Whats it like in 1st line/helpdesk support?

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Cor blimey m8 no reply?
After all, who am I to talk down to a Microsoft specialist???

 

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The point is, you can't just step into a network administrator position without experience - not when there are highly experienced people available who can do that job. Most people work their way up through entry-level, desktop support, and server administration before they become network administrators... so you're aiming about three steps too high for your first step up the IT career ladder.

Without that entry-level and desktop support IT experience, the overwhelming majority of companies aren't going to let you loose on their servers and networks. It may not make much sense to you right now, but you'll have to trust us on that... some of us here have been in IT a long time, and we understand how to get from "there to here".

 

What a load of dribble.

1st Line do fix and diagnose hardware problems, and no 2nd Line do not exclusively fix hardware issues.

Alot of the time no one does, as you have to do the maths!

Is it cheaper to send a new imaged box for just over £100 or send an engineer down, with salary costs, pension costs, holiday costs, car costs, fuel costs?

 

Sorry, I also read that post and laughed- and I've not even been in IT that long. Your skills might be tailored towards hardware support, but it doesn't mean you should stay away from "software support". As BosonMichael said, you're not going to be given a Network Administrator or 2nd line suppot without any prior experience.
Unfortunately, this means you have to either work on 1st line support or a similar job- such as field engineer's or PC repairs.

If 1st line support was more of a "memory test" and "mostly scripted" they could hire anyone to do the work- that wouldn't explain why it's so hard to get the work though? I've only been doing 1st line for 5 months, but none of the work I do is scripted and it's only the occasional thing I can do from memory- like configuring Outlook or resetting passwords.

 

What I'm trying to say is that, there are plenty of entry level jobs, and you shouldn't have to plump for a telephone job if thats not what you want to do. I understand fully that I have absolutely no chance of walking into a Net Admin or managerial job, with out the relevant experience. I did my homework before taking the exams and knew exactly which route I wanted to take.
Before spending hundreds on the wrong Cert, its a good idea to find out what you like and what you can do.
It would drive me completely crackers sat behind a phone all day long.
The A+ is, non vendor specific and does give you the option of three different career paths.

 

I've never worked on 1st line as I was lucky enough to start at 2nd line support but I wouldn't say 2nd line have more knowledge just a different set of skills. Our 1st line at work who have all been made redundant are very good at their jobs but the call center who are taking over them are as useful as a chocolate teapot.

 

I'll agree that there are some very bad 1st line support desks out there who read off a script and don't have a clue. There are also some very good ones as well who are skilled in their own right and do know what they are doing. In most areas of IT you will find this. I spent a couple of months with a 1st line desk for a contract I was doing at the time and until I did that I probably thought the same as you but 1st line is a very difficult job to do well. I personally wouldn't do 1st line as I hate being stuck at a desk all day and also possibly cause I don't have the skills to make a good 1st line techie.

 

this is the way it is taught in both the A+ and the mcdst that 2nd line are more knowledgable than 1st line.And have been around longer in the job with more work experience,surely 1st line always try to reach the position of 2nd line after they have been in the company for 6 months to one year?

It's done something like this
1st Line = Call logging the initial incident accurately capturing all information
2nd Line = initially dealing with the logged calls passed from 1st line according to severity and SLA's
3rd Line = Escalated from 2nd line due to complexity, or skills & resources required to resolve

the A+ by itself is only enough for a 1st line job.this is a beginners course remember,with complete amateurs with no pc experience in some cases taking part.Some people have experience going into the A+ but some are clueless.

Even talking about the jobs we see here while talking about 1st line work we see that the A+ by itself isn't enough,and that you also need the mcdst just to be working properly in 1st line.

There is no outlook express or microsoft office troubleshooting in the A+.

 

Firstly, they are completely seperate jobs and not to be confused. 1st line is mainly software based, and 2nd line is mainly hardware based, with a little from the other column. Of course having an ECDL,MCDST would be handy if you worked in 1st line because it is mainly software based......

See previous post, as quoted from Comptia website

I'm sorry but I disagree. A+ is a level three qualification, or equal to an A'Level qualification and gives the equivilent experience of seven or nine months in the IT industry. Not sure the exact scale. But by no means a beginers course.

A+ Certification is non vendor specific, you don't have to know about Outlook or Office, because you are taught about all operating systems. Thats why there are other certifications you can take for Outlook and office.

Here is the thing. Alot of people see Comptia qualifications as lowly because they are not specific to the Microsoft OS. That and the fact that the A+ has been given a bad rep from these two week brain dump courses, run by Circo Training.

 

Ken, posted information on different IT levels which are as follows:

Level 1 of the NQF
IC3 (certiport)

Level 2 of the NQF
A+
MOS (specialist)/MCAS
MCDST

Level 3 of the NQF
CCNA (Cisco)
Network+ (Comptia)
Security+ (Comptia)
Linux+ (Comptia)
Server+ (Comptia)
MOS (expert)

Level 4 of the NQF
Project+ (Comptia)
MCSE*

The link can be found here

The Comptia A+ certification is seen as entry level, the same as the MCDST.

 

Fella - please don't take this the wrong way, it's not intended as a flame, is not designed to provoke you into a reaction, and certainly isn't a post for the glorification of my ego.

