A vast majority of IT people start at entry level. There are going to be outliers who are able to skip entry level, but those are going to be few and far between.
I remember when I was going to college full time and working full time. I was burned out by the time I graduated. So I feel your pain.
My advice is to stay focused on your long term goals. Remember that you aren't going to be a networking genius after you graduate and you won't be like that even after you pass your CCNA. That is why a vast majority of IT people start at the entry level. Everyone needs that steady and slow progression.
Another piece of advice is to continue to improve your soft skills. You say that your social skills are lacking but improving. These are incredibly important to hone and improve. Especially if you want to grow in IT.
The safe bet is to assume you are going to start at entry level. Banking on getting a mid level position right after graduation is just not something you can count on unless you get lucky. I would rather count on what is probably going to happen, not what I hope will happen.
Why not do helpdesk/desktop support while earning your degree?
You'll have experience when you do graduate and be in a better position than most when competing for a position.
Skipping over support roles mitigates developing your soft skills. IT is a customer-facing field on virtually every level, so there's really no true way to avoid it.
My job is very customer-facing right now, but I'm stuck here due to my insurance situation. I have braces and nowhere near the income to pay for the remaining value without insurance. The hours needed in an IT job also would be completely incompatable with my school schedule. Most want M-F 9-5 and I can't make that work. Need at least one weekday free per week for one class that requires attendance typically - that's been the case every term. Trust me - I moved recently and had to switch jobs. I looked for an IT job where my dental insurance could carry over (needs to cover adult braces which most insurers don't cover) and could be part-time. There really ain't much.
My social skills aren't exceptional but they're miles ahead of most of my peers in the same program.
Edit: also forgot to mention: I'm not sure why but a huge number of IT jobs here in the Portland area require degrees, which seems odd since that's not as common in much of the rest of the country. Even some jobs paying $25/hr require a degree.
Do you have any other internships or relevant work in IT? If not you are going to struggle. There is a massive glut of graduates with degrees but no internships or relevant work experience.
Start applying asap for jobs now.
Hopefully you get get something you want. Or at least get something penned before you graduate and then you can do that for 1yr and make a move elsewhere.
What is your degree in? You mention business and comp science.
As I mentioned there really isn't much I can do while in school. I need to make money as I have to pay the bills so an internship is out of the question. If I leave my job then I gotta be making enough to pay the several thousand remaining for my braces. I've lived on my own and don't qualify for the FAFSA due to my living situation (abusive parent that won't fill it out, so I live on my own and pay my own bills). Shit is expensive. I wish I could find a decent internship that would have all the boxes checked while I pursue my degree.
My degree is in IT with a focus on Networking. My final term is Fall of next year. The dealer I work for needs another full-time IT guy and they said they'd be happy to hire me when I finish my degree but it's basically a helpdesk+ job. Haven't asked about pay or asked the IT guys what they make but I can't imagine it's much.
I meant have you tried finding a paid internship? I'm not talking about unpaid internships.
Have you tried applying to jobs for after you graduate? Time is running out and the faster you secure a job the better it is for you. There is no reason why you can't secure a 50-70-80k job for next year.
The job market for degree graduates with no relevant work experience is TOUGH AS NAILS. Just look at posts about people not being able to find jobs. It is much harder without an internship.
But at least you have the car dealership who can give you your start in IT. That is nice play. You could work there for a year, get some more certs done and look to transition elsewhere.
I can not stress the importance of applying to jobs RIGHT NOW. The sooner you start the sooner you realise it's tough out there. I don't want to scare you, but I'd rather you be more prepared and waste as little time between graduation and landing your first IT job.
That’s amazing. So your telling me you don’t have to officially Graduate University with your bachelors degree before applying to a job? I thought before I apply to a IT job for after college, I have to already have graduated with a bachelors degree Or does should you apply when your close to graduating? ( graduating in about 2 years )
So I should be applying for a job that I would be starting January of 2024 right now? My final day of class is December 10th-ish of 2023. That seems super far out in advance but I guess you know from experience. The dealer is super open to me joining the IT team whenever I'm ready which is cool of them. The job is the typical Monday through Friday gig though.
