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Hello, I’m approaching 4 years at my current position at a service desk. I started off taking calls than later on I was moved to be team trainer and now I am considered a team lead. I received my AAS in computer networking about 6 years ago. I don’t currently have any certs. I’m just wanting to hear some other career paths and how you made it out of help desk. I feel like networking and security is too complex but yet feel like that is the best path. Everyone says stay on help desk for 1 year and move on and I’m approaching 4.

34 Spice ups
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Change is not for everyone. Just because other people move on does not mean you should. That said, check out some options. What aspect of your current job do you like the best? Will the company you are with allow you ‘audit’ another role within the organization for a few hours here and there?

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A common tale here.

Change is dependent on what YOU WANT to do, not what you think you’re supposed to do. IT is a very big field and not everything is for everyone.

Getting out of help desk requires finding The Thing that ignites your passion. Nobody else can tell you what that is, and chasing empty certs isn’t going to answer that question either.

What sparks your interest? What is the thing that you can’t wait to continue exploring when you get home from work?

If there are cert paths in THAT THING, then by all means pursue them. It won’t seem like work, it won’t seem so desperate. You’ll learn better ways to do The Thing that you enjoyed doing already.

My career path started as a field technician. Lots more demand for hardware techs back then. I was also doing Web coding as a hobby at home. That morphed into databases.

In '08, I parlayed that passion and hands-on experience into new job duties at my then-current employer. While I still did field tech and help desk work, I had other things to look forward to.

That led to a total job change in '17, where I am now as a data analyst and developer.

I don’t know a thing about switch configurations, VOIP, fiber, network admin, etc. But you don’t need to know everything in order to be successful. You just have to know what you want.

That knowledge led to me turning down a job offer recently that came with a significant pay increase. I turned it down because even though it was data-related, it would’ve taken me farther away from technology than I already am (plus other work/life balance concerns).

It’s not all about the money, either.

What’s important is your passion and interest. That adds more credibility and focus than buckets of certs where you memorized the answers, spit them back out on the test (the PMP cert is a good example of that), then promptly forgot everything because you’re not using what you learned.

10 Spice ups
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I actively pursued and asked for more training, education, knowledge and responsibility. I started out as a part time employee who had never formatted a hard drive, but I knew that I wanted to be in IT. I was hired with the understanding that I could continue going to school, and there would be an option for full-time employment if it was mutually beneficial. At the end of the semester I went full time, continuing school at night.
By the time I had been there two years, I had started MCSE classes and was given the opportunity to start setting up servers. By the time I’d been there five years, I had built an entire new domain. By the time I’d been there six years, I was the Exchange admin. In each case, I asked for more responsibility, and my request was granted. Once I peaked out at a company, I moved on. Since then, I’ve built, enhanced or refreshed multiple networks, and attained my CEH cert. I am now an IT manager in charge of 15 technicians. I got where I am by asking for more.

4 Spice ups
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The key is what you want to do. I’ve known people who have stayed on the support desk their entire career. There is nothing wrong with that.

The hard part is you don’t know what other positions are like until you try them.

One strategy that I’ve seen used at company I worked at previously was allowing the person who was interested in moving to work with the new group 1-2 days a week, to get them exposed to the position.

