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What are the requirements to get an entry level IT support job(aka first level aka service desk)?


winxpi

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Im struggling for years to get such a job. Recently I have given up on getting one.

Most likely I will do something very different.  

The IT branch is dead for me. Im sadly not the right guy for this, no certification no education ever was enough for the decision makers. And in 4 cases it was more problematically that I needed to either get a drivers license or the lunch time would be to short for my point of view or the job was also with direct customer contact (not real support on the line) or even front desk job with additional it support skills.

I do live how ever in a city that has very very good public service so besides transporting of equipment(or abroad missions) I cant really think of the obligatory demand for the drivers license /car.
Im an introverted and thats why direct customer contact and front desk are difficult to handle for me. 

I dont wanna talk about my education because I get these silly questions always at every job interview.  And you might know that its annoying over the time.

I had about 50 job interviews in 34 months (2 years 10 months).

Do have the feeling the lack of working experience is the main cause nobody hired me of the other over about 45 companies. 

I did get fired a few times in the first month in classical call center jobs that werent really IT specific.
Real hands-on experience in the IT branch was only one month, I reallly liked that job. But unluckily I wasnt the only guy hired. That was back in 2010 the first year after I "graduated".

So I did try on getting into support atleast for 2 periods. But the only jobs I could keep more than one months were basically clerk jobs (alot or Excel, Word, Outlook usage and a few telephone calls and helping the other employees with post letters and or e-mail stuff or changing databse entries over an formular(not with sql commands). This job I did about 2 years and never ever another one longer than this.

Anybody here with it support/1st level support/service desk or similiar experience?
How did you get into this job?
Im just asking and tried to get into this area because it was meant to be a job that was easier to get on the entry level and even career changers wetr welcomed once...

Programming jobs never really caught my interest but fixing problems that windows causes or office or sometimes even hardware troubleshooting were just "my element" when I did this the first time in 2010. But never got any second try.

So if anybody wants to share his/her experience, would be interesting to know.

I didnt want to give up on this dream but the circumstances demand a change since all other tries failed.

Edited by winxpi
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  • winxpi changed the title to What are the requirements to get an entry level IT support job(aka first level aka service desk)?

On 10/12/2017 at 5:39 PM, winxpi said:

Im struggling for years to get such a job. Recently I have given up on getting one.

Most likely I will do something very different.  

The IT branch is dead for me. Im sadly not the right guy for this, no certification no education ever was enough for the decision makers. And in 4 cases it was more problematically that I needed to either get a drivers license or the lunch time would be to short for my point of view or the job was also with direct customer contact (not real support on the line) or even front desk job with additional it support skills.

I do live how ever in a city that has very very good public service so besides transporting of equipment(or abroad missions) I cant really think of the obligatory demand for the drivers license /car.
Im an introverted and thats why direct customer contact and front desk are difficult to handle for me. 

I dont wanna talk about my education because I get these silly questions always at every job interview.  And you might know that its annoying over the time.

I had about 50 job interviews in 34 months (2 years 10 months).

Do have the feeling the lack of working experience is the main cause nobody hired me of the other over about 45 companies. 

I did get fired a few times in the first month in classical call center jobs that werent really IT specific.
Real hands-on experience in the IT branch was only one month, I reallly liked that job. But unluckily I wasnt the only guy hired. That was back in 2010 the first year after I "graduated".

So I did try on getting into support atleast for 2 periods. But the only jobs I could keep more than one months were basically clerk jobs (alot or Excel, Word, Outlook usage and a few telephone calls and helping the other employees with post letters and or e-mail stuff or changing databse entries over an formular(not with sql commands). This job I did about 2 years and never ever another one longer than this.

Anybody here with it support/1st level support/service desk or similiar experience?
How did you get into this job?
Im just asking and tried to get into this area because it was meant to be a job that was easier to get on the entry level and even career changers wetr welcomed once...

