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."

Comments

Get some certifications.

[Anonymous Coward]

A+ and Net+ to start. Go from there.

Remember:

Certifications prove you know something.

Degree's prove you can stick with something and are willing to invest time in something.

References prove you've worked with people.

Experience proves you've been trusted to do the job by someone.

Re:Get some certifications.

[Fubar420]

As someone who interviews far too many who believe the same: Certifications prove you can pass a test (like HS) - that is, rote memorization. Proving knowledge is an exercise left to the reader. In answer to the original question, discover what interests you, what you want to do, and learn more, be it networking, unix, coding ( or sales :-) ). If you're not interested in it, you won't advance in it.

Re:Get some certifications.

[wiz_80]

I disagree. A degree beats certifications, at least in my experience. Annoyingly, the degree is just a tick in the box, but it is pretty much an absolute requirement. Certifications, on the other hand - I have a couple, but I stopped bothering about them because they did not seem to make any noticeable difference.

Basically, I would recommend that you try to work out a way of getting a degree that builds on the courses that you already took, which should save some money, and also features work experience. This can be an excellent way to get good things onto your CV, get hands-on experience in other areas (not just technical areas!) and make useful contacts for later.

Also, something to bear in mind for the future: I find that it pays to look at the career path a job offers, not just the immediate benefits. Make sure that you can go up the ladder, but also sideways in a couple of different directions. After three years of tech support, I went to pre-sales support, which is a whole different kettle of fish, but hugely rewarding in its way.

Re:Get some certifications.

[0racle]

A place beyond Best Buys 'geek squad' type position requiring the A+ means one thing, you don't want to work there. A trained monkey can pass the A+.

Re:Get some certifications.

[Anonymous Coward]

The only thing the A+ cert proves is that you know righty-tighty-lefty-loosey for screws and are aware that ram only goes in one way. The A+ cert is worthless, like the poster said above, if your prospective employer wants it you don't want them. The CCNA is a great cert to have, it give you the fundamentals of networking, which, like it or not, is a must these days. If you want to excel in any type of networking field you will absolutely need the fundamentals, otherwise you can expect to have a tough time trying to learn the bits and pieces on the fly... which is frustrating to say the least.

"Unix System Administrator"

[subreality]

It sounds like you should move up to a run of the mill sysadmin position. You have the basic skills, you've paid your dues with a little time in a tech support job... Look for "System Administrator I" positions on your favorite job listings site. Apply to them. See what happens.

This is a textbook career move. Why do you even need to ask us?

Re:"Unix System Administrator"

[s0l0m0n]

I remember being in a similar position and asking myself the same question. "Where do I go from here?"

It turns out that the answer for me was get demoralized by the tech support nightmare, get fired, bum around for a while, go back to college for something else. I'm much happier studying engineering than I ever was working with computers, even though much of the mindset still applies.

I wonder if the originator of this question doesn't need to ask himself "Is this what I want to do with my life?"

Re:"Unix System Administrator"

[subreality]

I agree that that question should be asked. I sort of fell into syseng. It's a good career, but I've not found it particularly fulfilling in the long run. Changing to networking has helped some, but I don't think this'll last forever.

However, given what it sounds like his goals are - get off the front line and into a job with a little more dignity and mental stimulation - syseng is a pretty easy choice. It certainly doesn't require a degree to get started, so you can try it for a while and see if you like it, and if you don't, you can still go back to school and learn something else, because you're not already buried in school debt.

BTW, to the OP: I protest the idea of hiring people who get certs. I have none. People should hire me for my brain, not for my paper. I feel that if someone won't even look at me for lack of a cert, I'm probably better passing that job up anyway. Perhaps conditions have changed since when I was getting started ten years ago, and certs are how you get your foot in the door in entry level jobs these days, but I know that I've never been asked if I had any, and no one at the companies I work for has even brought it up when we were hiring other people.

Re:well..

[Eggplant62]

Sounds like you want to look for a position in field support. I worked in field support for several years, and found it to be a lot of fun. I never knew where I would end up from day to day. I got to travel around the Metro Detroit area mostly, but some days might find me out as far as Saginaw or the Toledo, OH regions doing service calls.

As one poster wrote above, certifications are nice, they prove you can take a test. I got laid off due to budget cuts a couple years back, and while on unemployment for six months, I got back to school in a Unix/Linux Systems associates program at a local business college, and should have my degree by this time next year. In the meantime, I fell back on a trade I had worked in for several years before landing my tech support position, medical transcription, so I could stay at home, work part-time, save up some cash, and concentrate on my studies.

I think the other poster is right, though. Don't rely solely on certs. Solid work in a college-level program is really going to prove how serious you are. I got really lucky back in the late 90s when I hired on as a field service technician, and then while out training with the service department manager at a large trucking facility located near Detroit Metro Airport, I showed him how to handle TCP/IP properly on Win95 and Win98 boxes hosted on an NT network. However, I'm going to call it a fluke, since trying to get a job with my notable lack of certs (I hold no Microsoft certs and will not pursue them, though I do have my LPI-1 & 2) or a college degree is holding me up.

Note, too, I'm in my mid-40s. It's never too late to stop where you are, reassess where you are at, and take measures to fix things.

Don't underestimate the value of your experience

[nickco3]

I manage a web-hosting operation for one of the largest insurance companies in the world. We are an internal department in the corporate IT division. Like your clients, we have kept the interesting work in-house and out-sourced our 1st and 2nd line support.

I would employ you based on what you've written here. Well, bring you in for interview, anyway.

I've recruited Web, Unix, network, and firewall admin roles. My best successes have all come from those first and second line support teams. They work hard, they are aware of the elements of customer service, they appreciate little things like being able to decide when your own lunch-time is going to be.