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OMG! Talk about a convoluted path to a career. I grew up on an Iowa farm. While in high school I worked a time as a laborer at a pipe coating plant. Nasty, dirty work around chemicals I never want to see again.
After that a short stint as a body repairman. Not my cup of cappuccino.
Another short stint as a home builder and later worked with concrete construction.
From there I joined the Navy so I wouldn’t be drafted into the Army. I landed in a school for diesel engine support and found myself in an waterborne aircraft rescue unit in Hawaii. Really rough duty - /s.
After discharge I worked as a mechanic on various heavy equipment and over the road trucks. After a rather long stint with greasy hands, black fingernails and infected scrapes and cuts on my hands I finally decided to use my soon-to-expire G.I. benefits to attend engineering school. After graduating I worked in a national manufacturer of ice cream and soda dispensers. Can you say Big Mac?
Followed with a few years at a small automotive service support equipment fabricating plant where I earned U.S. and Canada patents for an automotive lift. Followed that with a long term at the world’s largest manufacturer of water dispensing machines as a CADD engineer secondarily managing the five UNIX workstation network. If you ever stopped to take a drink from a public drinking water fountain you have likely seen my design work.
As that company added more and more PC’s they eventually asked me to transition to support their first network. Thus my entry into IT.
When that company made a major contraction in rough times I was sent down the road, finally landing as the IT manager at a significant not-for-profit social services organization growing to 22 sub-nets. At that job one of my subordinates with a full list of MCSE credentials told me I knew far more than he about computers. I considered, but never went for any of those certs.
While doing that I became an EMT and Firefighter for 2 local volunteer departments.
So, at 72 I am still trying to decide what I want to be when I grow up.

11 Spice ups
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And oh, BTW, being here on SpiceWorks is one of the best career moves you can make and, if you haven’t yet, attend the SpiceWorld conferences. Best training and exposure to new technology I have experienced.

3 Spice ups
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I went from uni to a second line public sector job (never done helpdesk roles and relieved not to as they would have been too basic for my knowledge imho).

Then went from public to private sector - still second line - sole IT support and a bumper pay rise.

Then a sideways move following redundancy into 7 months of temping

Then sideways again into my current role (corporate) - despite only being sideways step and the pay not being significantly higher (plus working in city so higher costs) it has been a good move.

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I started off working as an office administrator, doing data entry and producing reports for customers. Then got bored of that after about 18 months. Happily that coincided with us being bought by a larger company, so I asked if I could move in to IT, because I was already the de facto IT person on site (being the only person who knew how to plug a PS2 keyboard in).

1 Spice up
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Accountant/CPA to PC instructor (at ExecuTrain) to PC/Network Technician to Network Administrator to Regional VP of IT to VP of IT…back to instructor at bootcamp teaching MCSE stuff…then decided to do computer security full-time (about 22 years ago)…so to Foundstone instructor teaching Ultimate Hacking to Microsoft as Principal Security Architect (11 years) to KnowBe4 as a Data-Driven Evangelist (so far about 4.5 years). I was writing and fighting hackers and malware the whole time from the very beginning. About ever 5 to 10 years I sort of reinvent myself. It’s what I love about this career. You can take it where you want to and follow the trends that interests you.

1 Spice up
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Through college, I got an internship at a technical support call center at 17. I ended up being 1 of 3 in a group of 9 total that the company ended up keeping from the internship program. There were 21 other newly hired agents that we were essentially competing against to get the full time position after the busy season. They hired roughly 30 people in the summers and only kept 6-8 of the best to keep full time. The rest of the people were offered to work for another support vendor in the building but no one wanted to work there so most people left if they didn’t accept that. Worked for a little over a year and got one promotion. Then I was offered a bigger promotion minutes after putting in my two-week notice and getting my exit interview. Even if given the promotion before the two-week, I still was leaving for my current job of 7 years since there was no decent upgrade path at the call center. The company I work for now, started as a small IT service company but now it evolved into a full fledged MSP. Currently still working there but working on getting certifications for DevOps work. There are multiple fabs either already build or being built in my area and those DevOps jobs are pretty nice. Seeing how my currently boss doesn’t want to make things rights with me, I am working on brushing up my skills, getting those certs, and jumping ship.