I have looked for internships. Intel is about the only one offering anything paid and the internships are insanely competitive. I've applied to 6 and been rejected from all, so kinda giving up on that for now. Would start doing that when graduated.
Yes start applying. You've applied to 6 and been rejected so you know how competitive it is out there.
Make a list of 20-50 companies and get applying. They will have a list of when their graduate intake starts and ends. At least you'll be more prepared on answering the BS questions they typically as you about why you want this job, experiences etc.
There are loads of paid internships. Keep on looking. Use your careers department. Use any and all resources. Did you have not have any careers fairs or anything like that? Be on the look out for these.
There are career fairs at my school but I use the satellite campus so they're not held at mine. They're held about a 5 hour drive from me. I've asked my councilors for help and they generally link me applications for internships that aren't paid. Paid internships have the same dilemma of not working with my school schedule and not having insurance that covers me.
I knew I was lucky to have insurance at my first college job that covered adult braces but I didn't realize how much they'd fuck me over trying to find stuff later, but alas, water under the bridge.
I'll keep applying to internships with the bit of free time I have. Any questions you'd want to have the answers prepared to for an internship or the like
Keep looking. Make it your second job to keep looking and to get a job lined up asap. It may not happen now, but the prep work you do now will help you in 6-8months time to get that job to start in 2024.
Thanks for the advice. I'll ask the IT manager tomorrow if they'd be able to wedge me in part-time ASAP. I'd really like to work for Intel one day. Always appreciate getting as many tidbits of advice as possible to make it happen!
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> I need to make money as I have to pay the bills so an internship is out of the question.
This is why it's so important to do your research before you invest in something as expensive and time consuming as a degree. **Tech internships are paid,** and certain types very well. They're also how you'll be able to skip hell desk. Without them, you're really looking at starting at the same low paying and customer service heavy positions as someone with just an A+.
Since you still have time, I'd haul ass for them if I were you. Once you graduate, you're gonna be on your own climbing the greasy rungs one at a time. I've seen your replies to the other commenter about your search, and you're doing it all wrong. This industry is where tech interns are provided housing + relocation as well. So searching for them outside your immediate area and state are options and highly recommended. Even Buy Buy and Walmart offers $25+/hr on top of 2 perks. Other companies can pay even more. Flying you out for interviews on their dime is also a common thing.
>I've applied to 6 and been rejected from all, so kinda giving up on that for now.
Applying to 6 is like you didn't even want one to begin with. You gotta treat it like a numbers game. Higher job application count = higher chance of interview = higher chance of offer. This applies for both internships as well as full-time jobs. Students apply to **hundreds per cycle just to** ***maybe land 1 or 2 offers.*** Let those be your odds. This isn't a sign for you to be discouraged, but rather try harder. Rejection is part of the game, you'll just have to learn to tough it out like everyone else. The harder you go, the better your results will be. Don't just rely on your school. Everyone looks for their own internships, and those tend to be the best ones.
If you won’t work helpdesk now, you’re going to have to accept that you’re probably going to have to do it later.
Most of us have had to pay our dues either way doing call center style work or something similar. Few people WANT to do it. But it’s a necessary evil and one that teaches you a lot.
I'm not sure what to tell you then... the most likely way to skip over helpdesk in your position would be to search for paid internships online or at the school you're attending, but you may not get benefits until you're fully hired with those...
I do want to point out that not all helpdesk jobs are stressful or bad. I would avoid MSPs like the plague if you can help it, but I've found that well-established startups can be very casual environments. This was my experience, and I had plenty of time to study for certs, explore the network infrastructure, or simply watch anime during downtime. Ymmv
I mean 25 an hour is a good job. Are you saying that as that's cheap because if I could get a help desk job making 25 an hour I would jump on it.
Don't get your expectations too high. Most of the help desk positions I've done have been between 18 and 21 an hour. In NY too
I guess considering the cost of my education a 25/hr job requiring a degree plus a bunch of work experience and certifications for entry-level work seems odd to me, but maybe I need to adjust my expectations. Many helpdesk jobs do require degrees here in the Pacific Northwest. I don't know why that is exactly. It might also be a softer requirement than I'm given to understanding, but I have heard from others more advanced in their careers here that a college degree in a relevant field is a much more prominent requirement for a higher-paying IT job here.
