Is the Help Desk Really Worth My Time?

It was four months after I’d graduated college, and I was having second thoughts. I kept asking myself the same questions many new techs ask: is the help desk really worth it as a starting point in an IT career? I’d been searching for a tech job since May. Reading through job postings, crafting cover letters, even walking into businesses and asking for job openings. Now, it was September, and I hadn’t even gotten an interview. Had I really chosen the right career path? Was I doing something wrong? I thought getting a tech job would be easy; there were job postings everywhere. Yet, I hadn’t even gotten a response. Then, I had an epiphany. A month later, I had a job. What was that epiphany, you ask? Why the sudden change?

The tech industry is among the fastest growing industries, with CompTIA predicting the workforce to grow 2.6 times faster than the national average (writing from the United States). However, many of these jobs are seeking ever-increasing levels of education and experience, leading many to become increasingly frustrated as they try to find their opening in the job market.

The solution I found is similar to that in many other industries: start low and work your way up. In just about every area of life, you start in a position of low importance/responsibility and slowly work your way up to higher positions as you gain knowledge and experience. The tech field is no different.

When I originally started applying for jobs, I went for lofty-sounding roles with a higher salary (and typically seeking at least 2 years of experience). I applied for several software engineering and data analysis positions. I never heard back from them. Then, I made the decision to try for a position at the bottom of the food chain… and I got the job.

Yes, I’m referring to the help desk. Perhaps the most dreaded role in the tech world, you’ve probably heard enough horror stories to go around. I know I have. I’ve heard many things about the help desk – some of them okay, most of them bad. I hear people say things like, “You have to interact with stupid people all day” or “Once you’ve learned the basics, you get no experience” or “Never settle for the miseries of the help desk.” That criticism makes sense on the surface — the help desk is hard in ways most people don’t expect — here’s why the help desk can feel so hard early on. There are those who vehemently argue that the help desk should be skipped over if at all possible and left to those with few technical skills. “Why waste your time with a job doing something you hate?” they’ll say. These claims are wrong.

Contrary to these opinions, the help desk is one of the best entry-level jobs in the tech industry. The position has several characteristics that make it unique among the tech field, giving newcomers the opportunity they need to learn processes, grow skills, and gain experience. These unique qualities are precisely the reason that it is so perfect for those seeking to get started with a tech career. Let me explain.

IT’S A SOCIAL THING

Firstly, the help desk is probably the only tech role that has a primary duty of serving other people. For many, this is the first exposure to the fact that tech is ultimately a service industry (although many roles hide this fact quite well). The entire job consists of answering questions from end users and fixing problems for those who are less familiar with technology. Social skills and working well with people are vital to excelling in the help desk position. You can have all the knowledge in the world, but if you don’t know how to talk to people, one of several things will happen. Either they’ll leave a bad review on their ticket, complain to your manager, or start bypassing you entirely. In any case, it’ll be pretty clear whether you’re doing a good job or not.

This isn’t just a help desk issue, though – it’s the foundation of every tech role you’ll ever have. Why does it matter whether we can communicate well with end users? At its heart, the entire tech industry has the job of serving people: making software to improve lives, creating networks that allow for thriving business and communication, fixing computers to get people back to contributing to society as quickly as possible… the list goes on. Although less direct than the help desk, your tech career will be defined by how well you’re meeting the needs of other people. Even in higher positions, you must constantly be concerned with how your work impacts your end users.

The help desk ensures you’ve developed these critical skills before moving on to a higher position where you’re less likely to interact with end users. For example, a 2023 Medium article describes a software engineer whose “poor communication skills overshadowed his outstanding engineering work.” People like this engineer have strong technical skills but lack the people skills from the help desk. As a result, they often end up over-explaining, talking down to users, or lashing out when somebody doesn’t understand them. The help desk is where you learn how to translate computer concepts into human language, manage pressure, and keep your cool when someone’s panicking. You can’t just skip this vital part of the growth process; you must build your people skills on the front lines.

This is usually the point where new help desk techs start to panic — not because of the technology, but because of the people. Knowing what to say, how to ask questions, and how to stay calm on a live call is a skill you can learn.

I put together a short, free guide called “5 Steps to Handling Help Desk Calls with Confidence” that walks through exactly how to approach a call from start to finish without freezing or guessing.

