New College Graduate? Forced Career Change? Quest For A Better Salary In Rough Times?
Not a super glorious career move, but one that can set you up for a ‘foot in the door’ moment with big upward potential — consider the idea — of jumping head first into an IT Helpdesk position. (The bigger the company, the more room to grow, the better.)
If you’re asking yourself why you should start out at the [so-called] bottom of the IT food chain – here’s why:
Not only will you gain valuable experience in how the belly of an IT organization works, you have the chance to feel customer frustration first hand. Inherently this gives you a sharper and more wiser vantage point when climbing the IT support ladder — keeping you in the loop on how key solutions get implemented and ones that [if you tactfully propose to the right person] will win you a promotion.
On the Helpdesk you act as an interface between the next higher IT support tier and the customer — an ever expansive opportunity to develop your interpersonal skill set. –Ask a ton of questions to the nice IT systems administrator helping you out and she’ll most likely mentor you along. On the flip side — treat the customer nice and the kudos will flow steadily to your inbox. Your in a win-win situation now.
Hard charging Helpdesk staff have a tendency to morph their way into a lead position (i.e. Helpdesk Coordinator). Along with a move like this you could very well realize a nice jump in salary — some estimates say Helpdesk Coordinators currently pull down $45K and up – not too shabby for starting as low man on the totem pole. (Basic Helpdesk salary run anywhere between $30K and $40K — still not a bad salary bracket to launch from.)
Last and most important not to lose site of — if you’re a jobless graduate, now you have a job — if you’re in the middle of a forced career change, now you have stability — if you’re in search of better pay, now you have a salary ladder to climb.
Don’t knock the Helpdesk.