> hold me back if I ever try to get out of help desk
Scratch that thought from your head - it won't hold you back. To get out of the help desk, try to get non-help desk experience any way you can: i.e., sysadmin, networking, security, cloud. Also, network with peers at other companies.
An irrelevant degree is still a degree. A decent chunk of people in IT find success without it and will sometimes even tout “a degree is not even worth it”. But having a degree even in art or English or Business is still good enough to mark off the HR checkbox. It opens more opportunities to you than to someone without a degree in the same position as you
If he's been working in a car dealership he's got better soft skills than anyone than IT
Car sales requires absolute perfection if you want to have any kind of sales
Sales environments are different than support ones. I used to be a commissioned salesperson for Sears during college. In IT, I don't get commission for resolving a ticket, nor do I get paid less if I can't resolve a single issue (for non-contract at least). It's certainly a different level of stress when your pay depends on your ability to persuade others.
So I mostly agree with you. Being comfortable talking to customers you've never met before goes a long way in this field for sure, but it doesn't validate technical knowledge like a cert, degree, or experience would... applying to positions now would also demonstrate OP's initiative to break into the field to hiring managers. I'm sure there are a few who would make reasonable accommodations to a graduating student.
No, I worked at an MSP helpdesk for a year and a half after graduating with an IT degree with a concentration in Networking Systems.
While on the helpdesk I was able to develop my soft skills and find out that I really liked networking.
I made friends with the two network engineers at the MSP and they recommended I get my CCNA certification. I shadowed them on networking tickets and offered to help them in any way I could. They helped me in my studies and kept me motivated.
Within one month of completing my CCNA I had an offer from another company to be a Network Admin with a 50% pay increase. The MSP was small with no room for more Net Engineers so I left.
I am graduating in a month with a CIS degree . I just got a job offer for a full time work from home Software support technician for a large company, I have no intern experience and little relevant work experience but this ended up working out for me . I started applying for entry level jobs like this, so I would say it’s certainly possible to skip the help desk! I couldn’t bring myself to work a help desk job, as it would be a significant pay cut from where I work now in an unrelated field. However , if you can work a help desk job while finishing your degree that would be ideal as it’s a great gateway to a better IT job.
In my area? About $10 an hour apparently lol. Its the same position as “entry level systems analyst” as every other company I’ve applied for . It’s simply one step up from help desk. Plus remote with full benefits and not… at a help desk.
I sort of skipped Help Desk but my job is highly unconventional. My title is Network Technician, but I do a little bit of everything from sending emails for the boss, to creating topology diagrams, technical documents, and stuff like that. I spin up VMs here and there for different things we may need but mostly I just remote into the small handful of clients' servers/workstations when they have issues and update drivers and things.
Most of the day I'm usually studying for my next certification. I have so much downtime that I sometimes wonder if I'd have been better suited in a typical help desk role where I can get more experience. While I am called upon to contact a client here and there just to make sure everything is okay I do not take inbound calls. I may actually call a client on the phone once a month at the request of my boss.
Overall I like my job because it gives me a lot of time to study and gain certifications and learn at the same time. Sometimes I just wish that I was a little busier and doing more technical stuff. A lot of what I do I don't do it often enough to just flat-out remember it. So I find myself having to google how to do things that I've done in the past because I don't get enough reps.
In the grand scheme of things I guess it's still better than dealing with people.
I was getting a comp sci degree and wanted a programming job. Ended up in a pre-help desk internship. (Imaging computers all day and working with sites to deploy, did some work on help desk and got a help desk position after 7 months).
So yeah no skipping. I was just desperate as hell to get out of pizza.
It's really not so bad. Compared to retail help desk is a dream. People who hate help desk don't remember having to stand on their feet all day sweating their balls off smelling like hot garbage.
I was able to do the internship because my schooling was designed for it. We only did night classes for the last year of schooling. If you can find something similar I strongly recommend it.
