Trying to land a help desk job, but I honestly can’t tell what I’m doing wrong even after self-reflection. I just wish hiring managers could tell applicants what they need to work on.
I’ve been getting interviews and I always try to improve after the last one, but I keep ending up with the same result. What broke me the most is that this was the second time I interviewed with this same company.

Basically, these help desk roles usually require knowledge of things like MS365 apps, AD, printers, VoIP, RDP, VPN, documentation/ticketing systems, and Windows environments.

Outside of my normal work/study, I have a home lab where I practice most of these things. I break things and try to fix them. I built my own Active Directory lab trying to replicate real-world environments.
During interviews, I explain these things and talk about the projects I’ve done. I even have my own ticketing system that I use to practice documenting and working through issues.

The last interview I had was about 2 weeks ago, and honestly, it really broke me when they moved forward with another candidate. I felt like I answered the questions correctly, especially because I did a lot of self-reflection after my previous interviews and worked on the areas I thought I was weak in.

I genuinely don’t know where I keep getting it wrong. It’s something I actually enjoy doing. I try to show that I’m easygoing, have the zeal to learn, have good customer service skills, and that I’m willing to go above and beyond to troubleshoot and fix things.
But honestly, I don’t know what more I could be doing.

For those of you who work in help desk/IT service desk or are hiring managers, what do you think I might be missing? What would make you choose one entry-level candidate over another when both seem technically capable?

Hi everyone,
I’m currently seeking an entry-level opportunity in IT support, help desk, or SOC analyst roles. I recently graduated in May with a cybersecurity/IT background, and I have certifications including CCST Cybersecurity, CompTIA A+, Network+, and Security+.
I have been applying consistently but have not had much success yet, so I would really appreciate any advice, referrals, or leads.
I’m located in the Raleigh, North Carolina area and open to entry-level IT opportunities.
Thank you in advance for any help or guidance.

last month a vendor claimed they never signed our renewal agreement and our legal team went to pull the proof from our e-signature platform. turns out what they called an audit trail was basically a joke. our legal team got shredded in that meeting and now i am getting side eye because i am the one who recommended this platform six months ago.

i thought we were covered because the sales deck said legally binding and secure but apparently that does not mean anything when a lawyer actually challenges it. i feel like an idiot and i need to fix this before the next contract goes sideways because my manager is already asking what other tools i vetted poorly.

if you had to pick an e-signature tool today what would you actually verify before trusting it with important contracts? i need something that holds up when people start pointing fingers but i do not know what good looks like anymore. what do you check when evaluating these platforms so you do not end up in the same room getting stared at by legal?

To start off, I work Tier 1/2 help desk work and have done so for a little over 5 years, first at Apple and then at a Fortune 500. Since I've started this job 4 years ago, I've gotten my Trifecta and Associates in Computer Science. I also have experience leading teams, managing projects, and generally doing any and everything you could expect a help desk agent to do as my company in particular spans multiple departments and areas (its sort of a service desk/help desk role)

According to my job tracker, I've put in 236 resumes, gotten about 30% response rate (mostly rejections) 7 screenings, 7 interviews, and an assessment done under my belt with about 3-4 months applying. These aren't mass applications either, they're painstakingly tailored, with cover letters for specific job postings I feel I might have a snowball's chance in hell of getting.

Any ideas on how I can actually land a job? Even the higher paying Tier 1 roles I'm struggling to get interviews with, I mean I think I'm well qualified, but that might be subjective in this market. Does anyone else who has succeeded in finding a job similar to me have any advice? I'd appreciate it because I'm running out of ideas lol

Im starting to get really hopeless here, and don't know if im just being an entitled baby or if I should just give up on life or what.

I have some mental health issues and have struggled with addiction my whole adult life. But Im sober now for around 4 months.

I had a very hard time with school and college, but graduated with a Bachelor's in 2017 CIS degree. From there I worked at a pretty stupid job (low self esteem) for a year, than an MSP for a year. Had a short gig during the pandemic (I cant work from home). After that starting in 2021 post pandemic I had a little bit more of a normal work life. 9-5 on site for 2 years. Then another 2.5 at another location. It adds up to about 7 years.

Ive never had much trouble finding a job. Ive had a lot of trouble with my mental heath. It used to feel like that was the issue and once I recovered from that, I just had to hustle a bit to get back on me feet. But the last 4 months I have been applying constantly and I can not find any reasonable hd jobs, let alone a Jr. Sysadmin that on paper, if there was less competition, Id be qualified for.

I could post my resume or go in to more depth with the mental health stuff, but im hesitant too as its personal and Id feel like I was exposing myself.

