Entry level IT jobs for an old guy

keyser666

scheming_gypsy wrote: »

For entry level IT, look at service desk jobs / contracts. You don't need whole lot of IT knowledge as it's mainly answering the phone and raising calls on the helpdesk software.
To be fair you don't actually need any IT knowledge for it as you're not doing any fixes. It gets your foot in the door, some IT on your CV and a grasp of what sort of area you should be looking to improve your IT knowledge in.
courses and degrees don't really do a lot for support jobs though, they look good on paper if the manager isn't technical but they don't actually help you in the job.

Disagree with this, the majority of roles require you to be able to have a FTF rate up in the 80s. By bringing in people that have no or minimal techincal knowledge then what is the point of them? They wont know what type of questions to ask, what information to gather and what is pertinent and what isnt. A company employing 10 call loggers with no IT knowledge will cost the company more in the long run as the calls will all be assigned to second line who cost more to employ and will be doing the majority of the work that the second line guys might as well answer and log the calls themselves.

CC-Warrior

Entry level role would be 1st line/helpdesk, usually carries a salary of anything between 16-20k.

Like a lot of industries it's difficult to get a foot in the door without the experience but it's not impossible.

A 1st line/helpdesk role could involve remote support/troubleshooting, and not necessarily just logging the call. Most people do this for a couple of years before moving up.

I don't really know which qualifications are current, maybe post on certforums.com and ask there.

Lots of people who are brand new to IT are taking contract work for not much money, but this is pushing the rates down for everyone else. You could do some helpdesk work and some rollout work which will get you on the ladder.

scheming_gypsy

agrinnall wrote: »

Yes, but how many of the over 40s started the job at that age with zero IT experience?

they still don't have a lot. They can do their role but that's only because they've been taught how to do that, in the job. I don't think any of them actually came into the roles with prior IT knowledge - which is why they're still on the service desk.

keyser666 wrote: »

Disagree with this, the majority of roles require you to be able to have a FTF rate up in the 80s. By bringing in people that have no or minimal techincal knowledge then what is the point of them? They wont know what type of questions to ask, what information to gather and what is pertinent and what isnt. A company employing 10 call loggers with no IT knowledge will cost the company more in the long run as the calls will all be assigned to second line who cost more to employ and will be doing the majority of the work that the second line guys might as well answer and log the calls themselves.

you can disagree all you want but I've worked in IT / Support for 22 years and speaking from my experiences. Service desk first time fixes are mainly password resets and basic AD changes / account creations, but a first time fix also includes warm transferring the call to second line.

keyser666

scheming_gypsy wrote: »

they still don't have a lot. They can do their role but that's only because they've been taught how to do that, in the job. I don't think any of them actually came into the roles with prior IT knowledge - which is why they're still on the service desk.



you can disagree all you want but I've worked in IT / Support for 22 years and speaking from my experiences. Service desk first time fixes are mainly password resets and basic AD changes / account creations, but a first time fix also includes warm transferring the call to second line.

Well I do disagree and as someone who has been in the field long enough and as a Enterprise Architect who runs my a consultancy business in Managed Services and am qualified in everything from Novell, M$ to Citrix and Cisco I too speak from experience

scheming_gypsy

Well we'll have to agree to disagree, but if first line staff could do the job of second line... they wouldn't be doing first line - which is the worst IT job going.

keyser666

scheming_gypsy wrote: »

Well we'll have to agree to disagree, but if first line staff could do the job of second line... they wouldn't be doing first line - which is the worst IT job going.

It is the most hardest job, wouldnt say it is the worst because I have worked with some people who love it, again some I know could do local 2nd line but choose not to. I am very surprised with some 20 years plus years in the field every first line is like that. Maybe you should try an investment bank or government department

scheming_gypsy

I've worked for quite a few large companies and they do seem to be like that. One (public sector) had a service desk that took calls for everything; IT, vending machines and even wheelchairs with flat tyres.
Only one job (contract) had FTF's set for first line, but then again they did run right to ITIL's code of practise for everything... Even then though the first line lot didn't have a huge skill set.
I think, it's possible, that all the places I've experienced it, just hire loggers and floggers to keep them off the phones. The higher your skill set the more chance you've got of fixing the call which results in longer call times, longer call queues, more missed calls and more people complaining.

First line probably isn't that bad, i've only done it once for three months and hated it. I found that because I'm second line upwards I was dealing with the call as a second line tech and fixing it rather than taking notes of the issue to log the call.