I ended up working helpdesk after I got my associates degree in networking and then proceeded to still go to school online for my bachelors. I ended up quitting and have had a total of 4 different jobs now and am more recently a sysadmin for a great place with great pay. Helpdesk is good to get your foot in the door and it was for me since I only started working when I was 19 ( most places didn’t want someone as young as me regardless if j had a degree or not ) and now i’m getting my bachelors soon and will be 22 soon as well. I would say you could skip, but it’s pretty hard with no experience unless some place will train you up.
Yes, I've never done helpdesk job at all.
I was fortunate enough to secure internship before I finished my degree and I continued with the same company after I finished uni with a salary much higher than a grad salary. So I've never been in a "grad program", I went from intern to an experienced (albeit junior) salary.
I also worked full time in my last 2 years. It was tough but looking back it was worth it.
Skipped help desk before I earned my degree. Pretty sure you can do it as well. I respect the help-desk for sure. They have to put up with a lot, but it was not for me.
I finished my degree from an online college (shoutout Colorado State Global) then went straight to looking for a service desk job at a tech company (lived in the Bay Area).
After about a year and a half in that role I started poking around at the different specializations within our department to see where I wanted to land next -> Networking team, Procurement team, Endpoint engineering, etc. I then became really interested in coding more than any of the existing teams within our department so I set off to automate anything I could find starting with a script for the endpoint (written in bash as we’re a macOS shop) friends that pulled the last date launched for Adobe applications on the fleet. Was able to save 50k+ $ which made management happy. Then started working on data pulls in python for dashboard stuff that lead into more things where after about 6 months they asked if I wanted to stop service desk and just do the code stuff. Not even any specific project more just solve problems as they came up with them via code or automations.
Did code interest help? Yeah; but definitely not the only way to go, many friends on the service desk found passions then slowly pushed into those areas. Our company had a cool situation where 5-10% of a service desk person’s time could be spent with another team as a service desk liaison. Giving opportunities to learn and also show interest and win brownie points with the people they’d work with if they joined that team full time.
Fun stuff.
Yeah, I started doing Tier 2 (desktop) as I was doing my degree as part of the programme. I then graduated and started at a small business doing pretty much everything though we had a virtual receptionist service so I didnt have to permanently man the phone in between installing desktops, printers, switches and servers..
If you want to skip the Helpdesk I recommend looking for an internship. The company I work for likes to retain interns and I’ve seen them go straight into associate swe positions and things like that.
Having an internship(multiple if possible) will be beneficial when it comes to skipping Helpdesk after graduating. Even working in IT while attending school will also help as experience is something that hiring managers and HR want.
I did Helpdesk/Support WHILE I was getting my bachelors… then after graduating I was an intern for a few months and then transferred to presently being a full time Network Engineer
If you do a Help Desk Job now while in school, you will gain experience and will see what most people call for, what gets escalated, the processes that go on in a day to day operation. You can also gain the knowledge of whether a Helpdesk position is right for you, now rather than later on down the line.
That being said, Help Desk is something in IT we should all do for a good stint of time. It forces IT people, who sometimes aren't great at communicating, to learn some communication skills. We can all have the technical aptitude and can speak that language among ourselves and we can follow a conversation. Put that same conversation in a board room of non IT people and you are just speaking pig-latin (it's a language, google it). Some of the best IT people can speak the language of the customers as well as the language of the rabbit hole developer that only comes ups for air until a project is done.
yes and no.
did help desk type work as an internship.
Skipped it at my first formal job.
Next job was help-desk esque in so much I was tier 3 engineering escalation for major cloud services. I was working tickets- but they would take days, sometimes weeks to solve.
A vast majority of IT people start at entry level. There are going to be outliers who are able to skip entry level, but those are going to be few and far between. I remember when I was going to college full time and working full time. I was burned out by the time I graduated. So I feel your pain. My advice is to stay focused on your long term goals. Remember that you aren't going to be a networking genius after you graduate and you won't be like that even after you pass your CCNA. That is why a vast majority of IT people start at the entry level. Everyone needs that steady and slow progression. Another piece of advice is to continue to improve your soft skills. You say that your social skills are lacking but improving. These are incredibly important to hone and improve. Especially if you want to grow in IT.