Programming jobs never really caught my interest but fixing problems that windows causes or office or sometimes even hardware troubleshooting were just "my element" when I did this the first time in 2010. But never got any second try.

So if anybody wants to share his/her experience, would be interesting to know.

I didnt want to give up on this dream but the circumstances demand a change since all other tries failed.

You got me curious.  Could you share your CV that you've been using the last 3 years and what these 50 job titles you applied for?

You can PM me if you prefer not to have this public.  Perhaps I can suggest some tips after analyzing all this.

 

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Sorry, but the country in which you are looking for the job might be a problem. Help desk is being commonly outsourced to cheaper countries. India has a reputation as a most common destination for such outsourcing, but here, in Poland, it's also easy to find such job. For much less money, of course. But hey, if you can speak English well, they wont even require you to know polish, probably.

Not to mention, that for some companies, that were founded with ethic on their banners, even here it is too expensive.

https://protonmail.com/careers#technical-support-specialist

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48 minutes ago, Mcinwwl said:

Sorry, but the country in which you are looking for the job might be a problem. Help desk is being commonly outsourced to cheaper countries. India has a reputation as a most common destination for such outsourcing, but here, in Poland, it's also easy to find such job. For much less money, of course. But hey, if you can speak English well, they wont even require you to know polish, probably.

Not to mention, that for some companies, that were founded with ethic on their banners, even here it is too expensive.

https://protonmail.com/careers#technical-support-specialist

This. :thumbup

OT, but not much, today's news here in Italy, a call center in Milan sent a letter to 64 employees (out of roughly 500) telling them that starting from the 3rd November they have to take service in the new call center in Calabria (that is in the extreme South of Italy, some 1000 Km distance), alternatively the employees need to resign.

These are low-wage operators, typically getting 600 €/month or so (most contracts are part-time), so there is no way they can afford the move.

Just for the record in Italy there is since a few years a Law that when you call via telephone a call center a recording must state whether the call will be transferred to an italian call center or to anywhere else.

Of course everything is routed via VOIP, etc, and there is no added cost to the caller if the call center is wherever abroad, but most people would simply hang when hearing the message, fearingto have to pay an extra.

The net result being that traffic to call centers and help desks abroad (typically for Italy they were in Albania or Tunisia, i.e. countries with lower wages where there is a certain amount of young people fluently speaking Italian) extra-UE went instantly to near zero and quite a few  of the companies operating in those countries folded operations.

Starting from this year, some additional restrictions were added, among them the caller should be able to ask, even when called, to talk with (be forwarded immediately to) a representative residing in Italy or in a UE country.   

jaclaz

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 14.10.2017 at 9:48 AM, 98SE said:

You got me curious.  Could you share your CV that you've been using the last 3 years and what these 50 job titles you applied for?

You can PM me if you prefer not to have this public.  Perhaps I can suggest some tips after analyzing all this.

 

I would have to translate it into english first. And offcourse remove the personal data (name, e-mail, mobile phone, birthdate, adress).

Also the CV tells less about a person than the so called "Letter of application" where Im from.

I cant give away such personal information and even if I would all I basically learned dates back to 2009, except for a CompTIA A plus 801/802 certficication.

I had a discussion with my grannie about unemployment recently. It really seems nobody in the world understands this whole thing if he/she always had work or just lost the job a few months or so. I wont argue with people that cant understand me because potential employers send you declining letters that go like this...

Quote

 

Dear Mr. XY,

we would like to thank you for the nice interview in the ***** *****. We were able to get a very good impression of their Person and their professional skills.

However, we regret to have to inform you that we have chosen, in spite of their interesting application for someone else.

In the end, it comes down to the selection of the suitable candidate on a variety of factors that lead to an overall impression that we only can estimate. With the large number of qualified applications is not like it is easy for us to make a decision and, therefore, this cancellation is not seen as a criticism of your own Person.

Best regards.

 

Was a job as a systemadministrator.

Feel thankfull for this info, I normally would only give away such personal info to friends or family.

