Your help desk career: Dead end or launching pad?

A role on an IT help desk is what you make of it, tech pros say -- just don't get too comfy.

Mature help desk organizations offer technicians challenging roles beyond simple password resets, says McGarahan, who ran the help desk from 1992 to 1995 at Taco Bell, where he oversaw back office operations and point-of-sale systems for 4,500 restaurants. For example, some help desks are spending more time getting to the root of customer problems by using knowledge bases and other analytical tools "to resolve more challenging incidents while the customer is still on the phone," explains McGarahan.

"A customer of mine once said that if companies are doing the right things in running the help desk, the line to get onto the help desk should be longer than the line to get out," says McGarahan.

What's in it for you?
    Worried your time on the help desk won't leave you with any transferable skills?

    Jeremy Kurtz would like to disabuse you of that notion. "The help desk role has evolved so much over the years," says Kurtz, president of HDI's New England chapter.

    Over the past few years, as an increasing number of companies have sent their technical support offshore, says Kurtz, domestic help desk workers have transitioned more into analyst-type roles as they spend more time analyzing trouble-ticket and call center trends and managing offshore resources -- just the kind of skills that can lead to jobs off the help desk.

    Kurtz should know. After managing the help desk of a Fortune 500 retailer from 2000 to 2007, he moved into a role as an IS manager at the company, where he oversees its knowledge management and self-help programs. "It's a faster path to a director role because you have multiple areas of experience instead of just having expertise in a discipline such as Unix," he says.

    Work on the help desk exposes technicians to other managers and influencers in an organization. "You get to know people, and they come to trust you," says Ben Schwartz, a contract IT worker and desktop support technician at Axsun Technologies.

    That includes C-level managers. When you take a help desk call from a senior executive, "you're in the limelight, representing not only IT but also yourself," says Joe Arnett, director of IT infrastructure at FujiFilm Holdings America, where he ran the IT help desk from 1998 to 2000.

    "If you continue to develop your training and [maintain your] interest in learning new areas, you're going to increase your visibility," says Arnett. "It opens up that door."

Moving on up

It's customary for upwardly mobile help desk technicians to transition into IT roles such as systems administration, data center operations and network management, sources say, but help desk employees aren't necessarily limited to technically oriented pursuits.

For example, help desk technicians can move into business analyst roles, thanks to their problem-solving savvy, strong interpersonal skills and their broad-based understanding of business operations, says Ric Mims, executive consultant at SupportCenter Global Technologies, who is also a global faculty member of HDI.

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