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I was working on my Computer Science bachelors from 2016-2020. I ended up with an internship in 2019 with a local company in their IT department working helpdesk. When 2020 graduation came around the world was also at the height of COVID. I ended up getting a full time offer from my internship company and worked with them on their helpdesk team until May 2022. I don’t have any IT related certs either. I’m with a new company now but the new company I’m with offers reimbursement for school courses and training sessions if you do well enough in them. So I’m hoping to try and get some CompTIA certs soon. Hopefully the IT Fundamentals one first to see how the courses are then try to get A+ and also Network+

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I took some Cisco courses in highschool, but didnt at the time think of a real career in IT. I was working and paying my way through college studying Law/Justice when the oil refinery i worked at shut down. I didnt want to rack up student loans and didnt know what exactly to do, so ended up joining the Navy and becoming an IT as my rate. Now if I was smarter when I got out after 5 years I would have stayed in IT and got a clearance job with the DOD or something, but instead I became a corrections officer for almost 5 years, but was a computer services alternate. I finally realized doing IT full time was much better, got my CompTIA A+ and Net+ certs and started applying for DOJ IT positions. Currently work as a sys admin going on 2 years at current dept, and am trying to get into IT Management. I started taking courses towards a Masters in IT Management.

1 Spice up
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I was in some form of Helpdesk kind of role (albeit with a “SysAdmin” title at two of the jobs) for the first 7 years of my career. Just hang in there and try to move to a bigger company if you can. Enterprise will offer the best opportunity IMO.

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Started working for some small local IT outfits when I was in high school in the late 80s, went to college and got a BS in computer engineering technology, working at least one part-time IT job all the way through college. Based solely on the degree I got hired as a temp for what was a large national IT services company to work on a Windows 95(!) upgrade project at one of their larger clients. Impressed them enough to get hired full-time, worked for them (at the client location doing on-site IT tech support) for 3 years until I got tired of the dysfunctional and often toxic work environment. That’s when I started working at my current job as a jack-of-all-trades IT guy at a large institution. At this point the decades of experience would probably be more important to a perspective new employer than any certs I could go out and get, but tbh at this point if I had to look for a new job it probably wouldn’t be in IT…I’ve had my fill of it.

2 Spice ups
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A career “path” you say? Mine was more “cutting through the underbrush with a machete.” Every time I had a dream stupid reality would shove me down. Since I gave up hope and optimism life has been great (in an apathetic way)! I may no longer have any chance for happiness…but I’m not constantly disappointed either. Set your bar low and you can step over any obstacle!

1 Spice up
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I agree with what many have said here in that it ultimately depends on what you want to do here. For me I was an “SME” basically helpdesk just also had a more in depth understanding of one of the third party tools we used so I was dedicated to that department to solve problems. While doing that the CEO told me about this idea he had of doing leaderboards on the displays that displayed employee performance in a fashion similar to a video game. I told him that wouldn’t be too difficult to do. Next day I had a cubicle and local admin to install any dev tools I wanted. I had leaderboards built and functioning within the month. From there I was moved to full time development and out of help desk within the year. Now still doing that.

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Audio Engineering\Studio Engineering, Retail, Retail Services, Helpdesk\Sysadmin\IT Support.

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I lucked into a friend getting me a job in the data processing department at a newspaper company. (I was working in circulation and mailroom at the time), but I was always a technically adept person- just not formally trained. That was for 1 year.

The Information Technology manager (different from the Information Systems manager), liked my work ethic and hired me as entry level, doing bench repair, wire pulling and first level help desk. That was for maybe a year and a half.

During that time, I started taking IT classes and worked my way up to a Network Analyst title. It helped I was willing to be a road technician for the remote bureaus, which not too many people liked doing. That was for maybe 2 years.

After learning more, on the job and from taking classes (mostly basic networking and Windows classes focused on taking the MCSE test, which I got) and getting more experience, I transferred to the Information Systems group as an analyst/admin, and did that for maybe 2 years before I left the /sarcasmstart promising and growing industry of the newspaper business /sarcasmend.

I grew out of Help Desk on my own merits; on my ability and willingness to both self learn and seek learning (training and schooling). But I was also fortunate there were openings that were either created for me or happen to occur through people leaving. If there weren’t, then I would have had to look for openings somewhere else.

So if you feel you have outgrown your helpdesk position, and there are no paths open where you are at, then you need to start looking at other places. 90% of your career (in anything) will be based on your initiative.

2 Spice ups
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I am right there with you, although a little younger and it isn’t so much as what I want to be when I grow up, as if I grow up. =)

1 Spice up