Desktop Support Career Guide and Counseling

Question: What's the next logical move up from a Desktop Support postion? I like working with pc's, but I have been doing desktop support for over 5 years, and I don't really enjoy it much. I was toying with the idea of learning SQL, but it sounds tough to break into with no experience. I figured my only options are networking or systems support positons. Thanks in advance!

Answer: Next logical move: Go back to school, get your degree in IT/IS and possibly go toward Network Admin, DBA, Programmer............ I went for programmer after 8 years of IT Help Desk

Question: How much to ask for when freelancing IT (Desktop Support)? I have a degree and a couple of years experience in desktop support. And a company thats looking to take me on asked how much I charge for freelancing my work. To give you an idea, full time emplyoment for the position was £26k a year. How much do I charge for freelancing? Bear in mind it doesnt include expenses. It is just purely for working.

Answer: It depends on you contract with them. Is this a long project or just a few day worth of work? Depends also on the kind work you're doing. I would charge $40 a trip out for an hour.. and $30 for additional hours. This would be for once in awhile task. I would definitely lower if it was a project or they scheduled more regular visits.. to like $20/hr.

Question: Where do I look to find desktop support jobs? I'm currently working desktop support for a company which contracts out its techs. Where should I look to find a new job directly with a company? (I don't want to be contracted!) And please don't say monster.com. Something that would actually get my resume seen would be nice! I'm in the Los Angeles area if that helps. Thanks!

Answer: Contact the companies directly that you want to work for. Most of them have web sites that you can apply for jobs directly. They are usually under "Careers" or "Jobs" under the corporate information tab on the site. If the company has no web site, find out their address and send your resume directly to them via US mail. Be sure and have a good cover letter that explains what you want to do. There are a lot of companies in the LA area, I am sure you can find jobs there.

Question: What program would you recommend for Remote Desktop Support? Preferably one with minimal port forwarding? A program that you can email someone and then they run so you can provide remote desktop support. Preferably one that minimizes the amount of port forwarding that have to play with. Thanks

Answer: My friends and I use Team Viewer 4 it is very light weight, and user friendly. http://www.teamviewer.com/index.aspx I really like it and I hope you pick it :) Have fun

Question: Should I take Microsoft Certified Desktop Support Technician now? I plan to take Microsoft Certified Desktop Support Technician for the certification. However, MCDST is based on the XP. Vista is now the in thing. So is it still wise for me to take MCDST now or should I wait till they switch to Vista?

Answer: Take it now - if you are ready. It is better to have a certification now, then to wait and hope to have one later - plus you'll have to start over re-studying.

Question: Can someone point me to a documented source for industry standards in Desktop support? What is the industry standard for PC's per Desktop Support position? No opinions please, just documented sources please. Thanks.

Answer: I'm not sure if I know what you mean? You can get a list of some of the hardware standards at http://www.IEEE.com and for protocols you can get them at http://www.rfc-editor.com.

Question: What is the career ladder for an IT Professional starting out in desktop support? I am about to start studying the CompTIA A+ certificate to get a job in 1st line support. after that I hope to progress to 2nd line support. What could my options be after that and what sort of doors will they open up for me?

Answer: One possible path may be: Start at 1st line support and show your efficiency by meeting business goals - satisfied customers, efficient call handling to reduce queue lengths, etc. Getting recognized as skillful at that level may be what gets you to a 2nd level support, where you can even show better that you are able to meet the business goals. From there, you probably have a chance of becoming a team leader and managing the call handling rather than taking all calls yourself. Proving you can provide efficiency will look good at this level, and that you can manage resources. From that you have showed leadership skills and business acumen, and you would then be eligible for many operations-based positions.

Question: what does IT desktop support do? Is it less work than web design? what does IT desktop support do? Is it less work than web design? What is their typical role within a corporation? What type of corporations hire these professionals?

Answer: Neither one is "less work" - both deal with customers - the people you're supporting, or the people deciding on what should go on the web site. Desktop support includes fixing computer problems, helping people with applications like Word and Excel and, sometimes it includes some network support (like familiarity with Exchange server, VLans, etc.) All sorts of companies hire support people these days - the company I work for has about 50 computers and 3 tech support people (in house - and a consulting company for "heavy lifting"). The company my wife works for has a network with about 50 servers and over 1,000 computers. Their tech support department has about 25 people in it, ranging from network people to teachers who teach new hires how to use MS Office the way the company needs it to be used. Web design also ranges all over the place. You don't want to be near my office when someone has promised a customer that a new function will go live on the web tomorrow, and I haven't even gotten the spec for the function yet. (I do some of my best work after 3 days of working at home with no time to blink, let alone glance toward the bedroom.) If you're looking for easy work, don't look at a computer-related job. :)

Question: The possible risks of using a vendor to support your desktop computers? What are the risk involved if you use a vendor to support your desktop computers in your company?

Answer: 1) Increased response time to trouble tickets. 2) Difficulty communicating with the support person on the telephone (language barriers). 3) Difficulty explaining the problem to the person on the other end of the telephone (non IT person has to accurately describe a technical problem) 4) Difficulty convincing the vendor that a particular problem is theirs to solve. 5) Decreased employee productivity. 6) Decreased employee job satisfaction. 7) Those IT personnel who aren't laid off will resent the fact that they are expected to (quickly) solve problems with desktop computers when there isn't time to force the vendor to honor their contract. This is exacerbated by the fact that the IT personnel who were most experienced with desktop support will be the ones who did get laid off. 8) Entire remaining IT staff updates their resumes...