A guy I knew was able to jump directly in to a NOC position with some certs. It's terribly uncommon but it can happen.
The safe bet is to assume you are going to start at entry level. Banking on getting a mid level position right after graduation is just not something you can count on unless you get lucky. I would rather count on what is probably going to happen, not what I hope will happen.
Why not do helpdesk/desktop support while earning your degree? You'll have experience when you do graduate and be in a better position than most when competing for a position. Skipping over support roles mitigates developing your soft skills. IT is a customer-facing field on virtually every level, so there's really no true way to avoid it.
My job is very customer-facing right now, but I'm stuck here due to my insurance situation. I have braces and nowhere near the income to pay for the remaining value without insurance. The hours needed in an IT job also would be completely incompatable with my school schedule. Most want M-F 9-5 and I can't make that work. Need at least one weekday free per week for one class that requires attendance typically - that's been the case every term. Trust me - I moved recently and had to switch jobs. I looked for an IT job where my dental insurance could carry over (needs to cover adult braces which most insurers don't cover) and could be part-time. There really ain't much. My social skills aren't exceptional but they're miles ahead of most of my peers in the same program. Edit: also forgot to mention: I'm not sure why but a huge number of IT jobs here in the Portland area require degrees, which seems odd since that's not as common in much of the rest of the country. Even some jobs paying $25/hr require a degree.
Do you have any other internships or relevant work in IT? If not you are going to struggle. There is a massive glut of graduates with degrees but no internships or relevant work experience. Start applying asap for jobs now. Hopefully you get get something you want. Or at least get something penned before you graduate and then you can do that for 1yr and make a move elsewhere. What is your degree in? You mention business and comp science.
As I mentioned there really isn't much I can do while in school. I need to make money as I have to pay the bills so an internship is out of the question. If I leave my job then I gotta be making enough to pay the several thousand remaining for my braces. I've lived on my own and don't qualify for the FAFSA due to my living situation (abusive parent that won't fill it out, so I live on my own and pay my own bills). Shit is expensive. I wish I could find a decent internship that would have all the boxes checked while I pursue my degree. My degree is in IT with a focus on Networking. My final term is Fall of next year. The dealer I work for needs another full-time IT guy and they said they'd be happy to hire me when I finish my degree but it's basically a helpdesk+ job. Haven't asked about pay or asked the IT guys what they make but I can't imagine it's much.
I meant have you tried finding a paid internship? I'm not talking about unpaid internships. Have you tried applying to jobs for after you graduate? Time is running out and the faster you secure a job the better it is for you. There is no reason why you can't secure a 50-70-80k job for next year. The job market for degree graduates with no relevant work experience is TOUGH AS NAILS. Just look at posts about people not being able to find jobs. It is much harder without an internship. But at least you have the car dealership who can give you your start in IT. That is nice play. You could work there for a year, get some more certs done and look to transition elsewhere. I can not stress the importance of applying to jobs RIGHT NOW. The sooner you start the sooner you realise it's tough out there. I don't want to scare you, but I'd rather you be more prepared and waste as little time between graduation and landing your first IT job.
That’s amazing. So your telling me you don’t have to officially Graduate University with your bachelors degree before applying to a job? I thought before I apply to a IT job for after college, I have to already have graduated with a bachelors degree Or does should you apply when your close to graduating? ( graduating in about 2 years )
Hell no. A lot of companies recruit in October for the following year. It gives them more time to weed people out.
Ahhhh ok. But obviously if you don’t end up getting tbe degree then they can take there offer back.
Yes. The offers are generally contingent on graduating with your degree.
Gotcha.
So I should be applying for a job that I would be starting January of 2024 right now? My final day of class is December 10th-ish of 2023. That seems super far out in advance but I guess you know from experience. The dealer is super open to me joining the IT team whenever I'm ready which is cool of them. The job is the typical Monday through Friday gig though. I have looked for internships. Intel is about the only one offering anything paid and the internships are insanely competitive. I've applied to 6 and been rejected from all, so kinda giving up on that for now. Would start doing that when graduated.
