The Toxic Truth About Help Desk & Entry Level I.T. Roles

The biggest takeaway from this video is that even if your first entry level job is low paying, getting a little experience even less than a 1 year makes you way more valuable as an employee. And that will open up way more opportunities. Get that experience, then find a better paying company.

You had some True points, when I had My first entry Level Helpdesk Job I experienced that the Company didnt care about the IT Department But I learnd alot not everyone might Agree with me but I think IT is Learning by Doing the more practice the better

Thank you for doing this video. Finally someone is honest about Helpdesk & Field Support jobs.

when he said "it hurts, i hate seeing that" i was like yeah... this guy gets it. he knows it. I am at that part with starting at the bottom =/ just got denied a job yesterday. but the search continues!

IT doesnt bring in revenue we maintain the entire companies ability to bring in revenue... thats all we do

There are supervisors that treat the contractors like #%^* as well. They don’t care about constant turnover and having to train new people. One contractor asked why there was so much turnover, the next week she told me she knew why. The next week, she had quit.

Yep. Tier 1 support....overworked, understaffed, underpaid.

Nice video, it brings me to the idea that as a job seeker I can ask to the recruiter how they estimate the value of the IT department.

I was told at an inspire conference that service desk analyst is a come and go job. You see people leave after working maybe half a year or 8 months because of the stress that comes along with working the job. Im just finishing a term up in college for IT and feel I should take other courses if i graduate from the program. I only got involved to become an architect of some sort like data or security architect, both which require at least 5 years of IT experience. Here in Canada I was told that the minimal an entry level service desk analyst should be making no less than 26.50 an hour. One of my instructors told me that if a job in manitoba offers less than that to try look for a job somewhere else and i can see why because this is a job that is definitly going to become stressful along the way.

Do not waste your time on helpdesk -

Am getting certified. Thanks Buddy.

I am a Full time USPS employee of 5 years in and I was given a position at a company to begin at close to $40 an as an IT help desk employee. I am scared to make the jump because of the hellish comments I hear online. I do have a degree in the computer tech field. The money is far better than what i would make as a top tier mail carrier just starting out at the company doing the IT help desk. I hope that it is worth the jump, I want to leave the post office for something better, I just really hope it is worth it and that I am not throwing away the time I put in my current career. I dont want to start it to be let go for not having the answers or the ability to help each and every problem.

I'm a welder thinking about switching to IT. I use the advice at the end of the video while I'm still welding.

They paying everyone 18 an hour and want us to put out more but don't want to give more. We are solving their problem and making seem like it's ok that we are. It makes us not even care about the job but we are still doing it.

Sales makes money, everything else costs money.

I am 40 i am going into a new position of a help desk advisor entry lvl roll. Its a start and a foot in the roll. The company is on the lower side salery wise however they pay for the certifications adter a.couple ofnyears i can move on. Thats the plan amyways 😊

What if you don’t know what the rate suppose to b

I got out of Help Desk after starting and ending in it after 3 or 3 1/2 years! Too much bullshit involved in Tier 1 Help Desk or Desktop Support!

lesson learned: DOE does not pay much.

I have tears in my eyes while watching this. I work in a healthcare centre as an entry level IT support technician in Australia, and here they don't give any value or respect to the IT department. There are only 2 people in our team, including me. The company actually didn't have a section called 'IT' before we joined. Some of the staff treat us like shit, use sarcasm to mock us. The owner of the company doesn't like us for some reason, and constantly irritates us bringing silly issues, such as "how to attach a file in gmail", " how to export my whatsapp chat to gmail", "how to turn on the speaker" etc, when we are focusing on something important. If we face any conflict with other teams, the owner openly favours the other teams, even if it's their fault, especially if they are clinicians or nurses or other healthcare professionals. Actually the owner's wife is a dotor. Both he and his wife have no idea what we do, how much effort it takes to organise such a scattered environment with little to no documentation. They want a stable, super fast, hi-tech environment, but are not willing to spend the money required for it. We have to tolerate insult from time to time, whenever we seek WFH or ask for taking a leave. There hasn't been a day when I didn't curse myself for studying IT and working in a company like this. Peoole, who are looking for career options, or switching career, please listen to my humble advise, don't come to the IT sector.

Great video, It all comes down to what your bills are, and whether can you afford to keep looking till you hit your dream job. Rule of thumb, always believe in yourself, and always learn more stuff. Trust in the Lord with all your heart!

That was great information.
Thank you

Sad to see trashy leadership in any business fostering attitudes such as "IT is worthless". Too bad you can't blue shell weak leaders.

Well shoot. I just nabbed me a help desk gig for pretty mediocre wage. 😂 Guy straight up told me that I was chosen because I was cool with grunt work for grunt wages. Kinda a bummer to consider I may be part of this problem.

16 an hour is more than the 15 an hour I'm getting though, and it's definitely more about the experience than the salary for me.

I didn't even apply for the job, I was just emailed by a recruiter and agreed to the interview because my fellow CS majors wanted to hear about the interview process. Whoops!

