Here’s a curious observation about career advancement in the IT industry.

After you’ve got a start, your hardest career move will be getting out of helpdesk or support related roles.

Why?

Companies that hire grads will hire you if you can show the requisite hard and soft skills.
What they typically won’t do is invest a lot of time or money into you beyond what’s needed for you to do your helpdesk role.

Then the problem with helpdesk roles kicks in.. after a year (particularly if you’re working for only one company) you’ll cover every typical support problem you’re likely to come across, or be allowed to fix with your access level. After that your learning plateaus. Maybe you’re there for 3 years or 5 years.. racking up experience.. that’s good right? Maybe, but probably not, because it’s one year’s experience 5 times over, not 5 years experience.

In the meantime your senior systems engineers and network engineers are being sent on courses to upskill and certify with appropriate golden handcuffs applied, so the employer keeps their skilled specialist staff.

You can complain and moan against the status quo, or you can take matters into your own hands.

Invest in yourself in the early part of your career, do the certs, build your home lab, prove your skills that are beyond your basic helpdesk job requirements. Then once you’re in a more senior position let your employer start investing more in you, if they want to keep you.

Avoid helpdesk stagnation, invest in yourself and take the opportunities as they arise.

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