How to get your foot in the door in tech support?

[yhelothar]

I have a friend who's really trying to get into tech support.. he's feeling kinda lost..

He got his A+, but he's still having trouble finding a job.

Can some of the techs chime in here how you got your foot in the door?

 

[LiuKangBakinPie]

Do you have a sledgehammer or a brick handy ?

 

[SillyOReilly]

Tell him he needs to learn how to drool.

 

[RavenSEAL]

Who you know is more important than what you know.

 

[alent1234]

Tell him to find something else. Between automation, better software, outsourcing and vdi the future is not bright

 

[LiuKangBakinPie]

I don't care if you ARE getting a PhD in it ! Get away from that damn computer and go find a woman

 

[Texashiker]

Does your friend have a cable modem provider in his area?

Cable providers usually have a high turn over rate - can be long hours and the pay aint that good, but the experience can be great.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Tech support is fairly easy to get into, and is a common way to get your food in the door of a company you want to move up in. It's fairly entry level, so they're not looking for someone that has a PHD or anything like that. If you show half decent skill and good attitude, it's a good chance.

 

[bobdole369]

It was the simplest job I ever had - HS diploma, fresh out of some navy school, guy asked me what program to run under windows 95 to check a modem, then how to check if the hard drive was bad, then it was "your hired, start on monday". People somehow failed that.

 

[xSauronx]

Who you know is more important than what you know.

this

i volunteered at a community college to help the network admin

he put me in touch with a friend of his who worked for a health system nearby, they needed interns

while there, i had a good friend in IT tell me about a position that opened at his company right before my internship ended, and im working there now.

ive got a few other friends in IT, and try to keep in touch with people ive worked with in the past in case something comes up

 

[shortylickens]

Who you know is more important than what you know.

This.

Social networking is the key.

 

[JulesMaximus]

Spill a coke on your computer?

 

[dr150]

Put a rubber gasket in the lock of that door.

....You didn't hear this from me!

 

[Fritzo]

Tell him to stop trying and get into development. IT is the world's worst job. You hear nothing but problems all day, and it's up to you to solve them. I've been in it for 20 years and am just now getting out of it.

Web and app developers are where's it's at now. They make good money, get to be creative, they're in demand, and it's satisfying work.

 

[Jeffg010]

I'm not sure where your friend lives but you need to head to big cities that is where most of the jobs are located. Once there hit all the big name companies and hope one bites. It takes 50 resumes to get one interview. You have be like a fungus and get your resume out there. Not only do you have to get your resume out there you have to find out who you need to contact at these places it not as easy as just turning in a resume and hope to get a phone call. You have to call these companies and get info on the happenings from other coworkers. See if you can get the people who work there to give up the info on who to contact. You got to be a fungus and keep contact with these companies. You really have to work at it.


Also go to places like Kelly temp service. That is where I started then got hire full time at the company I was temping at. if you are good at what you do they will take notice.
http://www.kellyservices.com/web/global/services/en/pages/index.html

 

[Jeffg010]

Tell him to stop trying and get into development. IT is the world's worst job. You hear nothing but problems all day, and it's up to you to solve them. I've been in it for 20 years and am just now getting out of it.

Web and app developers are where's it's at now. They make good money, get to be creative, they're in demand, and it's satisfying work.

To each his own. I started out in coding back in 99 because of Y2k and COBOL but got into support and love it much better. I could not stand looking at code all day. Looking at 5000 lines of code and trying to find where you might have mistyped a comma or whatever else is not my idea of fun. Most coders these days just maintain code and are not really creating something new. Even if they do get on a project to developed something new they end up supporting it with nothing else. Most companies will hire contractors to do the development work because it is much cheaper to hire high end developers for 3 to 6 months and not have to pay the benefits and much easy to get rid of then when done.

I would say the contractors are the ones getting most of the work these days to develop.

 

[dougp]

Ask your friend if this is what he wants:
Work with rapidly changing and evolving technology & systems.
Work with a team who enjoys what they do and seek to challenge each other solving problems as a team.
Work a 40-50 hour a week job with average pay and good benefits.

If this is his expectation, then he needs to realize what IT really is before he gets into it.

