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Getting Out of Tech Support?
An anonymous reader asks: "For the last year or so I've been working in 1st line tech support at a small call centre that's part of a much larger outsourcing company and to be honest it's sucking the life out of me, I want change but I don't know what direction to take in order to get out and I really need some advice from others who have made the jump. I suppose what I'd like to know is what kind of jobs one should be looking for coming from technical support with decent knowledge of UNIX, networking, scripting and 'light coding'. Is there any hope for me or will I have to go back to school in order to even have employers look at my resume?"
I'm in my mid-twenties and I've taken a number of college-level courses, a couple of those being computer engineering courses, some math and a few others that I found interesting, in the process I also managed to procure a fairly large amount of debt in the form of student loans, nothing I can't handle but I don't really want more debt although going back to get a degree is one possibility. I'm not entirely sure what I want to do except that I want to do something a bit more "real", to actually fix problems instead of just talking to customer after customer and then submitting tickets for someone else to fix the problem. From what I've understood from older acquaintances moving from tech support to other positions was actually a good way to go back when a lot of companies handled their own tech support, but for me there isn't much of a career path at this company as we only handle 1st line support, 2nd line and all above is done by the client companies themselves.
I'd really like to get more into sysadmin type work, or at least something where you spend more time solving problems and managing systems than you do arguing with irrate customers over how they have to call customer service for billing questions as technical support can't handle those problems."
I'd really like to get more into sysadmin type work, or at least something where you spend more time solving problems and managing systems than you do arguing with irrate customers over how they have to call customer service for billing questions as technical support can't handle those problems."
A friend of mine worked with me at a huge call centre, and he had enough, much like you, with the whole tech support thing babying people with basic installs etc. There is a huge demand for Sys Admins for engineering firms, and these companies cannot afford any, and I repeat any down time whatsoever! Look into it, and with the credentials that you have now I'm more that sure you'll be able to get a job! Good luck
Stop screwing around and get a college degree. Your jobs will suck until you do. Work at a crappy job with crappy pay if you have to, so long as it lets you get that degree.
Time spent at school affords you the people network and insight to answer this question yourself. Plus, you will have a college degree. Choose wisely and you will need a big wooden club to keep the headhunters away. Everything starts with college, and it is never too late. Assuming you are a citizen of the United States, you get more money after you turn 24 because your parents' income cannot be considered.
FairTax baby!
Here are a few pointers from a Unix sysadmin and programmer for the past 10 years.
1) Motivate yourself. Get a Unix/Linux Sysadmin book and read it
from cover to cover. Stick Linux on your PC at home and
break it/fix it/mess with it.
2) Do more at your workplace (if you can). Start helping out in
the areas that interest you. You might be surprised, people
notice these things.
3) Sell yourself. This is very important. I don't mean telling
everyone you meet how great you are, but dropping hints when
chatting to sysadmins/programmers about what you can do.
People like me usually remember people like you, and have
a little influence in recommending people to the boss.
Best of luck.
Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines
However, it's pretty much always a support service. Therefore you should expect that you'll end up on call. Personally I don't like that part, but can't deny the extra pay is nice.
It's also a field where experience is what really really matters. Which means it can be tough to break into. Certifications and degrees are nice, but it's my '5 years in the industry' which opens doors, not the other bits of paper.
However as a starting point in 'building your career', I will suggest you look at:
-
ITIL - IT infrastructure library. It's something that put me off initally, as it look a bit too much like icky-yuck processes and procedures. However, I've run into a _lot_ of companies that are starting to 'buy in' to the model. That wouldn't convince me, though. What did, is it's actually a fairly good way of 'doing IT'. Not the only way by any means, but one worth looking at, if only because then you have a basis for comparison.
- SAGE Systems Administrators guild, a subdivision of Usenix.
- BCS British Computer Society
- The Practice of System and Network Administration (Paperback) - A personal favourite, this is a brilliant book, because it covers the _theory_ of systems admin.
Don't neglect the 'soft' skills though. I know many hardcore techies hate the idea, but the ability to wear a suit, and look good and confident when doing so is _very_ useful. Also 'social interaction' skills. Systems admin is as much about the people (ab)using the system as the system itself.As far as I can tell, your bits of paper serve to help you secure an interview. But the field's .... well sufficiently complicated and convoluted that your ability to learn, research and innovate are far more important. As is your ability to show you can do this.
In the US if you attend college half time (which is usually two three credit hour courses) your student loans will go into deferment. Interest will still accrue, but you won't have to make the monthly payment until six months after you stop taking courses.
If you want to stay in the IT industry, look for an IS degree which is usually a combination of business and tech courses. The largest advantage of IS degrees is that quite a few accredited universities offer IS night programs because it usually falls into the business college. This means that you can keep your day job while you're working.
Also, ask your employer if it will offer tuition reimbursement. When I started taking night classes to finish my bachelor's degree, my employer reimbursed me for my first three semesters of part time courses. (After that I quit because my father died and I received a large enough inheritance to go back to school full time for the year I needed to finish.) So you may be able to get your employer to pay for your exit ticket.
