Advice for a new IT Guy.
 

Hey all. This will be a long post! And similar to others I have posted.
I wanted to get some advice from anyone who is willing to help. This has been tearing me apart for a while.
I’m a senior at Kent State University, I have an Associates Degree from Eastern Gateway Community College in Information Technology which focused on Networking and Server work. I wanted to get more education under my belt so I’m at Kent for my Bachelor of Technical and Applied Studies: Computer Technology Applied Computer Security and Forensics Technology Concentration.

I really wanted to get into maybe a State job in IT or if I’m lucky for a company in another state because I want to move away. I know for a fact I will have to start out at the Help Desk. Which I’m happy with, right now I work for Penske and a Assistant Store Manager for Ace Hardware. So I have no IT expierence, I never got a internship in either college. I tried applying really hard for them, never got them. So I’m kind of screwed for expierence, there’s really nothing here for jobs I’m lucky to have what I have.

My questions are:
Has anyone worked Help Desk? What’s it like? What am I to expect? I’ve been googling but I want real world outlooks.

After 5 years of college, I know I do not remember everything I learned which kills me. I try to keep everything fresh, all I have is my notes.

Any advice y’all can give to me as a upcoming IT guy?? Speak away if you have anything.

Consider looking at many of the colleges. Most need young/up and coming people that are IT savvy. Having network and server experience/schooling will really help get your foot in the door. Many even have workstudy programs that would benefit you with some real life experience. I have a workstudy in my office as we speak...

If you don't already have it, consider trying to get an A+ cert and perhaps Network + as well.

I've currently worked for a college now for roughly 20 years as an IT Helpdesk guy, and the benefits are quite good. I earn 7 weeks of time off a year. I don't make the best money but the trade offs are that I get the good benefits, good retirement, and good time off...

IT jobs will only continue to be needed, especially as everything starts going virtual. Servers and server techs will continue to be in high demand.

What is Help Desk like for you?? If I may ask you? What is a day at the office like for you? If you’re willing to say...

If you're looking for an IT job the best advice I can give you is to get as many certifications as you can. Companies don't always look at experience as much as they look at certifications. Also, as I'm sure you're aware, technology changes every second. Make sure you're doing everything you can to show that you're keeping up with the times. An IT help desk isn't always a first stop for someone wanting to get into IT, but it can be a stepping stone on getting your foot in the door.

I’ve been doing my best! I usually get all the windows and macOS software changes and tinker with them on my spare time when I have it! I have been trying to wrap my head around Linux and command line stuff, in my expierence s in college we haven’t messed with command line stuff. I’m the type that learns way better on the job or doing it rather than reading it. I can read something all day it will take me 2-3 tunes to get it down, but, if you show me something I’m on instantly.

Exactly. Many that show initiative move up quickly and end up out on the floor as an analyst for example. And it doesn't take much, if any, experience to get a Help Desk opportunity.

^this. My son earned his Bachelor's in Management Information Systems from Marshall University in WV in 2011. It was 2014 or 15 when he finally landed a job. Contract for Mercy Hospital Group while he was living in Toledo. Worked hard and became full time permanent in a year, and is now an analyst for them in Cincinnati closing in on 6 figures. Hang in there, and like everyone else said, hard work and certificates.

For me, I'm essentially a jack of all trades, master of none. I deal with everything from system rebuilds, software installs, to fresh new printer installs. I repair/replace warranty hardware, I troubleshoot a variety of software, and I am responsible for yearly training of myself/procedures. Encryption security, data recovery for failed drives (if we even can), deleted data on servers (recovery from backups)...etc etc

I've done server troubleshooting, configurations, and virtual machine setups. I have server access for permissions and data access. There's a lot that goes into my job, and I support multi-million dollar grants/research for cancer.

Lots more goes into it beyond that...


Pretty much all of this.... certifications like A+/N+ are almost always mandatory for many of the upper level computer support jobs. There are tons of and tons of analyst and report roles that make 75k-120k a year. There are jobs for Oracle Database all over the country and most make 120k or more to start....

Really, its all a matter of how much effort you put in as well as how far you want to go in that choice of environment. You may find it simply isnt for you..

I shall! Thank you! I don’t mind working for it, I love working on servers, network devices, PCs, really anything technology related. Always been that way.

Ohhh sounds like a lot of fun!’ :) I can’t wait to work in IT in the real world man. Tired of my jobs.

I did help desk stuff while I was going to school for 4 years. It was not fun but the pay was decent for a part time job and helped get my foot in the door.

Honestly though, if you look around enough I think you could get a better position than that. I personally have hired staff with 0 education and extremely limited experience for positions higher than help desk. However, like others have said, it would still be a step in the right direction especially if there is room to grow.

Cisco certifications are your friend.

My wife got a Masters in IT and did not intern.

She can't find a job in the field because none of them will give her a shot with no real world work experience.

Another problem is, all the intern jobs where she could get experience want you to be enrolled in a college at least half time and at a cretin point (close) to earning the degree.

So she is always over/not qualified for internships and under qualified for IT jobs with no real work experience in the field.

Working hard, getting a degree, paying gout of pocket for college to try and get a degree to get good job, and got nothing for it. She is working her butt off at Amazon pulling orders trying to keep up with a stupid high pick rate. smdh....

I's a really F'd up situation.

Help desk can lead to a true support engineer - if you like to put out fires it can be a rewarding experience, especially at a senior level. You will learn more in that kind of fire than managing racks of servers (I've done that too for years). Appealing to me is the human nature of support - I figure 80% of a good support engineer is people skill - psychology. Before even diving into an issue, put the person at ease, give them confidence that their troubles are over now that they are in your hands. It's kind of fun.

I enjoyed the challenge for a while as a senior support eng, in California it can be a 6 figure career after a few years in.

You don't have to focus specifically on "IT". Get some experience, a variety of it, learn some cloud tech, virtual, on premise etc.

You can go into Sales Engineer, Professional Services consultant (what I do now - love it), or you can live in server rooms and chase after users issues...whatever floats your boat. Don't limit yourself to just the IT classic type of role. Top Sales Eng are 150k+ jobs in the hot parts of the country. I did that too for a bit, but the salesy bit is not quite my nature...I can do it well enough if I want to dive back in that pond.

If you want hands on experience, get a capable workstation or server for a home lab, load up VMWare ESXi on it, and get down to it - you can deploy and redeploy servers, set up your own AD environment, linux servers, whatever you want. Do some research as to what a typical business needs to run, and duplicate that in your lab as if you're working for that biz. You'll learn a lot if you spend that kind of time in the lab.

I've done support in a variety of gigs, sys engineer, sys admin etc. For years I worked in a datacenter deploying server after server (Unix and Linux primarily), writing scripts to manage them (before Big Brother type monitoring tools were commonly around) and it was a great experience but gets mind numbing. I like the people component, with tech as a side dish.

I guess my general advice is, keep your mind open...you're not restricted to IT only label jobs.