And when your at the job interview they always asked a.) why uneymployed so long b.) why did you end your last job.

In my case it had to do with an national election, that rendered it impossible to continue the job that I held for over 2 years and was one of the most interesting I had to so far. Neither did I get fired nor did I resign from this position.

But lets say all people except psychologists really are not interested to look in the psyche of others they just understand when people are like them.

Its just like dating and finding love. If your a virgin with 30 your strange. And it your unemployed 4 years your a loser or strange.

And yeah the IT booms, for devlopers... not for every job it seems. I hate writing code, programming doesnt get the value it deserves.

When I did programm one time at the job I did over 2 years, people would always complain why things are not working like they should. And I take critics/complains VERY VERY VERY personal!

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Entry level IT phone job (call center, support desk) can usually be attained by having some sort of computer experience where you had to talk to end users. Degrees or certifications are usually not required (used to weed out the scrubs) because most places do not operate with "standard" technologies and will train all new hires to their specific software. In the US (in my experience at least) it is not even actually required to have computer support experience because you can get by with just call center knowledge in any such job. It is only if you know you can do it tho, or can convince an interviewer of it. If you work a phone job enough, you can see you could do any phone job.

A drawback on entry level IT positions is that an employer will typically not want to hire someone who has advance computer experience. For example, an AD Administrator could have trouble to be hired to a support job, because the employer can see the person is already more advanced in training. And because of this, they are wary of wasting the money to train and pay the person because (in their mind) they could easily leave for a better job. The only time where this isn't true is when the person has advanced experience in an "obsolete" field, such as mainframes or other such type computer jobs that are not common in the area.

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15 hours ago, winxpi said:

I would have to translate it into english first. And offcourse remove the personal data (name, e-mail, mobile phone, birthdate, adress).

Also the CV tells less about a person than the so called "Letter of application" where Im from.

I cant give away such personal information and even if I would all I basically learned dates back to 2009, except for a CompTIA A plus 801/802 certficication.

I had a discussion with my grannie about unemployment recently. It really seems nobody in the world understands this whole thing if he/she always had work or just lost the job a few months or so. I wont argue with people that cant understand me because potential employers send you declining letters that go like this...

Was a job as a systemadministrator.

Feel thankfull for this info, I normally would only give away such personal info to friends or family.

And when your at the job interview they always asked a.) why uneymployed so long b.) why did you end your last job.

In my case it had to do with an national election, that rendered it impossible to continue the job that I held for over 2 years and was one of the most interesting I had to so far. Neither did I get fired nor did I resign from this position.

But lets say all people except psychologists really are not interested to look in the psyche of others they just understand when people are like them.

Its just like dating and finding love. If your a virgin with 30 your strange. And it your unemployed 4 years your a loser or strange.

And yeah the IT booms, for devlopers... not for every job it seems. I hate writing code, programming doesnt get the value it deserves.

When I did programm one time at the job I did over 2 years, people would always complain why things are not working like they should. And I take critics/complains VERY VERY VERY personal!

I feel your pain but don't lose hope.

If you can share this "Letter of application" or if it's too personal to privately message it.  Maybe this could be improved as it sounds like this is their first impression of you.

Also these 50 Jobs you got interviews for can you list these job titles and description you were seeking in the order of application.

Did any of these have any callbacks for another meeting or phone call for a follow up interview?

Of the 50 Job interviews you got how many applications did you submit in total.  50 out of X?

 

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On 24.10.2017 at 6:00 PM, 98SE said:

I feel your pain but don't lose hope.

If you can share this "Letter of application" or if it's too personal to privately message it.  Maybe this could be improved as it sounds like this is their first impression of you.

Also these 50 Jobs you got interviews for can you list these job titles and description you were seeking in the order of application.

Did any of these have any callbacks for another meeting or phone call for a follow up interview?

Of the 50 Job interviews you got how many applications did you submit in total.  50 out of X?

 

Submit?!

