Help desk positions and their pay?

[Busie23]

Does anyone have any info to offer on entry level help desk positions in a small to medium sized business (200 employees), in a big city. Salary.com has a "Help desk support" position listed but the average salary is $40k. I kinda think that is maybe high, but I'm looking for some real life examples from some members on here who can help me out.
I'm making $15 and hour now but that is just until we negotiate my salary. That comes out to about $31k/yr and I was hoping to get somewhere around $39k or $19/hr. Is that too big of a jump to ask for or would that be reasonable considering I started off at $15/hr because I was kinda doing it as an internship/part-time job thing.
My boss said as soon as I go fulltime we were going to negotiate my salary. Now I'm working fulltime and am having a hard time figuring out what to ask for. Any input would be splendid!

Thanks,

Busie23

 

[brtspears2]

Helpdesk is concidered a lower skilled computer tech job. With most low skilled service jobs, pay is low. Depending on your experience, you can command from $30k - $40k if you are lucky.

 

[Freejack2]

Depends on the area. Upstate New York is low 20's.

 

[vi edit]

Be sure to take benefits into consideration. If you go full time and start recieving benefits, they could easily count as $10,000+ in compensation assuming you get good health, dental, optical, and 401k plans.

As for the actual pay of a help desk employee, unless you are on the coast, in a very high standard of living area, you'd be VERY hard up to make more than 40k a year. And that would be at a senior help desk level position.

Starting out - probably low to mid 20's.

 

[Shelly21]

About 28k to 35k , First level to second level....

 

[CrazyDe1]

I knew 2 guys doing support makin 90k at a pretty large company(25k employees) that and everyone works virtual office at the company so theres lots of problems...but they're called "asset management team" instead of tech support
Also, at xilinx they have like 30 people doing tech support for fpga's and they get 60k a year...but the thing w/ that help desk isyou actually have a skill, and it's not just a set text...you can't look your answers up on the internet..you actually have to understand their products and what the client needs and all that crap...

 

[CrazyDe1]

Oh yeah, I also know 2 companies, one of which paid 16.50 an hour and the other 22 an hour for interns to do help desk support...

 

[abc]

also the industry for which you are dispensing desktop support for also influences the pay level. generally for banks with trading floor for instance the pay can be higher... obviously because the demands are generally greater and the pressure to resolve problems based on time efficiency are more evident.

 

[dquan97]

last year, I got $19/hr doing help desk in Davis for a very small company (5 people). No benefits though.

 

[Busie23]

Looks like I have received a lot of good input. I guess I can consider myself pretty lucky, as the demands are few and far between and it's a very relaxed enviroment. Not to metion that the benefits package is pretty decent.

I guess I'm even more confused as to what I should ask for or if I should even ask now. I know my boss definitely said we could negotiate my salary, and I thougt for sure that it would be an easy thing to figure out after I worked there for a while but I feel like I'm in a really tough position now. If I ask for more money and I'am way off base then who knows how they will react. If I don't ask, then I'm shooting myself in the foot and locking my pay in for a year.

Another point to consider is that I will be graduating in December. Can that justify a pay raise or am I thinking completely wrong here? At this point I have no idea what I want to say to my boss on Monday. How do I even bring this up now that I think about it? Is there any safe way to go about this? Keep in mind that this is my first real job and I have never had to do anything like this.

Oh, and its not really just help desk. We use a lot of specialized programs as well as the standard MS products, etc. And I'm doing a small amount of admin work as well. Setting up new users in Novell, transfering over from a novell server to an NT server, and all kinds of other small tasks. And essentially I'm learning everything on the fly.

Thanks,

Busie23

 

[BooneRebel]

$30K/yr for a starting salary isn't bad, especially in the current economy.

However, if you're working as more of a technician than a helpdesk rep you can push for more. Since you are also graduating, I think that asking for $40K/yr from your current $15/hr base is reasonable. Take into account any benefits offered (be sure to ask) - vacation, medical, dental, 401K/retirement savings, etc. You're still new at this but you also may want to ask about any possible bonuses. When negotiating, be sure that the salary makes up for any overtime you lose at your current $15/hr. Ask for 40, they offer 30, you settle somewhere in the 34-36 range.

You may end up with 'partial' salary now, with a raise effective when you graduate. Or they may want to wait until you do graduate before doing anything. If this ends up being the case, you can always ask that it be retroactive.

Be patient, it's been my experience that the process can take a month or more. Remember, it's your life. You're working because you need the money. You don't risk much by asking, and you won't get anything if you don't. Good luck, let us know how it turns out.

 

[Busie23]

Well the good news is that I had a good plan of action on what I was going to do this morning when I went in, but I ended up having to stop at one of our other locations and didn't get back to the main office until after my boss was already gone for the day. The bad news is that I just convinced myself that maybe I shouldn't ask for what I was originally thinking. I don't know why this is so hard? I guess its because my boss is somewhat intimidating. I just see my self going in there and making an ass of myself by asking for a ridiculous pay or something!

Busie23

 

[d0ofy]

40K defintely isn't unreasonable. I just earned my degree this past May, and my first job out of college is paying upper 40's for typical help desk work. This doesn't even include all the incentive compensation and benefit plans.
Just ask your boss what he thinks your worth, then add 6K to that, and explain to him why you're worth that extra $$. The wage he says is just a starting point, not a non-negotiable one.