I also like the motivation you've shown in organising college-courses, and that you're clearly got an interest in learning about the technology.

A degree on top of that wouldn't sway me *that* much. I'd be impressed by anyone motiviated enough to do a degree in their own time. It's the motivation that impresses me, not the techie stuff you've may or may not have learned. There will always be learning curve when you come into a new job however good/experienced you are, and I expect to have to train people.

So don't underestimate what you've got under your belt already, and start looking for 3rd-line techie jobs with your clients and other big corporates.

Will you actually enjoy being an admin?

[Veliena]

You've only made it a year? Ptth. Wuss. ;p It took me five years of tech support, a forced move and another couple years of tech support to realize there were other valid things I could be doing with my life. We're both at an age where it's in our best interest to actually settle on a career with a descent wage so be sure admin'ing is what you really want to do. Do you read books about UNIX on the weekends? Find yourself really wanting to know when a big security patch comes out? Will you actually be happy doing it or is it just the path of least resistance? I thought I was stuck on that side of computers. It was an epiphany that I could do something else with them for a living. I went back to school for 3D modeling and game development since I love sculpture, but don't actually want to be a starving artist. I had to go the community college route due to my own loan issues, but I lucked out and there's a good program in my area. I'm graduating with an AA and lots of good, focused practice soon so it's working out for me so far. I would probably rather be a stripper than go back to being afraid I'll answer my own telephone, "Thank you for calling the IT Support Center! This is X speaking."

Just go home and and do it

[acidrain]

My advice to anyone thinking of trying something new technically? Go home and and do it. Just start. In this case, get old computers, install Linux on them and set up a network with a proxy, web and mail servers. Or get a book on programming and install a compiler. There is a world of free tools and information out there, just actively explore instead of sitting on your ass fretting about your dead end job. You'll probably find something that inspires you, and that will be the force that will pull you into doing it. A good education is best if you can get it, but you can also make good money if you take the time to teach yourself, for example how to set up office networking. *Actually having done it* and fiddled with it until you really understood it is what is going to translate into success. For example, the person who's post I'm replying to will be more impressed if you tell him you figured it out yourself. Then you can volunteer to get experience or get certs if you have to. You should at least be able to find something that makes it easier to pay off your loans and get back into school.

Disclaimer: it's easy for me to say this as I have a degree and am a senior engineer. However, I'd equate what you gain from one university course to taking on a new kind of project or reading a good technical book. And I have worked with a senior kernel engineer who'd graduated with a music degree, and an artist who became one of the best Maya programmers, recognized as a Maya Master by Alias. I also recently changed specialities by taking this advice. Try before you buy, and if you like it, it suddenly gets a lot easier to switch.

Re:Just go home and and do it

[BVis]

I agree that certifications are largely useful in getting into the "consider" pile of resumes instead of the "discard" pile.

Remember that the initial screening is likely to be done by some HR idiot who wouldn't know PHP from PCP, and they're just operating off of keyword searches.

I recently myself escaped the hell that is tech support (It's the ditch digging of the IT industry.) I gathered Linux, PHP, Perl, Apache and MySQL experience along the way through independent efforts, and have a job now where one of my primary job responsibilities is to maintain some internally used web tools that are based on PHP/MySQL, and independently I'm developing a Drupal-based site.

LAMP development (Linux, Apache, MySQL and (PHP|Perl|Python) is pretty hot right now if you're any good at all with programming and sensibly laying out a web app. It sounds like you've got at least some programming experience, which is an advantage.

The only other advice I'd offer is keep your expectations a little lower than you might ordinarily, because if you can get that first job, even if it isn't exactly what you want or the salary is low, you can always trade up later.

certs are useless without experience

[brokeninside]

One of the biggest mistakes I've seen people make is to get certified for something which they have no professional experience. The only that does is to waste recruiters time. The cert ends up with a bunch of phone calls from headhunters that see the cert on a resume that end in this:

recruiter: how much experience do you have with X
applicant: none
recruiter: ...
phone line: click.

But having a cert + experience will get you far more interviews than experience alone and in situations where it's you being compared to others with equivalent experience but no certifications, you'll stand out from the pack in a good way

But far better than a cert is a degree from a well respected university. I earned my degree in a non-IT field in my thirties from a decent school. I was utterly surprised by how much easier it was to find an IT job with that degree than before I had it. A degree from a good school grabs eyeballs.

my experience

[SABME]

Find a job working for a small company where you have to install, configure, and support every aspect of the business. You will be underpaid, will work ridiculous hours, and will be stressed because there's more to do be done than you can possibly cover. You will, however, learn everything you can about what you are doing, including the ways in which computerized tools impact the business. Document everything you do in a way that ensures someone else can figure things out if you leave.

After about two years, you can start looking for serious sysadmin positions. When you get into an interview, you will be able to look the person on the other side of the desk straight in the eye and say, "I have done x, y, and z. Here is how and why I did what I did. I may not be familiar with the tools in your organization, but let me tell you about my last job, and how I taught myself to do x, y and z. I have demonstrated initiative, a strong work ethic, and an ability to solve problems, even in areas where I have no experience. Hire me."

It helps if you have samples of your work. If they want someone who can write scripts, bring a few of your scripts, even if it's only hard copies, describe why and how your wrote the script, and walk through what it does. Show them the documents you wrote describing how you set up a kickstart environment, or the VPN, or automated backups.

When you get to the new job, keep learning more. Maybe pick up a certification if you can get reimbursed for it. Keep doing this for the rest of your career, learning and finding new opportunities to expand your skills. If you work hard and you're lucky, you will not only stay employed, but you'll also find that your jobs get better and better, especially when the markets recover (as they seem to be doing a bit now in some areas).

Good luck!