What do you mean? 
I attended all of them. It were 59 after the last one that was recently. Maybe 4 of them I decided not to take the job since one of them was more a front desk/receptionist like work. And Im rather shy. These 59 interviews also include 2 jobs were I worked in a call-center and got fired in the first month. I dont count these jobs as IT however because it wasnt IT-specific rather the usual call-center stuff and maybe one time support for a  software. But I barely got more experience than the 8 days were we all learned the software and the neccessary background information about the job and has 2 days "Training on the job". I was lucky to get paid for a month. Another time I got fired this year after 5 days and I didnt even get to make a phone call. I always thought getting fired after 8 days and only getting paid that much is the worst, well until that happened with the 5 days. I hate it!

Btw.: I asked for feedback of the last company. I did only find out 2 other guys had more IT skills and also experience in the area the job was placed. 

Also I was told I could improve my "body language". SO its like I expected I get worse results than others also because of my body language.

I doubt that people never gave ma chance from day one on, if it was only about loopholes in the resume. And its clear that you cannot have 1-2 years IT hands-on experience if you just graduated. But If your nearly a decade out of education its clear they can expect at least 2 years or one year experience in the IT field.

Unluckily I never worked in IT longer than a months in service desk IT, and if you count up all it were barely 4 months. 2 months for a telecommunication company writing documentations. Another time I was 8 days in a rollup project before I got fired. That was in 2014.

The most experience in ICT and IT I gathered was between 2010 and 2011. And 2011 I was nearly 100% white-collar worker , besides one time were I programmed a feature for a webpage. Its not the experience the people expect. 

 

I know numbers may be intersting. But it doesnt really change a thing if you wrote 333 job applications for 49 interviews which would mean every 6th to 7th application brought an interview. That was for november 2016. In the mean time im at 428 and the interview count only rose to 59.

And there are some very few job applications I didnt count in. But the numbers dont change anything for me. I just wrote this all down to know how things are going. And I can see that the situation is getting worser every year. 

It just sucks that you here all these lies that the IT branch it booming and so on. Also I ask myself shouldnt they all now that IT people have other social skills than the "regulars". Everybody that saw a movie or tv series with atleast some IT expert should now that "we" rather seldom are the same like lets say a salesman. 

Edited by winxpi
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On 14.10.2017 at 3:21 PM, Mcinwwl said:

Sorry, but the country in which you are looking for the job might be a problem. Help desk is being commonly outsourced to cheaper countries. India has a reputation as a most common destination for such outsourcing, but here, in Poland, it's also easy to find such job. For much less money, of course. But hey, if you can speak English well, they wont even require you to know polish, probably.

Not to mention, that for some companies, that were founded with ethic on their banners, even here it is too expensive.

https://protonmail.com/careers#technical-support-specialist

That might be true. 4 years ago I had a job interview with a japanese company in IT. They searched for somebody that does "Dispatching" the description was "Service Desk Agent".  However they also told me that they have (I think) 24 hours service and there are colleges in Lodz (Poland). So without wanting to  be "prejudicing" it seems they cannot afford so many employees in some countries. 
 

Edited by winxpi
think=>thing
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On 24.10.2017 at 3:44 PM, Tripredacus said:

Entry level IT phone job (call center, support desk) can usually be attained by having some sort of computer experience where you had to talk to end users. Degrees or certifications are usually not required (used to weed out the scrubs) because most places do not operate with "standard" technologies and will train all new hires to their specific software. In the US (in my experience at least) it is not even actually required to have computer support experience because you can get by with just call center knowledge in any such job. It is only if you know you can do it tho, or can convince an interviewer of it. If you work a phone job enough, you can see you could do any phone job.

A drawback on entry level IT positions is that an employer will typically not want to hire someone who has advance computer experience. For example, an AD Administrator could have trouble to be hired to a support job, because the employer can see the person is already more advanced in training. And because of this, they are wary of wasting the money to train and pay the person because (in their mind) they could easily leave for a better job. The only time where this isn't true is when the person has advanced experience in an "obsolete" field, such as mainframes or other such type computer jobs that are not common in the area.