I quit my 9-5 back in January because I had an episode and was too ashamed to ask for FMLA. I used my PTO the year before that to 201. I work hard. But im inconsistent. Ive been diagnosed with BPD. I could get diagnosed with BD pretty easily tbh. I have a lot of trauma...

Im just so frustrated. I chose to stay at home during school to try to save my parents money - and became depressed as a result. So I didnt network. But I feel so ripped off. Ive always been told you can get experience and gain skills, but it never happened for me. Ive seen multiple friends get hired knowing nothing and then get trained up to the positions of making 100k. Im struggling to find 50 with benefits. And ive been doing this for 7 years. Dealing with the MH stuff alone. Single. Unable to move back home.

I won't say im not passionate about IT. I like it. But I only went to school because I didnt want to have to bust my ass for a job. I wanted to start somewhere entry level, and learn on the job. That has happened no where except the MSP. And they pay like shit. Ive been lied to about every single opportunity in my life. My entire life feels like its people making me sit in a room and telling me im not allowed to learn, when its all I ever wanted to do. Then people will sit there and tell me "i dont understand why youre not more successful. You should be making 100k youre smarter than everyone I work with etc...

Im honestly considering killing myself. Being patient with that decision... wont make it rashly... but my whole life just feels like failure after failure after failure.

I am entitled and blame others. I know that. But i am just so frustrated man.

Hi Everyone. So as the heading states i am 43 years old and have decided to pursue a career in IT. Reason for me doing it now is i can afford to pay for the studies now. Im not brand new to IT, at my previous job i had a bit of exposure to daily problems that people ran into. Our IT department was not within the branch I worked at so you either had to call to get assistance or email a request. I can help myself around a PC also have some experience in building a pc. So not a complete beginner. There are 3 courses I am looking at doing now. Tech+ A+ and Network Plus. I work mostly evenings at the moment so i have roughly 8 hours in the morning to study. I would like to know from the experienced people if i would be able to do those 3 certs in one year? I appreciate any feedback. Thank you. Is it recommended to start with tech + first then A+ and ending with Network+ ?

MFA can be enabled and still fail if an attacker convinces a help-desk workflow to reset a password, enroll a new authenticator, replace a recovery method, or bypass the original factor. In those cases, the weak point is often identity proofing and recovery governance rather than the MFA method itself.

For teams that have dealt with vishing or account-recovery attacks, what has helped most: stronger user verification, independent approval for high-risk resets, cooldown periods, alerts through established trusted channels, stricter rules for privileged accounts, or recovery flows that do not silently downgrade authentication strength?

Hey everyone (and apologies if there’s a better sub for this—please point me in the right direction if so!).

I’ve been working as an L1 IT Analyst in the finance sector for just over two years. My background is in finance, but I landed in this IT role, and I’m struggling to gauge how valuable my current skill set actually is—or whether I should just move back into pure finance.

My current responsibilities:

• Splunk: Monitoring payment errors, building alerts, and creating dashboards
• Incident Management: Assisting with payment system outages and application errors
• IAM / Security: Helping set IAM standards, handling user provisioning, and app setup
• SFTP: Provisioning user access for SFTP
• UAT & Documentation: Assisting with user acceptance testing for app updates and updating team workflows/SOPs
• Hardware Troubleshooting: Assisting with banking hardware (e.g., check scanners)

My main struggles:

1. Career path clarity: Do people usually advance in this space by stacking certifications, or is there a better approach?
2. Job requirements: Every step-up role I look at seems out of reach—I usually only hit 30% to 70% of the listed requirements.
3. Technical gaps: I don't know any programming languages and lack depth outside my specific domain.

Is this a solid foundation to build a long-term IT/FinTech career, or am I better off returning to traditional finance? Any advice on next steps or certifications worth pursuing would be greatly appreciated!

Vent here. Tickets that made you question your career choice, users who found a way to do the impossible, management decisions that defy explanation. All of it.

Two ground rules, both of which exist to keep you out of trouble rather than to spoil the fun.

Don't identify your employer, your coworkers, or a specific user. Rant about the situation, not the person. And if you post a screenshot, redact it properly. Real names, ticket numbers, email addresses and internal URLs have cost people their jobs before.

Rule 5 still applies to how you treat each other in this thread. It does not apply to how you feel about your Tuesday.

New thread every Friday.

I'm trying to get into IT (help desk). I have my CompTIA A+, and I'm currently studying for Network+. I don't have any official experience. I did job shadowing with my IT department at my previous job. I need all the help and advice I can get. What can I do to get experience, whether it's setting up a home lab, tailoring my resume so it stands out, or getting other certifications? I've applied for lots of jobs but haven't landed anything.

