Career in 1st Line support!

I've worked in a couple 1st/2nd line support roles and I'd echo others in that IT qualifications aren't required at this stage, employers are usually looking for good customer service experience, verbal communication, interest in the field and the ability to read and write.

The only qualification I have after 6 years is ITIL v3 foundation, it was having worked at Sainsbury's on my CV that got my foot in the door.

Just don't stay in the role too long, you'll end up becoming a bitter shell of your former self.
 
In your interviews just tell them that you're currently studying for CompTIA or whatever certs they're interested in.

Honestly, though, for a 1st line job a cert is a nice-to-have but not usually a pre-req.

Have you considered a grad scheme? The telco where I work employs grads, and we'd put you through training for any certs that you may need. You'd also move around the business a lot in your first couple of years so get to build up a lot of experience in a short space of time.
 
I have considered a grad scheme but haven't applied for any just yet. In all honesty, it's only been a week now that I've been focusing on updating my CV and really show off my experience. It's still early days just yet, and everyone's comments has really pointed me in a good direction and I'm really looking forward to landing myself a job within IT.
 
1st line is basically taking some details and passing it onto someone else to fix. It's not exactly a career but as people have said, it's a good stepping stone into an IT career if you have the enthusiasm and aptitude to learn.
 
After looking into the COMPTIA it seems like I pretty much know a lot already :)
Not bad after being self taught all these years and picked up on it all.

It seems like I could be a bit too over skilled for this job but heck, I need to get my foot through the door haha.

@murah how did you find these for £50, on their website it states £116
 
Under 25? might be worth chasing an apprenticeship in IT at a school/college for starts. Cement yourself in there, get hired.
Once you gained some experience you can move onto larger firms etc etc.
Only problem is the pay
 
Dunny774 said:
Under 25? might be worth chasing an apprenticeship in IT at a school/college for starts. Cement yourself in there, get hired.
Once you gained some experience you can move onto larger firms etc etc.
Only problem is the pay
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Your right the pay is terrible in education

£13k for a Junior IT Tech
£15-18k for an IT Tech
£18-24k For Senior IT Tech <-- Hai that's me. Doing Certs now :)
24-32k for a Network manager with ALL THE CERTS and many years exp
35K+ for someone who's been there for 20+ Years lol
 
Diagro said:
Your right the pay is terrible in education

£13k for a Junior IT Tech
£15-18k for an IT Tech
£18-24k For Senior IT Tech <-- Hai that's me. Doing Certs now :)
24-32k for a Network manager with ALL THE CERTS and many years exp
35K+ for someone who's been there for 20+ Years lol
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That's about right from my experience as well. You will often get other benefits from working in a school (such as shorter working hours during school holidays), but each individual needs to decide whether the benefits are worth the reduction in pay compared to normal businesses. When I left working in a school I ended up with a near £10k pay increase for a very similar role. The extra pay is great but I definitely miss leaving early during the holidays!
 
sreeve1993 said:
I'm very eager to get into a career with IT as I'm passionate about it and I enjoy it. The career I want to take is 1st line support, I have all experience at the moment
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Hi Stevan

What experience do you have? When I wanted to move from networking to desktop support agencies weren't too interested what IT skills I had, they wanted to know what experience I had working with people.

I would have thought the same would be true for 1st line support as you'll spend most of your time talking to people. On the job training should give you any technical skills you'll need which will mostly be around the call logging system and remote support tools.

Most of the 1st line teams I worked around had no idea about computer hardware or OS installation. It was just password resets and some AD admin. Anything else would go to 2nd line.

I would contact more agencies and try to get yourself on a 3 month contract. The service desks have a high turnover and I doubt they look for anyone too technical as they know if you are you won't stay around for long.

Also try and get yourself on to a Windows upgrade project. You won't be expected to know much, just follow some simple instructions. If you know more than you should you might get asked to cover 2nd line when they are short. A good way to build up experience.
 
sreeve1993 said:
Hello,

I'm hoping if someone can help me with this obstacle I've encountered.
Anyway, I'm very eager to get into a career with IT as I'm passionate about it and I enjoy it. The career I want to take is 1st line support, I have all experience at the moment but I've been told by an IT Recruitment agency that I'm being held back by not having COMPtia and COMPtia network and Windows 7 certificates. To get into this career pretty much every job requires these and it's the things I don't have.
Anyway they are trying to sell me an online course which is like £395. Is it a bit of a scam? Is there anyway to get these? Any guidance will help me :)

Stevan
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Only a tiny portion of our 1st line guys have these. It being mandatory is entirely up the employer and its not universal. I certainly didn't when I got started in 1st line support (although this was 10 years ago !)