If college doesn't feel right to you, look for certification with a product that you have experience with. Getting Oracle or Solaris certification combined with a moderate amount of experience will make you more attractive than simply having a moderate amount of experience. Do be aware, though, that without a four year degree in the overwhelming majority of cases your resume will not make the top of the list and if you do get an offer, it will be at a lesser rate than an applicant with a four year degree. There are exceptions to this, but they are just that, exceptions. When I went from software support to development at one former employer, I would have been placed into the next salary bracket which means that I would have been making five to ten thousand more per year if I had a four year degree.
Lastly, when you start looking, apply for everything that looks remotely interesting. Never decline to send your resume in because you feel unqualified. Let the person looking over your resume decide whether you are qualified or not. Aside from the fact that you don't know what they have in mind as well as they do, they may also be filling other unadvertised positions and think your resume is a good fit. Also, it's largely a numbers game. While there are some people who have such great resumes that they almost always get considered and some people have such poor resumes that they never get considered, most of us are somewhere in between and getting hired is mostly a matter of having an adequate resume that happens to be in the right place at the right time. If you send out hundreds of resumes, you're far more likely to be in the right place at the right time than if you send out tens of resumes.
Another strategy is to look for tech support positions in large multi-faceted companies that down the road will offer the chance for a lateral transfer. Either that or prepare to move up the food chain in the help desk niche by going into management.
The bottom line is that the best way to get out is to make a plan. First, decide what you want instead of just knowing what you don't want. Then take concrete steps to get there and be resolute about following through. It may take years to get there and you may fail several times along the way. But over time, achieving a realistic goal is mostly a function of how badly you really want it and your willingness to do what it takes to get there.
Find a small business that needs a generic sysadmin/tech to manage their systems. You will get to touch all areas of systems, computers, telephony, networking, etc. If you show any business saavy, you might also get involved in guiding your company's IT direction and even apply technology to solving business problems. Don't necessarily target technical companies, as you will be surrounded by people who either have or think they have superior technical skills, rendering you to a more subservient role.
After a few years at a small business, you should amass a broad range of IT skills and probably have a better overall idea of how companies work than more experienced IT staff at larger companies. You may not get paid as much, but you will probably have better hours and better treatment. At least you will still be making money, as opposed to spending money on further education or certs. I'm not opposed to education/training/certs, but hands-on experience is the best way to gain skills.
In case you think I'm talking through my ass, I have worked in IT for Boeing, Verizon, and Publix (regional supermarket chain, 100K+ employees) in various IT and senior IT roles, including sysadmin. I now work for a small company with around 25 people. I manage all of our systems. To clarify, if it plugs into an electrical outlet, I'm responsible. The money and hours are significantly better than my corporate gigs, but my situation is somewhat unique.
By the way, the smaller and younger the company, the better for you (if the company seems viable). This will give you the opportunity to grow with the company. If necessary, make some financial concessions up front, especially if you can work out some type of future profit-sharing or equity stake (I wish I would have done that instead of going for the big salary).
The reality is that the impression your CV and covering letter give makes a real difference. Decent presentation can help you get past the first sifting stage.
It's like turning up to your interview well dressed and clean (shock horror) will give a better impression than that grease spattered slob top you're wearing right now. Yes, I'm talking to you, lard boy!
The BIG KEY to getting a job at interview stage is this:
Let the interviewer know that they'll look good if they employ you. How you appear to the interviewer(s) could make or break you, and this applies to every tiny clue. Writing, personal presentation, body language, language skills. Yes, your tech skills are important but you'll find that honing your communication skills will help you let them know that you're the best option.
Okay, you might now say "I don't want to work for a crap company that values my appearance over my experience". The only response can be "Enter the real world".
Oh arse
If you can, find a University/college IT dept, that needs people. At least in the UK, most colleges and UNI's employ current and ex students as they cant afford to pay as much as private industry. Becuase of this the jobs you get to do are many and varied, and it's not really that important if you screw up once or twice.
The advice about reading books and installing Linux on your PC will only get you so far. Becuase what you lack is experience of theings that can and do go wrong in a working network of machines. Especially relevant are the interoperability issues.
Certianly in Europe and the UK, what really counts is experience, of the "hands on & in" variety. Anyone can bulshit a certificate with a brain dump, you can go on course that will virtually guarantee you come out with a cert. But again, lab work is no substitute for a real problem on a real network.
If you want to do UNIX for a living, generalise, don't specialise. Be good at one commercial distribution of UNIX, (Solaris, HP-UX, AIX, etc.) and some form of Linux. RedHat Enterprise is used widely, so Fedora may be good, but any distro will do, Gentoo is also very good from the "build it yourself" aspect, especially if you do it from the level one tar ball and a boot floppy.
You will also need some experience of the major disk systems, such as Veritas, Disksuite or some other Journalled/logical disk variant. But beyond that what you need most if just experience. Universities and small non-profit organisations are very good places to learn, the pay is lousy, (I got a 60% pay rise when I moved to the private sector) but if you love the life, they are some of the best places in the world to experiment in a non-presurised environment.
Know also that wherever you go you'll need to retrain for the environment, this usually takes about 30 days.