Caz3121

There are different types of desks depending what the client is trying to achieve. Onshore desks may be more 'log and flog' as the cost differential between a UK HD analyst and a UK deskside engineer may not be that great but in general from a SLA and cost perspective the shift to a high % first time fix/remote support is the optimum. With an offshore desk this could make a significant difference in costs

1000 deskside tickets a month
10% first time fix (if only password resets / user admin being performed at desk)
=900 per month for deskside engineers = approx 6-7 Full time engineers
1000 deskside tickets per month
80% first time fix = 200 for deskside engineers = approx 2 Full time engineers
The cost of additional helpdesk analysts to perform a higher FTF is a fraction of the costs of having additional onsite resources

OP - it is not impossible to change careers but you should try and get some experience behind you. I went into IT 15 years ago following a career change and have been involved in recruitment at times. Many years ago we were interviewing for IMAC engineers (Install, move, add and change) and had a stream of individuals troop in with MCSE certificates but no experience. Those with experience and no certificates were the preferred candidates

One tip; If you are going to be customer facing, attitude is really important - you can teach someone the techie stuff, you cannot teach someone attitude

keyser666

scheming_gypsy wrote: »

I've worked for quite a few large companies and they do seem to be like that. One (public sector) had a service desk that took calls for everything; IT, vending machines and even wheelchairs with flat tyres.
Only one job (contract) had FTF's set for first line, but then again they did run right to ITIL's code of practise for everything... Even then though the first line lot didn't have a huge skill set.
I think, it's possible, that all the places I've experienced it, just hire loggers and floggers to keep them off the phones. The higher your skill set the more chance you've got of fixing the call which results in longer call times, longer call queues, more missed calls and more people complaining.

First line probably isn't that bad, i've only done it once for three months and hated it. I found that because I'm second line upwards I was dealing with the call as a second line tech and fixing it rather than taking notes of the issue to log the call.

It all boils down to that fine line of SLA's all in all, think 50% of call logger and floogers and 50% reasonably tech seems to work.

Dont get why people are so rigid with adhering to ITIL, it is a framework after all. Does more harm than good working in a environment like that.

As for a Service-desk that dealt with everything, worked ina couple like that too, really do not get the point, some places think the service-desk should deal with all and sundry, I think it confuses things and puts responsibility on a IT team for things that should come under Facilities etc. IT teams do not get a good press as it is, most users think we sit there doing f-all until something occurs, they really dont know how proactive we are and how much in terms of forward thinking we are with projects and the likes. To bundle other responsibilities only makes that assumption even worse.

I do remember one time about 13 years ago I was doing second line and helping a user. I resolved the issue and left her desk and heard another user on the phone saying:

"Sorry I cannot send the document to you, I will get it over as soon as possible but our systems are down and we are waiting for IT" She put the phone down and I said, is everything ok? Everything is up and working, what issues are you having? She replied "Oh it's fine, I just havent done the document so was buying some time". I was livid but hey ho

scheming_gypsy

keyser666 wrote: »

It all boils down to that fine line of SLA's all in all, think 50% of call logger and floogers and 50% reasonably tech seems to work.

most of ours have some level of tech but not enough to do second line, although quite often it can be with individual IT based systems rather than the daily run of the mill support knowledge.

Dont get why people are so rigid with adhering to ITIL, it is a framework after all. Does more harm than good working in a environment like that.

Neither do I. A lot of companies seem to use it as a bible rather than a guide and some will want staff to be ITIL qualified but don't actually implement it.
IT departments should be ran the way it works for the individual company whether it's ITIL or their own made up way.

As for a Service-desk that dealt with everything, worked ina couple like that too, really do not get the point, some places think the service-desk should deal with all and sundry, I think it confuses things and puts responsibility on a IT team for things that should come under Facilities etc. IT teams do not get a good press as it is, most users think we sit there doing f-all until something occurs, they really dont know how proactive we are and how much in terms of forward thinking we are with projects and the likes. To bundle other responsibilities only makes that assumption even worse.

The place I encountered it was shocking. Service desk took all calls and there was a 'security team' who had pretty much just made themselves a job to annoy everybody else.
If somebody wanted access to a folder on the network, their line manager had to add details to a spreadsheet which then came back to us and we had to pass to the security team to give the ok. They'd also re-open calls if they felt like it - one one occasion I closed a call because the user said it wasn't really an issue and could just close it; they re-opened it as it wasn't good enough and we should fix the issue.

The place that did it by the ITIL book; they were a nightmare. If a manager needed access to somebody's email or personal driveit had to go to Wintel (offshore) but they'd reject it and send it back to second line. They'd reject calls where a user has left and their manager needed access to their work / emails, because they want us contact the user to authorise it. The fact the person had left the company or even died wasn't enough they'd want us to hunt the person down, drag them out of their new job (or grave) and get authorisation.
We could also pass them calls where applications that used IE would come up with a blank screen, and they'd want a screen shot....

I do remember one time about 13 years ago I was doing second line and helping a user. I resolved the issue and left her desk and heard another user on the phone saying:

"Sorry I cannot send the document to you, I will get it over as soon as possible but our systems are down and we are waiting for IT" She put the phone down and I said, is everything ok? Everything is up and working, what issues are you having? She replied "Oh it's fine, I just havent done the document so was buying some time". I was livid but hey ho

IT always get the s*itty end of the stick. We can close calls because we've called 10 times, left 6 voicemails and emailed four times without response. But then they'll phone up demanding the call is re-opened and then complain that we took two weeks to fix their problem.