Thats interesting. I unluckily never got the famous lines to hear "your overqualified". But its still an interesting aspect to think about.

 

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2 hours ago, winxpi said:

Submit?!What do you mean? 

As in job applications sent in.  At least in the US you fill out an application on paper or do it online.

Have you read my private message to you?  That might help with the shyness.

You could also try some temp agencies where they a 3rd party company is like the middle man to getting you a job which could be part or full time.

How about interning at a company you are interested in working at?

Usually Non-Paid but at least it gets your foot in the door and maybe they will get to know you well enough underneath that they like you and not base their evaluation of you on the first impression?

As for overqualified I would have to look at the "Letter of application".  How do they judge your skills?  I would think the C.V. is the the closest equivalent to a résumé here.  Yes they could use this against you if they think you are too skilled if they are looking for someone trainable.

Have you ever considered any other fields of interest that may be as enjoyable?

The I.T. field I would think would be quite boring and something in the creative field might interest you.  Or doing something I.T. related but at a creative company.

Quote

I attended all of them. It were 59 after the last one that was recently. Maybe 4 of them I decided not to take the job since one of them was more a front desk/receptionist like work. And Im rather shy. These 59 interviews also include 2 jobs were I worked in a call-center and got fired in the first month. I dont count these jobs as IT however because it wasnt IT-specific rather the usual call-center stuff and maybe one time support for a  software. But I barely got more experience than the 8 days were we all learned the software and the neccessary background information about the job and has 2 days "Training on the job". I was lucky to get paid for a month. Another time I got fired this year after 5 days and I didnt even get to make a phone call. I always thought getting fired after 8 days and only getting paid that much is the worst, well until that happened with the 5 days. I hate it!

Btw.: I asked for feedback of the last company. I did only find out 2 other guys had more IT skills and also experience in the area the job was placed. 

Also I was told I could improve my "body language". SO its like I expected I get worse results than others also because of my body language.

I doubt that people never gave ma chance from day one on, if it was only about loopholes in the resume. And its clear that you cannot have 1-2 years IT hands-on experience if you just graduated. But If your nearly a decade out of education its clear they can expect at least 2 years or one year experience in the IT field.

Unluckily I never worked in IT longer than a months in service desk IT, and if you count up all it were barely 4 months. 2 months for a telecommunication company writing documentations. Another time I was 8 days in a rollup project before I got fired. That was in 2014.

The most experience in ICT and IT I gathered was between 2010 and 2011. And 2011 I was nearly 100% white-collar worker , besides one time were I programmed a feature for a webpage. Its not the experience the people expect. 

 

I know numbers may be intersting. But it doesnt really change a thing if you wrote 333 job applications for 49 interviews which would mean every 6th to 7th application brought an interview. That was for november 2016. In the mean time im at 428 and the interview count only rose to 59.

And there are some very few job applications I didnt count in. But the numbers dont change anything for me. I just wrote this all down to know how things are going. And I can see that the situation is getting worser every year. 

It just sucks that you here all these lies that the IT branch it booming and so on. Also I ask myself shouldnt they all now that IT people have other social skills than the "regulars". Everybody that saw a movie or tv series with atleast some IT expert should now that "we" rather seldom are the same like lets say a salesman. 

What was the body language issue?  What they did say you were doing with your body?

59 interviews out of 428 submitted applications is about a 14% success rate or close to 1 in 7.

Not too shabby.  I think in the the US it's like 1 in 20 in 2010 and that was before it got bad.  It was probably 1 in 50 towards the end of 2015.

Can you break down the types of job applications you applied into categories (for example were they all focused in I.T.? 99%) and which ones of those ended up getting you a job interview?  And of those job interviews which or of those got you a second follow up in person interview or a 2nd phone interview?