Companies don't evolve with technology, and for good reason. Don't be surprised if you work with software and server platforms that are 3+ years old.
Most people who are in IT didn't realize what it would be like, and are now determining that they want to find an escape and thus, they don't apply themselves to their job and they don't want to be there.
You're lucky if you work 40-50 hours a week, receive overtime and benefits such as 401k matching, decent vacation and bonuses.

Something else to realize:
To most, your represent cost - $$$$ - to the organization. You will be blamed when there's a problem, even if it isn't your fault and when there is success, you will not receive praise nor thanks as superiors take credit. As organizations change to utilize cost centers and internal charging for tech issues, some of this will change but a lot of the perception never goes away. You will be hated and loathed by users, and odds are they will talk bad about you when you're not around - or even in front of your face.

But he has to understand, what I've described is going away (somewhat) but will exist in major companies for quite some time. His best bet is to find a startup that is willing to take on someone with less experience for less pay, or he will need to go get contract positions to get the experience. Also, he needs to specialize - he needs to find his niche and then work it like there's no tomorrow. Virtualization is HUGE right now, and as VDI costs go down, so will the market of a VDI infrastructure along with clusters of VM hosts.

 

[yhelothar]

Thanks. Those are some invaluable perspectives and wisdom.
I'll share it with him and get back to you guys on his thoughts.

He lives in the LA area.

 

[cubby1223]

Companies don't evolve with technology, and for good reason. Don't be surprised if you work with software and server platforms that are 3+ years old.

Ha! I'm upgrading some computers for a company this weekend, and one of these, the hardware I am upgrading to is ~5 years old!

One thing that really annoys me is the "tech-whiz" from a competing company getting in the ear of someone I work for, promising him the world with cloud computing, google docs, online network storage, etc., and they can't ever deliver on their promises, because they don't care about the individual situation each business is in. But when he tries out the new guy while I'm telling him "no", and the new guy fails him, that is a client for life for me!

But yes, I too am trying to get out of the IT field, have a few startup businesses I'm doing work for, all I need is for one of them to take off...


At least there has been a resurgence in support as all the Dell Pentium 4 systems businesses bought in mass 8 years ago their capacitors finally going bad in mass

 

[dougp]

Ha! I'm upgrading some computers for a company this weekend, and one of these, the hardware I am upgrading to is ~5 years old!

I had a coworker complain that our SAM application was slowing a machine down. I went and actually looked at the specs and it's 15 years old running Win95.

I told him it was a requirement that we had to run the SAM application and he asked if there was a way to fix it or prevent it from causing problems. I told him to get a new machine ...

 

[Mike Gayner]

Why the hell would you want to do tech support?

 

[cubby1223]

Job recruiters push new guys into help desk jobs, as they usually have high turnover rate, could start getting you noticed by other people.

 

[Fritzo]

To each his own. I started out in coding back in 99 because of Y2k and COBOL but got into support and love it much better. I could not stand looking at code all day. Looking at 5000 lines of code and trying to find where you might have mistyped a comma or whatever else is not my idea of fun. Most coders these days just maintain code and are not really creating something new. Even if they do get on a project to developed something new they end up supporting it with nothing else. Most companies will hire contractors to do the development work because it is much cheaper to hire high end developers for 3 to 6 months and not have to pay the benefits and much easy to get rid of then when done.

I would say the contractors are the ones getting most of the work these days to develop.

I'm talking website development. Content creation, graphic design, database coding...all of these are in demand and they're great jobs. Web app design is also huge. I have a buddy at Verizon that makes all of the web control modules on their website (the sliders, buttons, etc), and he gets paid to find a new, cool way to display a person's data every couple of months.

I'm just saying, any position where you're on the receiving end of a problem to solve is going to burn you out after a few years. After a decade, you're going to become bitter and hate people.

 

[rudder]

Why the hell would you want to do tech support?

ditto.

The only reason I could think of is you get into the tech field and earn money in the tech field while studying for cisco certs. otherwise... Why the hell would you want to do tech support?

 

[ultimatebob]

I'm just saying, any position where you're on the receiving end of a problem to solve is going to burn you out after a few years. After a decade, you're going to become bitter and hate people.

There is great wisdom in this man's words. When you're working in tech support, you're treated like a glorified computer janitor... and we all know how respected the janitorial staff is in most offices.

Honestly, I'd tell your friend to get a job at his local Geek Squad at Best Buy. After dealing with the customers there for a few weeks, he'll be ready to pick a better career quickly!