They're trying to sell you the course to make the money. See how yo get on without before taking them up on the offer.
 
Hi Mujja,

I have no experience in the IT field, I'm not sure why "all" was written. I do have strong customer service skills as I've been working 3 years at TOPMAN fashion store. The job is very demanding on customer service.

How would one find a Windows upgrade project?
 
sreeve1993 said:
Hi Mujja,

I have no experience in the IT field, I'm not sure why "all" was written. I do have strong customer service skills as I've been working 3 years at TOPMAN fashion store. The job is very demanding on customer service.

How would one find a Windows upgrade project?
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have you been told where to look apart from Recruitment agencies ?

my go tos are:

www.reed.co.uk
www.indeed.co.uk
www.cwjobs.co.uk
www.jobserve.com

You can also try LinkedIn although not very comprehensive. Recruit agencies are usually horrendous and I'd much prefer a job where I get to apply to the company direct.

Don't let the lack of experience get you down. I was in exactly the same position as you 10 years ago when I came out of working in call centres.You just need somebody to like you at interview, and decide to take a chance on you. Once you've got that first job and experience, its plain sailing from there.

Concentrate on your interview technique and coming across as interested, willing to learn, and don't be afraid to play the sympathy card that you just want somebody to give you that first rung on the ladder and let you show what you're made of. I remember doing exactly this, got let down a few times by people who insisted on the experience, until I got sat in front of somebody who liked me and said he wanted to give me a chance.

Just keep applying and it will come :)
 
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I started in IT Support 9 years ago with only my home knowledge of building PC's and fixing family members PC's. Once i started working in support i realise dhow little i knew. Active Directory (Which will pretty much be your world in support) was completely alien to me and it took a couple of months to get my bearings. However once i did it all started to click in to place. You learn how to fix the things that always come up, the password resets, account creations and by about a year you can pretty much tackle most things people throw at you passing minimal issues to the next line. After a year or two it can get a bit monotenous... You will be gagging to do new things and take on projects. You realise that there are just callers/customers/co workers that cant be saved and that the things you tell them, they will forget. You will discover that there are people in the world that can go to lunch and forget their password by the time they come back; repeatedly... By year 3 at the latest you will want a new challenge. In my case, i had already started working with servers and the opportunity to get hold of our Citrix environment popped up so i took it. I got some qualifications: CCA CCAA etc and now i run our Citrix environment across Europe and handle upgrades/issues/maintenance/new apps and anything else that may be required. I've been doing that for the last 6 years aswell as doing projects and helping to look after our europen vmware environments and storage arrays. (Netapp and 3Par) I was promoted to data centre supervisor a year ago and my job now involves looking after our UK DC's and Colo locations aswell as all of our European licencing. I have also been tasked with getting our main data centre ISO27001 compliant. I still do the Citrix, vmware and storage stuff but it gets a lot less of my time.

I guess what my long winded post is saying is, the support desk is a stepping stone and there ar many more fun places you can go afterwards. :) You will also see along the way who is capable of leaving the helpdesk and who isnt. I've overtaken a few people on the way and they didnt take it too well... However thats down to them and not you.

I will say however that the communication skills are one of the biggest parts of the job. Being IT you naturally get a lot of stereotypical nerds who arent brilliant at talking to people. Even if they are more technical than you, you will probably surpass them by being able to actually to talk to people.

Oh, and Google is your friend. You can guarantee whatever problem you have, someone has had it before. ;) Good luck!
 
Just noticed your other CV thread and thought i would comment here.

Have you had a look into some other routes into IT? E.g. Grad schemes, be that at a 'recognised' IT company or say a bank...all of which will use your customer services skills and your brain much better.

I appreciate you're trying to get in the door, but personally 1st line isnt something i would look to do that with.
 
Hello tlrbeta, I hav looked into some grad schemes but noticed they mostly want people who have degrees in IT, but I suppose it doesn't stop me from applying. Maybe get out my comfort zone and stop getting myself down.

I do feel I'm a bit better than first line as in quite technical. Been self taught since of age 16. But atn getting my foot through the door is key :). I haven't thought about banks, I'm mostly looking at what is available on the websites I've signed up too
 
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