Some students come into our Network Engineer program at Cybertex with varying levels of IT experience, looking to get certification in all the areas in which we offer them. But some students are looking to get their first IT jobs straight from our programs. There are definitely opportunities awaiting students, but some are surprised to hear that they’re working directly with customers and users to troubleshoot issues on what is often referred to as “the help desk.”
Calling it “the help desk” minimizes its importance, though. When people think of the help desk, they might imagine someone sitting in a cubicle with a headset on, asking callers if their computers are plugged in.
What these members of the team are doing is actually integral to customer satisfaction and the user experience. The “help desk” is actually comprised of people with varying levels of familiarity and experience with an operating system or a specific program. The initial team member receiving the call walks the user though some common troubleshooting issues, and then if it needs to go up the chain, team members with more familiarity and experience come in to provide more specialized help.
Within the architecture of a typical customer support team, there are opportunities for new team members to gain experience and move up the ranks. The experience also allows the new team member to develop two valuable skills serving that person well in any IT job: The ability to diagnose and fix issues, and the ability to translate those fixes into advice that users can understand.
Computer systems are increasingly designed with the user experience in mind, but users are different and computer systems aren’t perfect. When a company creates a help desk, they recognize that this is a reality, and they’re also recognizing the importance of people in helping to connect people to their technology. For network engineering students, it’s not only important work, but it’s often the opportunity that allows you to start an IT career, and really get to know the technology we teach you about at Cybertex.