Help Desk Technician: The First Step on Your IT Career Path

Desktop support specialists tend to make the most money working in the finance industry, where they earn an average salary of $53,933. In contrast, help desk engineers make the biggest average salary, $67,498, in the finance industry. Going from help desk representative to software development will require additional education. Help desk technicians belong to the occupational field of computer support specialists. The US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) projects 5 percent job growth for careers in this field between 2022 and 2032 [3].

If you want to start your career as a help desk engineer without much hassle, check out the list of schools where you’re sure to be accepted in no time. We compiled admissions rates, average SAT scores, average ACT scores, and average salary of students 6 years after graduation to uncover which were the easiest schools to get into for help desk engineers. Teeple emphasizes the importance of knowing how to support your team and your employer as you advance up the IT ladder—a skill that’s honed to perfection working as a help desk technician. You’ll learn how to view problems from the users’ perspectives and work effectively with a team. These are two skills that will prove invaluable in any higher-level IT position. In contrast, someone who is technically proficient but without experience in customer service should focus on building their communication skills.

Customer Service

These are the types of transferrable skills that will stick with you on your journey of climbing the corporate ladder in the IT industry. “Technical knowledge doesn’t always stay relevant, but the ability to quickly research and master new challenges will never go down in value,” explains Nick Teeple, co-founder of  Skyline Servers. That’s why we connected with IT professionals to find help desk engineer out just how valuable this experience is. Here are four ways working as a help desk technician can help prepare you for the IT career of your dreams. Whether you want to stay at the help desk or move on to a new role, you will need to develop all these characteristics. Learn more about the 10 qualities help desk technicians should have in this on-demand webinar hosted by ITPro.TV.

• At this level you are an influencer, trusted advisor and liaison between the decision makers and the administrators/engineers who will bring your design to life.
• You are a traffic cop, keeping things moving and fixing small things where you can.
• The courses in software development at Herzing University prepare you for this type of work and put you on the fast track to your next job in software development.
• An operating system acts as a link between the user and the hardware components.
• Also, being confident in both technical and non-technical skills will increase your ability to work well under pressure.

Information engineers assist end-users in resolving network issues, identifying the source of inconsistencies, and create resolution reports for reference to avoid reoccurrence. They also design new network systems according to business needs and client specifications, running multiple diagnostic tests to ensure effectiveness before the release of final deliverables. An information engineer should have excellent technical skills, as well as a strong command of programming languages and system codes.

Bottom of the Ladder:  Help Desk Technician

There is no obligation to enroll.This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. Adams explains that interdepartmental communication happens all the time in IT, particularly at companies where IT works together as a well-oiled machine. That cross pollination of sorts can be a ladder for you as you look to move forward in your career. Multitasking involves prioritizing your responsibilities and focusing intently on the task at hand without getting distracted. For example, the technician may be speaking with an individual who will lose a major sale if their issue is not quickly tended to.

Rasmussen University does not guarantee, approve, control, or specifically endorse the information or products available on websites linked to, and is not endorsed by website owners, authors and/or organizations referenced. Rasmussen University is accredited by the Higher Learning Commission, an institutional accreditation agency recognized by the U.S. You’ll discover as you develop your active listening skills that end users will tell you just about everything you need to know to solve their problem.

Help-Desk Support

You can also join relevant communities and forums to connect with other professionals in your industry. You can gain the qualifications you need to become a help desk technician with the following walkthrough. Information engineers typically earn higher educational levels compared to help desk engineers. Specifically, they’re 7.8% more likely to graduate with a Master’s Degree, and 0.3% more likely to earn a Doctoral Degree. By supporting your child while they experience hardships, you reassure them that they can bounce back from setbacks, Wallace said. When Stanley was rejected from so many schools, for example, Nan started advocating for more transparency from universities on their admissions decisions.

You can work on both simultaneously with a foundational online course like Google’s Technical Support Fundamentals. In general, senior infrastructure engineers hold similar degree levels compared to help desk engineers. Senior infrastructure engineers are 4.0% more likely to earn their Master’s Degree and 0.2% less likely to graduate with a Doctoral Degree. A media access control or simply MAC is a network policy that identifies or determines how the data is being transferred in two particular servers through a network cable. The purpose of a MAC protocol is to prevent network or technical issues and simplify transferring the information or data. Below we’ve compiled a list of the most critical help desk engineer skills.

Whereas help desk engineers have higher pay in the finance industry, with an average salary of $67,498. Help desk engineers and desk support technicians both require similar skills like “troubleshoot,” “help-desk support,” and “technical support” to carry out their responsibilities. Your experience and skills developed in a technical support role can be a springboard to a new career path in software development. Find a mentor that will help you understand the ins and outs of the technology that your organization is utilizing and sit in on any architecture or design meetings that you can. Take lots of notes and do your best to gain an expert level understanding of how the organization architected their infrastructure and also why they did. Time spent as a system or network administrator will be where you gain the bulk of your experience and knowledge of IT, and it will help you advance to more technically challenging roles later on in your career.