 

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23 hours ago, 98SE said:

As in job applications sent in.  At least in the US you fill out an application on paper or do it online.

Have you read my private message to you?  That might help with the shyness.

You could also try some temp agencies where they a 3rd party company is like the middle man to getting you a job which could be part or full time.

How about interning at a company you are interested in working at?

Usually Non-Paid but at least it gets your foot in the door and maybe they will get to know you well enough underneath that they like you and not base their evaluation of you on the first impression?

As for overqualified I would have to look at the "Letter of application".  How do they judge your skills?  I would think the C.V. is the the closest equivalent to a résumé here.  Yes they could use this against you if they think you are too skilled if they are looking for someone trainable.

Have you ever considered any other fields of interest that may be as enjoyable?

The I.T. field I would think would be quite boring and something in the creative field might interest you.  Or doing something I.T. related but at a creative company.

What was the body language issue?  What they did say you were doing with your body?

59 interviews out of 428 submitted applications is about a 14% success rate or close to 1 in 7.

Not too shabby.  I think in the the US it's like 1 in 20 in 2010 and that was before it got bad.  It was probably 1 in 50 towards the end of 2015.

Can you break down the types of job applications you applied into categories (for example were they all focused in I.T.? 99%) and which ones of those ended up getting you a job interview?  And of those job interviews which or of those got you a second follow up in person interview or a 2nd phone interview?

 

Sorry for not answering the whole questions.

No I never was into Adobe Photoshop, Cinema4D, Maya etc.

Im not skilled in creative stuff, althought being introverted, which sometimes is indeed an aspect that provides big creativity on the other side. 

 

And about the body language. I got an explanation, that I should ask "profesionals" to improve on my body-language. Seems they think Im not expressing myself the way I talk or that its not "synced". Meaning some people look unsure, but tell something they are totally sure of.
Im such a type. No hand-moving gestures, no fixating people with my eyes, theres barely any body-language involved in my rhetorics, thats mainly becuase of my shyness. In Japan this would be ok, but not in the Western world, where shyness is bad because "you got something to hide" xD.

Crazy. I even got into trouble because of my body-langauge a few times. Like buying chewing gum only in a supermarket, and immediately when I left the so called "supermarket cops/securities" made a "body-check". But ofcourse I didnt steal anything. Unluckily that was just a few months after a company fired me in the very first month. I was 22. So when people treat you bad you feel bad of yourself too sometimes. In my case that happened atleast.

And these people really love it to get on my nerves some times. I dont know why, sometimes people like the police stopped me when I was walking around on the pedestrian area at evening/night.

It really stopped me having fun like I did when I was younger.  

Its very sick what people expect from people just because of the personal appearance or body-language.

Edited by winxpi
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On 10/26/2017 at 3:23 AM, winxpi said:

That might be true. 4 years ago I had a job interview with a japanese company in IT. They searched for somebody that does "Dispatching" the description was "Service Desk Agent".  However they also told me that they have (I think) 24 hours service and there are colleges in Lodz (Poland). So without wanting to  be "prejudicing" it seems they cannot afford so many employees in some countries. 

Not to mention that Łódź is in Special economic zone (investors are getting a tax refund, or even donation to the investition), and contractors on a helpdesk might be paid below 500 Euro net for a full-time job, with the lowest possible tax per employee, with no retirement or heath payment towards national social fund.

Compare this to what you've been offered.

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That is my first full-time job salary ^^ And it is still slightly above country's minimal. And hey, you can be employed as a contractor, which allows employer to cut down your salary even more. Law enforces, that a contractor working full-time, after some time must get full-time job papers, but this can be mitigated by 'creative accountancy' like being employed by a third-party that keeps changing, or simply hoping no one form the gov. will notice. Not to mention gray area, which is a norm in some industries. Most inexperienced, physical workers at a construction site work with no papers.

 

And hey, there are even cheaper countries. Ukraine is just beyond the border, and there are always South American, Asian and African countries ^^

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_European_countries_by_minimum_wage

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