Desk is not so easy. Read my article How Difficult Are Help Desk Jobs.
What IT managers are looking for more than anything is someone who truly wants to learn. In IT you never stop learning new things.
Work hard and study on the side and you will go a long way in IT.