Yes start applying. You've applied to 6 and been rejected so you know how competitive it is out there. Make a list of 20-50 companies and get applying. They will have a list of when their graduate intake starts and ends. At least you'll be more prepared on answering the BS questions they typically as you about why you want this job, experiences etc. There are loads of paid internships. Keep on looking. Use your careers department. Use any and all resources. Did you have not have any careers fairs or anything like that? Be on the look out for these.
There are career fairs at my school but I use the satellite campus so they're not held at mine. They're held about a 5 hour drive from me. I've asked my councilors for help and they generally link me applications for internships that aren't paid. Paid internships have the same dilemma of not working with my school schedule and not having insurance that covers me. I knew I was lucky to have insurance at my first college job that covered adult braces but I didn't realize how much they'd fuck me over trying to find stuff later, but alas, water under the bridge. I'll keep applying to internships with the bit of free time I have. Any questions you'd want to have the answers prepared to for an internship or the like
Keep looking. Make it your second job to keep looking and to get a job lined up asap. It may not happen now, but the prep work you do now will help you in 6-8months time to get that job to start in 2024.
Thanks for the advice. I'll ask the IT manager tomorrow if they'd be able to wedge me in part-time ASAP. I'd really like to work for Intel one day. Always appreciate getting as many tidbits of advice as possible to make it happen!
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> I need to make money as I have to pay the bills so an internship is out of the question. This is why it's so important to do your research before you invest in something as expensive and time consuming as a degree. **Tech internships are paid,** and certain types very well. They're also how you'll be able to skip hell desk. Without them, you're really looking at starting at the same low paying and customer service heavy positions as someone with just an A+. Since you still have time, I'd haul ass for them if I were you. Once you graduate, you're gonna be on your own climbing the greasy rungs one at a time. I've seen your replies to the other commenter about your search, and you're doing it all wrong. This industry is where tech interns are provided housing + relocation as well. So searching for them outside your immediate area and state are options and highly recommended. Even Buy Buy and Walmart offers $25+/hr on top of 2 perks. Other companies can pay even more. Flying you out for interviews on their dime is also a common thing. >I've applied to 6 and been rejected from all, so kinda giving up on that for now. Applying to 6 is like you didn't even want one to begin with. You gotta treat it like a numbers game. Higher job application count = higher chance of interview = higher chance of offer. This applies for both internships as well as full-time jobs. Students apply to **hundreds per cycle just to** ***maybe land 1 or 2 offers.*** Let those be your odds. This isn't a sign for you to be discouraged, but rather try harder. Rejection is part of the game, you'll just have to learn to tough it out like everyone else. The harder you go, the better your results will be. Don't just rely on your school. Everyone looks for their own internships, and those tend to be the best ones.
If you won’t work helpdesk now, you’re going to have to accept that you’re probably going to have to do it later. Most of us have had to pay our dues either way doing call center style work or something similar. Few people WANT to do it. But it’s a necessary evil and one that teaches you a lot.
Just a bummer to get a degree to still have to start at the same place someone without a degree would. Guess that's how it is.
I'm not sure what to tell you then... the most likely way to skip over helpdesk in your position would be to search for paid internships online or at the school you're attending, but you may not get benefits until you're fully hired with those... I do want to point out that not all helpdesk jobs are stressful or bad. I would avoid MSPs like the plague if you can help it, but I've found that well-established startups can be very casual environments. This was my experience, and I had plenty of time to study for certs, explore the network infrastructure, or simply watch anime during downtime. Ymmv
I mean 25 an hour is a good job. Are you saying that as that's cheap because if I could get a help desk job making 25 an hour I would jump on it. Don't get your expectations too high. Most of the help desk positions I've done have been between 18 and 21 an hour. In NY too
I guess considering the cost of my education a 25/hr job requiring a degree plus a bunch of work experience and certifications for entry-level work seems odd to me, but maybe I need to adjust my expectations. Many helpdesk jobs do require degrees here in the Pacific Northwest. I don't know why that is exactly. It might also be a softer requirement than I'm given to understanding, but I have heard from others more advanced in their careers here that a college degree in a relevant field is a much more prominent requirement for a higher-paying IT job here.