Question: What is the best method of accessing someone's pc to provide desktop support with their approval? I've tried remote assistance in Windows XP but have never been able to make a connection. I think it might be a firewall issue but when I disable it the problem is the same. I'm open to any solution because I have numerous people requesting tech support and I would like to just take over their pc and resolve the issues while allowing them to see how I do it. I would prefer a "free" solution if possible. Thanks.

Answer: you could try netmeeting. it's microsoft based and free, but it's not as in depth as it could be. it works best intranet (in your own network).

Question: How can I tell if my desktop computer can support wireless? Do I need an add-on in the back of my computer to support wireless from a router? I'm new to wireless connections, I currently use a hard-wire but what to change it so I can move my desktop somewhere else in my home. Thanks!

Answer: you would have to have a wireless card installed in your desktop, you can look in the back and check if its a wireless card, it should have an antenna or you can also check by going to: start> right clik on my computer > propierties > hardware > device manager> and check fro the network adapters there you will find out if you have wireless ready or if you have to go buy a wireless adapter, and the options for this are usb adapters for wireless conections ( link: http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/products/Wireless_WiFi/productdetail.aspx?c=us&l=en&s=bsd&cs=04&sku=A0706919) or a new card from your desktop ( link : http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/products/Wireless_WiFi/productdetail.aspx?c=us&l=en&s=bsd&cs=04&sku=A0083917 ) Good luck *check the source link for extra help

Question: What is the difference between a Level II and a Level I Desktop Support Technician in computers? As in what makes the Level II better?

Answer: Honestly it depends on the limitations of the company you are dealing with. More Level I support specialist only deal with the basics, reset your pc, check connections, lights on, password issues, etc. Your Level II tends to deal with either a slightly more advanced issue, or a software issue. In the case that the company only goes to Level II support they would also handle any problem you have at all. However in a company that extends to Level III Support, the Level III support would be your last line of defense. If you have a problem that your Level III tech can not fix over the phone, then you have a serious issue that you would need to have the PC looked at by a service technician at the location.

Question: How many hard drives can an Intel Desktop Board D850gb support? I have an intel desktop board d850gb and I wanted to know if anyone knew how many hard drives it can support.

Answer: for IDE you already have one hard drive and one CD rom on one IDE port so you can go with 2 more IDE hard drives as long as you don't have another CD rom or hard drive installed IDE will support 2 one hard drive one cd rom two cd roms two hard drive or it could be set up as ide 0 for hard drive ide 1 for cd rom remember you'll have to set it up as master and slalve depending on how you set it up good luck

Question: How hard is it to work in Desktop support or a PC help desk? My bro said he thinks id be an ace at it and its not that hard....are the jobs in demand? Im good with computer I think,my bro said he might be able to get me job as an entry level worker in his PC department.....but he said I need to take a couple of semesters of classes first good idea?

Answer: If you're very good at customizing, manipulating, and troubleshooting basic computer and PC usage, you probably won't have much with basic PC support, although the more you know always makes you more valuable. It would also be really helpful if you understood at least basic networking and software usage, especially Office applications. Providing the technical expertise is not that difficult if you have the knowledge. The much more difficult part is the job itself and dealing with the people you provide the support to. Many times, you can get a request saying that something just doesn't work, and no other information and you have to track them down and go over everything back and forth just to figure out what they heck was the problem. You have to remember that many of your users will be very inexperienced and scared computer users so you have to be REALLY patient with them and not laugh in their faces or talk down to them when they do things so obviously stupid. Sometimes it can get really boring as you'll see people have the same problem over and over and over again and you have to be patient to explain everything to them over and over and over again. If you didn't catch the idea yet, part of tech support is customer service. You can provide support with just the technical duty, but you have to know how and be willing to deal with people if you don't want to eventually hate your job or they hate you. Tech support is very much in demand if you can provide can provide good service, and it's an excellent entry point into the IT field if you want to move up into other IT areas.

Question: How can I transition from Desktop Support to a Networking/Security career? I've been doing desktop troubleshooting and helpdesk work for about 5 years now, and I just got a job doing it for the State (responsible for about 25,000 users). However, the job seems to be a dead-end and i'm looking for advice on what would be the best way to cross-train my way to an overall IT management position (Preferably something along the lines of security, but i'll go where the 100k jobs are). Any ideas besides just getting my certs and hoping someone gives me a shot? Should I just stay with this new job and work towards management? Learn a few programming languages? Thanks. - Stressed out techie (Already have a B.S., thinking about getting an MBA with a focus on IT)

Answer: Well it sounds like you established a good career track in terms of starting in IT on help desk and now moving up, its a natural progression. Here's the approach I would take. Keep the state job for a six month period to build up your resume and point out how you have experience with large scale deployments. After this look into real industry respected Certs ( go here for more details: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyber_security_certification ) , prepare and Take them . The cert just says you know how to pass a test, but while your at your state job you can try and implement a few security ideas even better, all in an effort to bolster your resume in this area. Then when 6 months go by begin you job hunt for a security position, contact CTO's directly if you can, begin doing consulting work on the side. etc.. Write a how to blog or contribute to a well known site. All this is about building your brand.. From a technical perspective , you'll need to get a really strong handle on Networking (routers, Cisco, firewalls) , followed by a solid understanding of OS (Windows, Linux) , some knowledge of databases, etc. Not so much programming, security is really more about plugging holes , and most of that can be done using hardware and software configurations. Learning the ins and outs of those configuration settings (example appache httpd.conf file) is what does the trick.. good luck

Question: How much money are Desktop Support people in New York City making these days?

Answer: Many of the Desktop support jobs have been moved offshore.