Help desk: An entry-level path to greater opportunities

April 27, 2001 —

Before the dot-com bubble burst, new entrants into the work force looked down their pierced noses at entry-level positions such as the help desk. Now that things have returned to normal, those entry-level jobs are looking a little better, especially when the alternatives are the unemployment line or jobs that require one to wear a paper hat.

Tech support, contrary to popular belief, is not a dead end. "People who start in tech support can move into a lot of different types of positions within the organization," said Melissa Doble of tmp.worldwide.

Lately the customer support desk has undergone some serious changes, and has become a vital part of the enterprise. Consequently, the people that run the help desk have gained more respect -- and with it, more money and opportunities for advancement.

"The help desk has gone from the basement with one light bulb to being the center of attention," said Gene Kansas of Help Desk 2000 (www.helpdesk2000.org), the certification arm of Support Technologies, Inc. Help Desk 2000 trains and certifies help desk directors, managers, professionals, and field support technicians using a series of seminars taught by industry experts. The Help Desk Manager certification qualifies the attendee to reengineer a help desk according to the industry's best practices, while the help desk professional certification focuses on training people for the front line.

Besides a certification, the best help desk people will also have a college degree in business or computer science. Kansas said that the majority of enrollees in Help Desk 2000's seminars have at least some degree of higher education. In addition to a certification and higher education, "depending on what help desks you're working on, that person is going to have a continuing education," added Kansas. The need to keep learning is obvious, especially when you are supporting a product that is being constantly updated. As a help desk staffer, you'll have to look forward to periodic retraining on that product.

Kansas said the going rate for a help desk professional is about $34,000 a year. Even in the wake of the dot-com failures, demand for help desk personnel is burgeoning. "Computers are not going anywhere," observed Kansas. "There are more and more uses for technology, and the more that people use technology problems are going to continue to crop up. As technology increases in complexity, so will the demand for educated, certified people to handle it."

Increasingly, the help desk/tech support person must wear many hats. Companies such as EDS, for example, cover the whole gamut of customer relationship management for multiple clients. As a help desk staffer, you may be required to switch gears quickly as you move from call to call. Fortunately, most help desk staffers have a vast store of knowledge at their disposal from which they can quickly find answers to even the most vexing questions. That's not to say that you don't need to know the technology. A good help desk person needs specific technical skills as well as customer service and "people" skills.

Doble pointed out that a lot of organizations hire tech support staff right out of college, and groom them for higher-level technical positions within the organization. "The larger the company the more growth opportunities they will have," she said. "Tech support is a way to get your foot in the door."

ITworld.com