Okay, so you want a change of career and the bright lights of the servers have caught your eye. Perhaps what has actually done it is that you’re thinking it is a high paying role and a lot of techies also get to work from home. Where both statements can be true, the reality of working in the IT industry is very different, especially if you are just starting out.
In fact, my first gig was 1st line support, answering 80 calls/tickets per day, 5 days a week. All for the eye watering amount of £10,000 per year. I will add, that I was as an apprentice and it was about 15 years ago. I have no idea what an apprentice in the same role would get paid nowadays but the point remains the same, it is not all sunshine and rainbows.
As for working from home, it is hard to land a job at 1st line or as a service desk engineer where they let you work from home all week. Why? 1st Line Support are the front line, they are the face of IT and they have to deal with the walk-ups and IT inductions. Just to add, walk ups are the scourge of IT Support! It is actually where the name of this blog came from, countless times asking users to raise a ticket.
If I have not put you off by now and you are genuinely considering a switch of careers or perhaps you are just starting out, then I urge you to read on for my take on joining the dark side.
Customer Service Engineer
This might come as a shock but I honestly believe the 1st Line Support/service desk role is not all about knowing the tech. I will later on in this post detail what tech is important to know but customer service is king here. In fact, the role is essentially that of a customer service engineer. My reasoning goes back to the points made above. The 1st line support role is all about dealing with the end users, the first contact often lies with them. So the person who does the role, needs to be good with dealing with the end users, so that when they don’t know a technical answer, they can use their customer service skills to blag them some time, so they can then Google or ask a colleague the answer.
This is also important for “IT presence”, a term you will come to learn about later on in your career. Managers love having a good IT presence, it shows the worth of the team and helps with budgeting. It does not however help your cause when you want to work more from home, as you need IT presence in the office. That is a far too much office politics already, so the key takeaway is to know that your customer service skills are going to make you stand out.
The Technical Skills
So what technical skills do you need to couple with good customer service? In my opinion the below skills are the key ones to start learning, you don’t have to master them but know the basics of each function. I will describe them briefly, there are tons of great tutorials online to get you up to speed and develop your knowledge. I will also add that this is intended for a 1st line IT support role, based in a Windows environment.
Active Directory Users and Computers
As 1st line support, you will spend a lot of time within AD (Active Directory). The reason for this is because AD is where you will create new user accounts, create groups and disable user accounts. This is where you will also reset user’s passwords. You will handle a lot of these tickets!
Remote Desktop
Depending on the company setup, it is likely that you will need to use remote desktop to log into a server to perform admin actions, such as a password reset via AD. I won’t dive into the many methods of doing this exactly but just keep in mind that you will at some stage have to log into a server. To do so you will use Remote Desktop and either the hostname or IP address of the target server.
Domain Name System (DNS)
You will notice I reference a host name or IP address of a target server above. To put it in simple terms, the host name is just the name of a server. Very similar to how you would name your laptop or PC when first setting it up with Windows. DNS allows you to create a record, which pairs a hostname with an IP address.
File Storage and Permissions
Companies like to keep their files inside structured folders. These folders are often broken down by department. Companies also don’t like some departments having the ability to view each other’s files. So you need to know how to limit access to those folders, this is where AD groups come into it.
Basic Networking and Troubleshooting
Don’t overthink this. When a user complains about not being able to connect to the network, the possible issues are endless. However, the fix is usually simple. Check the cables, often an Ethernet clip has broken or the connection has come loose. Also, check which wireless network they are trying to connect to.
The best tip I can give here is learn how to read the output of ‘ipconfig /all’.
Conclusion
Jumping into the IT industry is great, there are so many possibilities and you can go on to specialise in so many different areas. However there is a gatekeeper, that is your first role. We have all been there and there are no shortcuts. The experience you pick up doing 1st line support is so valuable. This is where you do your learning, on the job. Don’t forget about your customer service skills, knowing how to communicate with your end users is just as important as knowing how to fix an issue.