Additional Information
Online help desk technicians need to combine technical knowledge with
people skills. Any kind of computer training and experience is helpful. Communication
skills and the ability to problem solve are also essential.
To prepare for this career, you can take computer and communications classes
at a community college, technical school or university.
Some colleges offer help desk certificate programs. Russ Gouveia is a professor
of computer and information science at one such college in Haverhill, Massachusetts.
"The people that we see go into the program and succeed really have communication
skills," says Gouveia. "One of the things that we look for is people who might
not traditionally think of technology careers but have good other sets of
skills, soft skills, that they're bringing to the situation."
Every company requires help desk technicians to be experts in their particular
products or services. This means that many companies are willing to train
applicants even if they have little related work experience.
"Most would think the first thing to look for is certification or education.
But I realized long ago that you can teach just about anyone how to troubleshoot
and fix computer problems," says Dan Slentz. He owns a tech support company
in Nevada.
"What is harder to teach is customer service and personality," says Slentz.
"So the first thing I look for in a technician is if they have good interpersonal
skills. Do they communicate well, and do they have a service mentality? Secondly,
I look at certifications or education, or at least their desire to pursue
those things.
"If technology is something that truly interests you, you will want to
explore every aspect of it. A certification or education shows that you are
truly interested in this field and want to learn more about it. And that means
you will want to be with our organization for a long time."
Many employees with formal computer training use their experience as help
desk technicians to move into higher paying computer jobs, like programming
or systems analysis.
"You'll start as a help desk technician and then as you learn more and
do well [then technicians are] promoted to engineers or supervisors," says
help desk technician Steven Sarkisian. "So the help desk is basically where
you'd start, but there's lots of room to grow from there."