1. WELCOME TO MODULE 6 OF WRITING IT RESUMES!
Of the multiple technical roles we've covered in this program, help desk professionals are some of the least compensated.
Help desk professionals resolve issues faced by customers and users (aka company employees and internal customers). How they present themselves to those experiencing the tech issue goes a long way to maintaining caller satisfaction.
Because of their role, companies look for tech professionals who are:
- Patient
- Empathetic
- Client Focused
- Solution-Focused
- Distraction Adverse
- Collaborative
- Detail Focused
When writing resumes for professionals focused on this role, it may help your clients to include personal attributes.
2. JOB OUTLOOK/SALARY
According to ZipRecruiter, the top 25% of help desk analysts receive an annual salary of approx. $62,000, while the remaining two-thirds receive a salary between $36,000 and $52,000. Specialized help desk professionals can expect salaries between $60,000 and $75,000 annually.
Help desk analysts most often have a technical bachelor's degree, with some having a master's. Tier one help desk analysts who handle minimal tech support issues could easily learn while on the job, have no degree, and start with limited to zero hands-on IT work experience.
Which is it "helpdesk" or "help desk"? This is a great mystery because folks in the industry use both spelling versions. 😉
It's common for companies to have level one and level two help desk professionals. Issues escalated to level two status are generally more complex and require additional troubleshooting or software/system modification to resolve.
There are a variety of help desk job titles, such as:
- Help Desk Manager
- Help Desk Supervisor
- Help Desk Agent
- Help Desk Specialist I/II
- Help Desk Analyst I/II
Technical support roles rely heavily on an internal knowledge base that helps staff resolve the same and similar issues experienced by clients. Those issues are handled by tier-one analysts.
3. HELP DESK TIERS
When tier-one analysts can resolve an issue, they escalate those to tier-two analysts with more experience troubleshooting and resolving complex issues.
Some companies have tier-three and tier-four analysts as well.
Help desk analysts solve fundamental to complex issues, initiating software patches/updates, equipment enhancements, etc. Essentially whatever resolution is required to solve the internal or external customer's problem falls under the help desk's purview. It's not uncommon for technical support staff to coordinate solutions with developers and engineers.
The size of a help desk operation can vary. A help desk professional can work in a large-scale call center facility that handles 100s of inbound calls daily from global clients. Or a help desk operation can be small to medium, taking only company employees' calls.
4. KEYWORDS FOR HELP DESK PROFESSIONALS
24/7 Business Support
Agent Productivity
AI Customer Support
AI-Powered Service Desk
Asset Management
Break/Fix Issues
Build Up Prevention
Change Management
Configuration Management
Continuous Performance Improvements
Corrective Actions
Cost Per Contact
Customer Call Resolution
Customer Service Maximation
Delayed First Contact
Device Configuration
Documentation & Reporting
Employee Onboarding
End-User Requests
End-User Support
Escalation Automation
Feedback Widget (Website)
First-Call Resolution Rate (FCR)
Help Desk Metrics
Help Desk Technologies
Help Desk Ticketing System
Incident & Problem Fixes
Incident Troubleshooting
In-Depth Tech Research
Issue Escalation
Issue Resolution (email, chat, phone)
IT Issues
ITSM Task Management
ITSM Tasks
Knowledge Base Development
MAC/Windows Platforms
Modern Service Desk
Multi-Platform Environment
Multi-Project Management
Open-Source Ticketing System
Open Ticket Close Rates
Open Tickets
Outsource IT Team Management
Problem Management
Problem-Solving Processes
Product Implementation
Product Solutions
Product Troubleshooting
Quality Assurance
Real-Time Dashboard
Remediation Automation
Remote Solutions
Remote Troubleshooting
Remote Workforce
Repeated Tickets
Repetitive Issue Resolution
Report & Metric Monitoring
Resource Scheduling
Root Cause Analysis
Second-Call Resolution (SCR) Rate
Self-Hosted Ticketing System
Service Desk Automation
Service Desk Performance & Results
Service Desk Software
Single Point of Contact (SPOC)
SLA Compliance
Software & Hardware Issues
Software Development Trends
Software Trends & Issues
Strategy Planning & Tracking
Submit a Ticket
Task Assignment
Technical Issue Resolution
Technical Questions
Technology Issue Monitoring
Ticket Creation
Ticket Management
Ticket Resolution
Ticket Response Time
Ticket Tracking & Traffic
Ticket Trending/Patterns
Ticket/System Backlog
Transparent Communications
User Satisfaction
User Support
