I posted another thread recently which got me thinking about this. I graduated in 99 from a tech school with a technical degree (read: non-college degree) in “Computer Servicing Technology.” Its almost worthless these days in the greater Philadelphia area where I live. When I first left school the market was pretty good, but looking at sites like careerbuilder, dice, and the local newspaper classifides its almost as if every single business using PC’s either has no trouble with them, or no longer use them. What the heck happened here? Who is taking care of all these desktop PCs? Are the days where you can make a decent living supporting them gone? I have since moved into networking but still have a lot to learn. If I lost my current position, my skills would still be considered to be primarily those of a PC support tech. Looking forward to hearing from everyone!
Computers finally moved up from “confusing novelty” to “office equipment”. They got easier to use, and people figured out how to use them.
Here is your new Bible–the U.S. Department of Labor Occupational Outlook Handbook, 2002-03 Edition. Enjoy. 
“C” is for “Computer”.
http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocoic.htm#C
Main search page.
http://www.bls.gov/search/ooh.asp?ct=OOH
A lot of the bigger companies are outsourcing their IT support to India, Pakistan, and that sort of place.
Up until mid 2002 I did PC support. However, it was called “Systems Administration.” As far as I know, there’s still a market for it, but with the economy as bad as it is the positions are few and far between.
As far as outsourcing IT support to foreign countries, that seems a bit odd – it’s very hard for someone in Pakistan to drop by your office in the US and see what exactly the problem is.
Up until mid 2002 I did PC support. However, it was called “Systems Administration.” As far as I know, there’s still a market for it, but with the economy as bad as it is the positions are few and far between.
As far as outsourcing IT support to foreign countries, that seems a bit odd – it’s very hard for someone in Pakistan to drop by your office in the US and see what exactly the problem is.
Quite simply, there’s a WHOLE LOT of gamers making Counter-Strike money by working as PC Techs. Some of them are good. A whole lot of them aren’t. This has saturated the job market. People have also wised up to the fact that most computer certifications and degrees have no relevance to actual skills, making it hard to demonstrate that you have real skill.
Source: http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1103-993086.html
Generally speaking, those with fewer tech job credentials are the ones who lose out more often.
I agree with sengkelat about the outsourcing. My experience has been coding gets outsourced quite often to india for example. Support may get outsourced to a regional office if the company is large enough.
BubbaQ works in this field. From seeing his jobs over the past two years, smaller companies use placement agencies that specialize in IT placement to handle routine things like upgrades, virus protection, swaps, fixing what someone else messed up, etc.
I work for an IT company. We employ very little on-site PC support. We utilize an out of state call center with multiple clients (they read scripts ugh!). For hardware issues we deal with another major 3rd party manufacturer.
BSQ
Really? It appears that computer hasn’t gotten easier to use.
Put a total newbie in front of a Wintel or Mac computer. See if she can figure out what’s going on by herself.
Gender is irrelevant.
I see clueless males and females all the time.
I work in IT support. There is less need for help with how to use software (the general operation of all software is pretty standardized and has been since Windows 3.1). Most people arrive in college knowing how to use a word processor; you only get questions about the most obscure commands, and not a lot of them. You can put a newbie in front of a computer and they’ll start word processing in a few minutes.
More of our support issues are with networking. If you have a computer at home, you usually don’t have a lot of experience, and every network is different (the biggest thing people need to learn about computers is that you have to be receptive to change).
We also have to deal with things like upgrading operating systems (we’re currently switching over to WinXP), security, and antivirus. There’s actual repair to the infrastructure (mostly network), keeping control of traffic (this is a college, and file sharing is a bane), maintaining computers in public areas, etc.
The job market is tough. We just hired someone, and got hundreds of resumes, including some from across the country (we were not paying enough for anyone to relocate).
Incidentally, I don’t believe any of our technicians have a degree in “computer tech.” Job experience counts a lot more than what our majors were.
Interesting stuff, thanks all. Just FYI, I’ve always considered desktop support and systems administration to be two different things, one supports desktops and deals with users, the other is networking and deals with servers and hubs. Of course in my current job, like many other people, I do both. I think that must account for at least part of this situation, network admins are doing desktop support too these days.
General question for y’all: Where does the position known as “Help Desk” fit into all this?
Well, traditionally the help desk is considered to be the bottom level of support, 1st level. When they can’t resolve a problem over the phone, it goes to the hardware or desktop support guys which is where I started out. I think many people start on the phone because it is considered less desirable (at least to some). I personally can’t stand to try and resolve technical problems over the phone, especially talking to people who have no technical ability.
Here`s a spin for you.
How about all the people that arent buying new computers because the economy is slow? They probably arent willing to take them in and pay $70 per hour to have them upgraded either.
You could possibly get into service work for the home PC crowd.
Be willing to make service calls at a rate that is less than the shop rate. It makes sense to me. Get onsite repairs/upgrades without having to take in the computer and the customer pays less then they would if they packed it up and took it to the shop.
Is there a market for this?
Well, I have been working in help desk for quite awhile, so here’s my $.02
By majority, small to medium companies have just a small department for their IT. Usually, hardware support they would designate one or two persons to do and software they tend to either buy off shelf or get a consulting outsource. Of course, medium to larger companies may have a dedicated dept. for IT, but mainly for purpose of programmers to develop their own software.
The company I work in right now, is a subsidiary company off a major corporate office and we have a helpcenter; we support the parent company and all other subsidiary companies as well. We have a phone support center that supports offsite offices located throughout the US, and international. But also a desktop support the main corporate office. Needless to say, there are ten thousands worldwide customers and in the local office we have close to a thousand. The phone support is less desirable and they have a very high turnover rate as people come and go, but desktop has been pretty much promotions from other departments and people promoted to other departments. Anyways my main point is that my experience shows to get a good job you have to try to get a foot in a good company and hopefully you can promote to better positions. Also, training is not really provided so you really have to get some experience to show on your resume. One key thing that helps me when I started is experience in building a computer. Either that or experience in upgrading your computer.
Thanks guys, great info.