I have a blue collar background and all I know is blue collar wages so I'm down to clown in the field! I do hope business catches up with the importance of tech professionals someday soon. I'd imagine they'll be losing out more than we do if they don't adapt! Cheers!

thank You! What you said at the last part of the video is motivational! I am glad I found your channel. 😊

Holy shit, 4 years and a global pandemic later and THIS SHIT IS STILL TRUE!

I fucking SCREAMED when you spoke about the misalignment between job titles, entry level roles, and misconceptions. THIS BERMUDA TRIANGLE FOR ONE'S CAREER HAPPENED TO ME TOO, I've been in help desk for 7 YEARS. now I'm doing an IT-adjacent thing and I'm able to keep up with the fucking CS graduates with theses and patents!

Your conclusion was spot on too -- I know it's been a hot minute since this video was created but I think there is value in creating a video that addresses getting stuck in entry-level roles/making lateral job moves and ultimately, how to end that God awful toxic cycle. What do you think?

So true, even in 2023

I am a service specialist and this is my first IT job and its been six months since I started. I like IT and love learning. I put a lot of effort in learning but always feel like not enough and been stressing out like hell. Had a major breakdown because of the stress level. About under-staffed is straight facts! What is our option is the industry operate like this? change a new career?

You summarized my experience!

im offended :)

The customer service, call center , nature , environment sucks.

I had to do an internship for school so my first entry level IT job paid ZERO dollars per hour lol. But after graduating from school I was given the opportunity to turn that unpaid intership into a lucrative career as a "Helpdesk Technician 1" for $12/hour. I knew it was a crap rate. I still took it, and here's why. The other entry level jobs in my area at the time were offering way more, starting in the $20 range, but they were so specialized and compartmentalized they weren't worth the time. I had no desire to get paid $20/hour to reset passwords and only handle user accounts all day long. I had no desire to make $20/hour doing only Office support and troubleshooting Excel macros all day. This $12/hr entry level job didnt pay much in the way of money, but it came with a great manager/mentor and I got broad experience that still to this day impresses job recruiters looking at my resume. This entry level job got me experience with Cisco IP phones, call manager, and Unity. I got entry level server and network admin skills, i got experience with project management, experience with IT budgeting and cost controls, entry level security skills, learned to run and terminate ethernet and fiber cables, learned about VPNs and mobile access, the list goes on. That IT department handled it all, so if the company had it and it was plugged into our network I got to get my hands on it. By taking that job i've been able to leverage better pay in future jobs (my next job started at $30 and i've never looked back), and I have never had trouble finding new work when it was time to move on to something new.

tl;dr that low paying entry level job can pay huge dividends in the future if it's the right job with the right responsibilities.

I can only confirm that this is 100% true :(

is $18-25/hr good for jr. help desk in 2022/2023?? i found a job hiring for it and thats the pay they are offering. lower end for no experience and no certs, the higher end is if you have 1 year experience or a combination of experience + certs.

Zack does the company make you liable if the company becomes compromised due to your vulnerability scan/work? Thanks.

Take this from an older person who has worked in the work world in other fields.
1. You MUST NOT WAIT on your future
2. You MUST GET AGRESSIVE and ASSERTIVE with your career.
3. You MUST not get complacent in your job
4. You must market yourself continuously.
5. You must be open to changing jobs often if you want to get ahead in this world
6. You must be open to moving to a different state if possible with family obligations to move yourself ahead salary wise
7. You must go to glassdoor to see what others make
8. You MUST not stay in jobs because of laziness and complacency.
9. You MUST always be looking to get more aggressive and assertive with getting more certs, masters degree and experience and then get aggressive with looking for companies that WILL PAY you substantially more.
10. Welcome to reality.

Just got offered a position at Helpdesk @ 53k. just coming out of school i didn’t budge on the wage

Do you think this has changed for the better or worse after the past four years?

Don't be afraid to walk. Entry level jobs are important to learn or prove skills but are often dead ends. Get a year or so under your belt if there is no room or path for you to grow, start looking for other opportunities.

I really want to get in to the I T field it’s being my passion for ages but I don’t know how or where to start . And my friend discouraged me when he said even if I learn IT and I don’t have a degree it’s a waste of time . Is that rue? Do I need a degree to get into the IT field please help me I really want to do IT

Great eye opener!!! Thanks for your hard work!!!

makes no money, same with armed security, until a guy with a knife or gun shows up.

Entry level in Canada means 3-5 years experience.
Now I am seeing Internship requiring the same level of experience as Entry level.
R I D I C U L O U S ! ! !

It's sad. I'm getting my A+ soon( have to finish my 1002). Everywhere wants to pay you like 13 an hour. Including government roles needing a secret clearance. Wtf. P.s. I'm former AF. I'll never work for the government again.

Just hired an entry level Service Desk associate at $54K

This goes for all businesses. The vid could be called "The Toxic Truth About Capitalism."

Don’t take a job under 14$ I’d say

I think I’m just going to go work construction then.

You actually give me hope even though this video is old. I’m in my junior year at college and looking an entry level.

It’s my first time doing IT but I have some experience with it and I’m getting paid $16 better than my old job was 12.63 my old job promised us to get a raise never happened