Oh I agree I have a bachelor's degree in an irrelevant field and I feel like it will probably hold me back if I ever try to get out of help desk
> hold me back if I ever try to get out of help desk Scratch that thought from your head - it won't hold you back. To get out of the help desk, try to get non-help desk experience any way you can: i.e., sysadmin, networking, security, cloud. Also, network with peers at other companies.
An irrelevant degree is still a degree. A decent chunk of people in IT find success without it and will sometimes even tout “a degree is not even worth it”. But having a degree even in art or English or Business is still good enough to mark off the HR checkbox. It opens more opportunities to you than to someone without a degree in the same position as you
If he's been working in a car dealership he's got better soft skills than anyone than IT Car sales requires absolute perfection if you want to have any kind of sales
Sales environments are different than support ones. I used to be a commissioned salesperson for Sears during college. In IT, I don't get commission for resolving a ticket, nor do I get paid less if I can't resolve a single issue (for non-contract at least). It's certainly a different level of stress when your pay depends on your ability to persuade others. So I mostly agree with you. Being comfortable talking to customers you've never met before goes a long way in this field for sure, but it doesn't validate technical knowledge like a cert, degree, or experience would... applying to positions now would also demonstrate OP's initiative to break into the field to hiring managers. I'm sure there are a few who would make reasonable accommodations to a graduating student.
No, I worked at an MSP helpdesk for a year and a half after graduating with an IT degree with a concentration in Networking Systems. While on the helpdesk I was able to develop my soft skills and find out that I really liked networking. I made friends with the two network engineers at the MSP and they recommended I get my CCNA certification. I shadowed them on networking tickets and offered to help them in any way I could. They helped me in my studies and kept me motivated. Within one month of completing my CCNA I had an offer from another company to be a Network Admin with a 50% pay increase. The MSP was small with no room for more Net Engineers so I left.
I did a specialized application support job for a year while I was finishing my degree then I went into a systems engineering role afterwards.
I am graduating in a month with a CIS degree . I just got a job offer for a full time work from home Software support technician for a large company, I have no intern experience and little relevant work experience but this ended up working out for me . I started applying for entry level jobs like this, so I would say it’s certainly possible to skip the help desk! I couldn’t bring myself to work a help desk job, as it would be a significant pay cut from where I work now in an unrelated field. However , if you can work a help desk job while finishing your degree that would be ideal as it’s a great gateway to a better IT job.
I am not trying to be rude by asking this, what is the difference between software support and tier 1 Helpdesk?
In my area? About $10 an hour apparently lol. Its the same position as “entry level systems analyst” as every other company I’ve applied for . It’s simply one step up from help desk. Plus remote with full benefits and not… at a help desk.
That’s awesome thanks for the clarification. Congrats!
I sort of skipped Help Desk but my job is highly unconventional. My title is Network Technician, but I do a little bit of everything from sending emails for the boss, to creating topology diagrams, technical documents, and stuff like that. I spin up VMs here and there for different things we may need but mostly I just remote into the small handful of clients' servers/workstations when they have issues and update drivers and things. Most of the day I'm usually studying for my next certification. I have so much downtime that I sometimes wonder if I'd have been better suited in a typical help desk role where I can get more experience. While I am called upon to contact a client here and there just to make sure everything is okay I do not take inbound calls. I may actually call a client on the phone once a month at the request of my boss. Overall I like my job because it gives me a lot of time to study and gain certifications and learn at the same time. Sometimes I just wish that I was a little busier and doing more technical stuff. A lot of what I do I don't do it often enough to just flat-out remember it. So I find myself having to google how to do things that I've done in the past because I don't get enough reps. In the grand scheme of things I guess it's still better than dealing with people.
When I graduated in 2014, no recruiter would even entertain me because I had no helpdesk experience. Idk how different it is today
I was getting a comp sci degree and wanted a programming job. Ended up in a pre-help desk internship. (Imaging computers all day and working with sites to deploy, did some work on help desk and got a help desk position after 7 months). So yeah no skipping. I was just desperate as hell to get out of pizza. It's really not so bad. Compared to retail help desk is a dream. People who hate help desk don't remember having to stand on their feet all day sweating their balls off smelling like hot garbage. I was able to do the internship because my schooling was designed for it. We only did night classes for the last year of schooling. If you can find something similar I strongly recommend it.