Get the free guide: 5 Steps to Handling Help Desk Calls with Confidence

THE PERFECT TIME TO MAKE MISTAKES

The help desk is the lowest position on the tech ladder. Thus, it has the least amount of responsibility to manage. For some, this may present a frustration if they feel like they’re being utilized to their full potential. This especially holds weight if you remain in the help desk position for an extended period of time (typically, much longer than a year). However, a lack of responsibility isn’t always a bad thing.

If the help desk is your first position in the tech industry (as I usually recommend), you ARE going to make mistakes. Without question, you’re going to screw up. Probably many times. This is the nature of starting a new career. You don’t know everything. What better place to get these mistakes out of the way than in a low-pressure, low-responsibility environment where your decisions impact a single person rather than a whole organization? Think about it. Janet from the business department calls because her printer won’t work. You immediately assume that it must be some sort of driver issue, so you spend a few minutes reinstalling it. A few minutes later, you realize that the real issue was just a paper jam. This is frustrating, but no real harm was done. You’ve learned to always check the obvious things first before jumping to any conclusions.

Now, imagine making a similar mistake in a systems admin role. The business office calls with a printer issue. You assume it’s a driver issue, so you push driver updates across your entire printer fleet. Within minutes, dozens of printers are offline. Payroll can’t print checks, a board presentation is delayed, and multiple departments are put behind schedule. A ten-minute oversight on the help desk became a multi-hour, multi-department crisis as a systems admin. Same lesson learned, different consequences. Where would you rather learn?

Most mistakes on the help desk don’t come from a lack of knowledge — they come from rushing, panicking, or not knowing how to structure a call. Confidence isn’t about knowing everything; it’s about having a process. If you want a simple way to structure your calls so you never freeze or panic again, this call-handling method walks through it step by step.

That’s exactly what I break down in “5 Steps to Handling Help Desk Calls with Confidence.” It’s a simple framework you can rely on when you’re under pressure.

Get the free guide: 5 Steps to Handling Help Desk Calls with Confidence

A TIME TO GROW

Not only will you learn precious people and troubleshooting skills, but the help desk also provides a space to increase your technical knowledge. On the help desk, a position of less responsibility, there are sometimes moments of downtime. When you have a few minutes where tickets have stopped flooding in, why not take a few minutes to learn something new or reinforce your understanding of a skill? Take a computer apart and learn how all the parts work together. Investigate the network infrastructure and try to understand why things are set up the way they are. The goal isn’t to make changes (which would likely result in catastrophe), but to understand how and why things work. 

In low-stakes environments, try rebuilding something from scratch. Find an old computer destined for the dumpster and take it apart. Then, try putting it back together and see if it still works (the first time you do it, it probably won’t). Create a deployment package to update software on a test batch of computers. Most help desk positions are employed by mid- to large-sized companies with enough resources to benefit from a help desk. That means there are often a few extra resources to experiment with and learn with. Instead of buying these parts with your own money and using your personal time to learn, the help desk gives you an opportunity to learn with company resources and still get paid for it!

CONCLUSION

The help desk offers space to grow yourself in a low-pressure, low-responsibility environment. This is precisely what a person new to the tech industry needs. Whether they’re coming from a college program, an online bootcamp, or are self-taught, everyone needs a little time to learn the basics of the tech industry. Depending on your background, you may have the technical skills needed for higher positions. However, do you have the practical skills of handling frustrated users or troubleshooting unexpected problems in a stressful environment? These skills are tough to learn in any place except for the field itself. 

If the idea of starting on the help desk still makes you nervous, that’s normal. Confidence doesn’t come from knowing everything — it comes from knowing how to handle the situation in front of you.

If you want something practical to start with, grab my free guide: “5 Steps to Handling Help Desk Calls with Confidence.” It’s designed for people who are new, unsure, and want a clear way to approach their first calls.

Get the free guide: 5 Steps to Handling Help Desk Calls with Confidence

Once these skills have been learned in a help desk position, you’re much more likely to get an offer on a higher position. Since you’ve demonstrated your technical skills in the help desk and shown your work ethic and devotion to the company, hiring managers will likely be more comfortable giving an open position to you (versus an outsider).