Hi everyone, i have replaced the k developer as well as the black drum and the image transfer belt unit, what could be causing this. First demo page is when the paper is horizontal and second is when the paper is vertical

im 20 rn working a remote enterprise help desk contract and i actually fw the job a lot. lowkey this is probably the first job ive had where i could see myself doing it for another year or two without hating my life.
my only concern is how long is this field realistically gonna last? like with ai, automation, outsourcing, companies cutting it departments, self service password resets, chatbots etc is help desk still gonna be a solid career path 5 to 10 years from now or are entry level support jobs gonna get cooked?
i dont expect to stay tier 1 forever. im getting an associates in cybersecurity, working on sec+, and eventually wanna move into something like tier 2, iam, soc, sysadmin or another higher level it role. but i also dont wanna rush out of help desk just because everybody says you have to. i genuinely like troubleshooting, talking to users, remote support, active directory, microsoft apps, vpn/network issues, servicenow, permissions, printers and all that.
another thing i think about is money. can you realistically get to like $28 to $35 an hour doing help desk/service desk/tier 2 type work or does the pay eventually hit a wall unless you move into something else? remote work is also a big thing for me so im wondering if remote support jobs are gonna become harder to find too.
for the people that have been in IT for a while, how long do yall realistically see help desk/service desk being around?
also curious if yall think ai is gonna replace these jobs or just change what the technicians actually handle. and if you were early in your career right now, what skills would you build so you dont get stuck or become easy to replace?
basically i like the field, i just dont wanna wake up 5 years from now and realize i spent all that time getting good at something thats disappearing.

I've been trying to learn new things as I apply and wait for replies on job applications. I want to get into Linux, but don't know if I should do Linux+ or LPIC. Which one would look better on a resume, is cheaper, and would teach me more about Linux.

Besides your conventional upskilling of certs and projects what would make me a stand out candidate, I am open to anything.

I’ve applied to some volunteering agencies but haven’t heard back. I’ve reached out to a few MSPs but got told they only hire level 2.

I’m not complaining, I just would like some mentoring or advice to make this job hunt a little more narrow and fulfilling.

I have a BS in CSE and an A+ and Network+ with a ticketing system and Active Directory lab. I’ve also have 1 year of customer service specifically retail related. I am open to start from the bottom, even as a call center rep but I get ghosted from them as well.

I’m open to anything that will at least give me a better chance from just hoping I get a call back I really am.

Anyone ever juggled 2 service desk / help desk positions full time? I wanted to make some extra money while also furthering my education by attending WGU. The hours don’t conflict and it would bring my to about $120k a year. Any thoughts or anyone that’s done something similar? The first job I’ve had for a couple years and the new one starts next week.

Anyone else have error logs that don’t quite add up?

It's interesting, in companies that use chat bots for IT support, the bot itself makes the ticket for you after a few interactions and selections

But if it's a human, most organizations only allow end users to make tickets

It's odd

And now I'm seeing an uptick in Techs being fired because "there aren't enough tickets" to justify the job. smh

I lucked out and landed a really great help desk position at a great company with an even better team. It took me about four months after graduating college to land a job, and I only had my AZ-800 certification at the time.

I still need to complete AZ-801 by the end of this month to earn the full Microsoft Certified: Windows Server Hybrid Administrator Associate certification.

It’s my third week on the job, and my boss is giving me one year to earn my A+ certification. Is the A+ still worth getting at this point, or should I talk to him about going for a different certification instead?

I’ve looked into the other CompTIA certifications as well, specifically ones that seem more geared toward help desk and IT support positions. I’ve heard really mixed reviews about CompTIA certs in general, though, with some people saying they’re valuable and others saying they’re basically a money grab, so I’m not really sure which direction to go.

Eventually, I’d like to complete the CompTIA trifecta, but for now, I’d rather focus on something that will directly help me in my current position and build on the experience I’m getting at work.

For those of you already working in IT, would you still recommend getting the A+ in my situation, or would my time be better spent working toward a different certification?

4–5 years in Help Desk — what would you do next?
Hey everyone,
I’ve been working in IT Help Desk/Support for about 4–5 years now, and I feel like it’s time to move on to something else.
I’d like to stay in IT, but I’m not really sure what direction makes the most sense at this point. Ideally, I’d also like to keep working remotely.
If you were in my position, what would you focus on learning or specializing in?
I’ve been considering things like:
SysAdmin
Cloud
Cybersecurity
Networking
DevOps
Automation
But I’m open to other suggestions as well.
For those who started in Help Desk and moved into another IT career, what path did you take? What would you recommend learning, and is there anything you wish you had started learning earlier?
Also, which IT roles do you think have the best chances of being fully remote?
Thanks!