However, it is clear from the posts you've made that you have very little (if any) idea of what working in IT entails (at any level). The sort of job you are talking about (one that involves sitting in a chair and reading from a script) has nothing to do with IT. Some people will tell you they work in 'first line support' in a role similar to this - what they are actually doing is working in a call-centre. You need to put those jobs out of your mind as having anything to do with IT - but it is sadly exactly this sort of job you need to be aiming at to get a foot in the door, and here's why.

Unfortunately, without some prior experience, hardly anyone is going to hire you to actually use your brain in IT - as this generally involves (at desktop support level anyway) you touching PCs whilst someone is using them. Your previous work history as a bricklayer is hardly likely to convince someone to give you the opportunity (despite your A+ certification) to be let loose on thier workforce's machines without having some proof that you know ahat you're doing (sadly, the A+ does not provide that). The vast majority of your work as a 'real' first line support technician will be logging calls, maintaining accurate records of work completed on those calls and dealing with customers (be that the general public, or your user community). A year of tedium in a call centre on 'script reading' duties will give you experience you can point to, and have the added bonus of being a relatively steady income (I'm, sure as an ex-bricklayer you will appreciate how important that is in this current economic climate)

You should get out of your head the fact that you will be 'fixing' things at all in first line. Since the A+ was conceived, things have changed considerably in the IT world. For instance, whereas before you might have been expected to visit a user's desk, pop the case on their PC and run some diagnostics to see whether their CPU was overheating because of a fan failure, fit a new hard drive, upgrade the RAM or troubleshoot a bluescreen, now, more often than not, you will simply replace the entire box or reimage it - as its usually more cost-effective and definitely quicker to do that than sod around trying to 'fix' the problem.

Don't think for a moment that you will be somehow 'special' when you pass the A+. An employer won't see it that way - you need to be able to demonstrate that you are capable of holding down a job in extremely boring situations, can record detail accurately and consistently, and have the necessary 'soft' skills to perform your duties. Believe me, as an ex roofer, I know these are not skills that are readily gained on building sites

PS: Although it can't be mapped across properly, I would estimate that the A+ is the educational equivalent of a GCSE

 

I view the whole thing completely differently from you,i am not fooling myself that the A+ is a gateway to great jobs,i'm fairly realistic,it's line 1 standard nothing more.

They don't give you enough skills in the A+ to walk into a skilled job and repair everything in sight,you might just manage it if you have years of experience already behind you combined with the A+.

Seriously,a few people doing the A+ that i saw i wouldn't let near a computer to repair it as they didn't have a clue.
You'd actually have to check that the computer still worked after they had touched it.And it was the simplest tasks they didn't know how to do.

If you look round the web about comptia a+ you'll read that it is a beginners course,if you look at any college teaching the subject it is listed as a beginners course.

It helps to have experience,but chapter one tells you what a floppy drive is for example,the knowledge is quite basic to begin with.

 

Crashed and burned..... A+ Level 2 Net+ level 3 Me Bad.
Surely you can see what I have tried to explain about the two jobs being of different back grounds though. It would be like asking a bike mechanic to fix a car.
I was never under the illusion that I would get anything other than an entry level job to start with.
My appologies if I came across as being aggressive in any way.

 

Agreed. Take whatever qualifies as IT experience. Once in the industry, then you can start being picky. I started on Servicedesk. Now Im a software developer. Did I enjoy servicedesk? not particularly. It had its good moments, but many more bad than good. But without it, theres no way I would be where I am today. Not a chance.

Oh, and for the record, 2nd line is whatever a company makes it. Our 2nd line (before they abolished it) was 'remote support' - techs with more technical knowledge (and more time to fix things), but still remote. Third Line/Local Ops were the desk visitors.

 

OK.... OK.....
From the general consensus here, it looks like I'm gonna have to bite the bullet inside the humble pie and go and sit behind a phone for the next 12 months.......
But know this......
I'm gonna be realy realy bored.......

 

LOL - that already puts you ahead of most people who've come on here in the past and not listened to advice given them

Seriously - any foot in the door is worth it - mark your time, pick up the cash and study study study in your spare time. It will all be worth it in the end - IT can be a very, very rewqrding career so long as you;re in it for the right reasons!

Besides - surely having a job at all in the recession/upcoming depression is better than trying to brickie your way through it - which has about as much future as a snowflake in Hawaii at present!

 

Nobody says you have to sit behind a phone and read from a boring script. But entry-level techs ARE often asked to field support calls. What do you plan to do if you get an entry-level IT job as a level 1 tech, field service tech, PC repair tech, or what-have-you, and YOU are asked to answer the phone in order to provide assistance to the 400-something users in your company? Are you going to boldly say, "Mmmmmm... nah, I don't want to do that..."?

...yep: entry-level tech, entry-level tech, and entry-level tech. In truth, they're all about the same. Only problem is, neither you nor CompTIA seems to understand that. That's not meant to be a dig at you (though it IS meant to be a dig at CompTIA). I'm just saying that perhaps you should actually get your foot in the door and see what entry-level jobs are REALLY like before you start passing judgment on them.