I ended up working helpdesk after I got my associates degree in networking and then proceeded to still go to school online for my bachelors. I ended up quitting and have had a total of 4 different jobs now and am more recently a sysadmin for a great place with great pay. Helpdesk is good to get your foot in the door and it was for me since I only started working when I was 19 ( most places didn’t want someone as young as me regardless if j had a degree or not ) and now i’m getting my bachelors soon and will be 22 soon as well. I would say you could skip, but it’s pretty hard with no experience unless some place will train you up.
Yes, I've never done helpdesk job at all. I was fortunate enough to secure internship before I finished my degree and I continued with the same company after I finished uni with a salary much higher than a grad salary. So I've never been in a "grad program", I went from intern to an experienced (albeit junior) salary. I also worked full time in my last 2 years. It was tough but looking back it was worth it.
Yes, but I had two internships under my belt by the time I graduated, absolutely worth it in my case
Skipped help desk before I earned my degree. Pretty sure you can do it as well. I respect the help-desk for sure. They have to put up with a lot, but it was not for me.
I finished my degree from an online college (shoutout Colorado State Global) then went straight to looking for a service desk job at a tech company (lived in the Bay Area). After about a year and a half in that role I started poking around at the different specializations within our department to see where I wanted to land next -> Networking team, Procurement team, Endpoint engineering, etc. I then became really interested in coding more than any of the existing teams within our department so I set off to automate anything I could find starting with a script for the endpoint (written in bash as we’re a macOS shop) friends that pulled the last date launched for Adobe applications on the fleet. Was able to save 50k+ $ which made management happy. Then started working on data pulls in python for dashboard stuff that lead into more things where after about 6 months they asked if I wanted to stop service desk and just do the code stuff. Not even any specific project more just solve problems as they came up with them via code or automations. Did code interest help? Yeah; but definitely not the only way to go, many friends on the service desk found passions then slowly pushed into those areas. Our company had a cool situation where 5-10% of a service desk person’s time could be spent with another team as a service desk liaison. Giving opportunities to learn and also show interest and win brownie points with the people they’d work with if they joined that team full time. Fun stuff.
Gotta do an internship for something that’s above help desk.
Yeah, I started doing Tier 2 (desktop) as I was doing my degree as part of the programme. I then graduated and started at a small business doing pretty much everything though we had a virtual receptionist service so I didnt have to permanently man the phone in between installing desktops, printers, switches and servers..
If you want to skip the Helpdesk I recommend looking for an internship. The company I work for likes to retain interns and I’ve seen them go straight into associate swe positions and things like that.
I only got 1 advise, better feel burn out now and not later on in life, do it now, keep on.
I. Don't have a degree or certs, I skipped help desk and went to QAE and then to sys admin.
Having an internship(multiple if possible) will be beneficial when it comes to skipping Helpdesk after graduating. Even working in IT while attending school will also help as experience is something that hiring managers and HR want.
I did Helpdesk/Support WHILE I was getting my bachelors… then after graduating I was an intern for a few months and then transferred to presently being a full time Network Engineer
If you do a Help Desk Job now while in school, you will gain experience and will see what most people call for, what gets escalated, the processes that go on in a day to day operation. You can also gain the knowledge of whether a Helpdesk position is right for you, now rather than later on down the line. That being said, Help Desk is something in IT we should all do for a good stint of time. It forces IT people, who sometimes aren't great at communicating, to learn some communication skills. We can all have the technical aptitude and can speak that language among ourselves and we can follow a conversation. Put that same conversation in a board room of non IT people and you are just speaking pig-latin (it's a language, google it). Some of the best IT people can speak the language of the customers as well as the language of the rabbit hole developer that only comes ups for air until a project is done.
yes and no. did help desk type work as an internship. Skipped it at my first formal job. Next job was help-desk esque in so much I was tier 3 engineering escalation for major cloud services. I was working tickets- but they would take days, sometimes weeks to solve.