Showcasing & Developing Your First Help Desk Job Skills V. 1
So, you have decided to work towards a help desk position to get into the technology game. Help Desk can be an excellent way to break into any technology direction you would like to move into for the future.
Where do you go from here?
This article will cover Volume 1 of the tools, classes, and courses to help showcase your skills and learning without college.
Showcase your soft skills.
One of the things that are important for many front-line positions is the customer service skills possessed and soft skills. Being helpful, proactive, and empathetic while having a positive attitude under stressful conditions can go far. Soft skills are often cited as the hardest part of a position to train someone versus technical skills. Having strong soft skills and customer service manners can greatly assist in landing your first entry-level position.
If you have worked on a campus or volunteered in high school programs, you can highlight some of your experience with soft skills. Sometimes class group and team projects can also help.
What if I don't have any other job experience?
If you do not have any other job experience to highlight you may have experience with difficult family situations, school situations, and other life situations to highlight.
Can you think of any time you:
These skills can showcase how you work with people, how you handle stress in an interpersonal way, and how you manage stressful times. These soft skills and being able to highlight them will serve you later on as well.
Develop Your Technical Skills
To go along with the soft skills, you should be developing your technical skills and showing both initiative and progress. This will help showcase your drive and passion to get into the field which can go quite far to land your first role.
Okay, but I have never done any troubleshooting or had much in the way of hands-on experience with computers yet.
It is important to remember that everyone crawls before they walk, and everyone walks before they run. Everyone... absolutely everyone... started with zero computer experience. That is true for every help desk person you meet as it is for every person with a technical-focused Ph.D. .
You can get hands-on experience by doing some labs and learning at home about many help desk aspects. Additionally, many help desks follow a Knowledge Article method. This is where you will have a database of articles that are the company-approved ways to fix and resolve issues within their technical department. These also often include where and how to escalate them to the next level team if your attempts to resolve the issue fail. Remember, you are not expected to know everything. That is especially true for your first role.
What resources are there to develop technical skills that are free?
Some great LinkedIn creators for Help Desk that can be great resources are Kevin Apolinario and Professor Messer .
There maybe access to other resources as well. Some places to check are the local public library and any school previously attended may. Another place to check for some areas is Goodwill who sometimes has training programs for technology.
What are some hands-on resources to develop technical skills for Help Desk?
Jira Software is a ticketing software often used on Help Desk positions and often in demand to have some hands-on skills and experience with. Atlassian is the maker of the software and offers a free account that can help get hands-on Jira experience.
The account information for this can be found here:
Cloud skills are also currently in-demand as well. Some basic training within the cloud domain can help you stand out.
领英推荐
Microsoft Learn has free learning paths to work towards their certifications. The AZ-900 covers Azure Fundamentals and will give you a primer on Microsoft Azure cloud concepts.
This training can be found here> under Two Ways to Prepare, and then click "Self-Paced".
In addition to free training, Microsoft offers some vouchers if you attend webinars for fundamental exams. Information about this can be found on the following page under Microsoft Azure Virtual Training Days with Fundamentals also selected in that group.
It is worth noting that the Virtual Training Days from 微软 offer free vouchers for the certifications if you attend the related webinar for several of the Fundamental's exams. The self-paced training for all of them is also free on Microsoft Learn. This means you could get a certification or more than one, for free for putting in the work.
If you have a .edu e-mail address you may be eligible for Cloud Ready Skills platform which offers a track for the Microsoft Learn training, practice exam, and voucher for 8 of the Microsoft Fundamentals paths. Again, this means you would be out exactly zero dollars with some initiative. This information can be found at the following link.
Start Your Portfolio Now
Remember as you go through training to develop a portfolio of work to help showcase your skills. This can help you stand out from the crowd. This is especially true for those trying to break into the field without college or certifications. Developing a portfolio can help a hiring manager see how your training has grown over time and potentially what you may be skilled at.
A well written portfolio can also show your technical writing skills and communication skills.
Some places you can use to write or develop portfolios:
Tools for writing:
Grammarly
Open Office
Google Drive
This is not meant to be an all-inclusive and exhaustive list of how to break into the technology industries. This is Volume 1 of, hopefully, some supportive guides to help people develop a better position and hopefully gain some insight of how they can break in and stand out.
Thank you for sticking to the end of Volume 1 of this series.
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If you were not tagged and are a content creator that puts out free or cheap content, please feel free to get in touch! If you follow non-help desk IT topics, you may be featured in another volume of articles as well! I make no money or affiliate marketing money from anything in this article.