Last time we had a position I posted here and got a lot of positive feedback, so I’m posting our newest position.
I am the supervisor of the UF Health IT helpdesk and we have an L1 position to fill. As an L1, your responsibility is to answer phones and remotely help our customers (other UF Health employees). We are a helpdesk, not a call center, so our goal is not to answer as many calls as possible, go through a basic script, and create a ticket for someone else to deal with. We have a centralized support model, so every single IT request is funneled through us to either resolve or route to the team that can resolve it. This means as an L1, you need to have good troubleshooting skills and customer service skills.
This is a Shands position (about 60% of the team are Shands employees and 40% UF employees) and the advertised pay rate is $20.65 - $26.11 per hour. This is an excellent way to get your foot in the door in IT at Shands.
If you are interested, please apply here. Let me know if you have any questions.
#Job Opening Summary
Answer and resolve inbound technical calls at a Help Desk. Troubleshoot corporate applications with the use of a knowledge base and assign issues to the appropriate support groups as needed. Solves basic problems; escalates complex problems to next level analyst. Follows all escalation procedures according to service-level commitments. Use remote control tools to assist end user when needed. Provides an accurate record of each call in an incident management tracking tool.
#Job Opening Qualifications
Minimum Education and Experience Requirements:
- Minimum 1 year of technical support experience.
- College graduate with AA or AS degree in computer science or relative field preferred.
- Degree(s) may be substituted for experience.
- Excellent communication and customer service skills.
- Proficient in support of desktop hardware, software and peripherals in a networked environment.
- Experience with Microsoft Office products and VPN.
- Familiarity with health care information system is preferred.
- Industry standard technical certification (A+, Microsoft or Apple) or a Support Center Analyst certification is required.
so our goal is not to answer as many calls as possible
Really?
(sounds like a great opportunity for the right person)
Sounds like a decent position that focuses on troubleshooting and addressing issues.
I see here the job entails “answer phones and remotely help our customers”.
Does this mean there is an in office component or is the gig remote?
I’ve been looking into jobs like this to get into the IT field, but haven’t had any luck. Do you have any recommendations on what certifications I can add to bolster my resume? I’m trying to break from working in the service industry and kitchen life and am currently interning in an IT position.
Do you ever have L2 or supervisor positions open to outside hires? I have 9 years call center and supervisory experience and would love a change of scenery.
Wow! Thanks for posting! I have been looking for a local IT help desk position and this seems right up my alley!
Really?
Well, I guess if someone wants to be pedantic the answer is no because we still need each analysts to answer as many calls as possible, but… resolving issues right away saves companies money in the long term. Every time a ticket has to be escalated to the next tier, it costs the company money. So there is a balance to be made. We don’t want an analyst on the phone with a single customer for 3 hours troubleshooting a crazy problem for example. They would be expected to realize the issue is complex, sum up their troubleshooting steps in a note, and escalate to level 2 at some point before it turned into a 3 hour call.
So there is a balance to be had for sure. What we don’t do is just record the details in a ticket, forward the ticket somewhere else, and then move on to the next call. So in that sense, yes the goal is not to answer as many calls as humanly possible.
Does this mean there is an in office component or is the gig remote?
Technically… both. Depends on what you mean by remote though. We are on-site, in a Shands building. When someone calls, we remote into their computer to fix their issue whenever possible. Most analysts are able to resolve about 60% of their calls remotely. If a problem requires an on-site visit, we reassign the ticket to the field staff and move on to the next call.
There is the potential for work from home. New hires are not eligible for the first 6 months. After that, the official IT policy is an employee can work from home 2 days a week and in the office 3 days a week, but full time work from home can happen “at the manager’s discretion.” So realistically, it’d most likely go no WFH during first 6 month. If everything is going well, we could transition to a day or two WFH for a while. Then, as long as performance is still the same, talk about full time WFH.
It’s going to depend on a few things. It sounds like, based on the way you phrased it, you do not have any formal IT experience other than your internship. How long have you had that? Have you had a long-standing interest in technology/computer in general?
For general purpose certificates, you can’t go wrong with some of the basic ones. A+, Network+, Security+ are all good places to start. Look at this page on the CompTIA website. They will also help you get a sense of what area you might want to specialize in.
Certifications can be helpful when you’re first starting by substituting for experience. I can’t really speak for other companies, but we have a requirement of 1 industry related certification or else HR won’t even send the application to the hiring manager. It kinda sucks, I know, but if we didn’t do that I would literally have 100 applications to sort through. Don’t let it deter you though. One of my most recent hires had no formal experience, but had several certifications and had almost finished a degree.
Hope that helps some.
It happens sometimes… but honestly most of the time those positions will be filled internally.
Thank you for taking the time to respond! That makes a lot of sense; you want support to be effective but not obsessive.
I’ve been interning since last August. However I was only able to intern a couple of days of the week (maybe even skipping a week of interning due to hectic work schedule in the kitchen). However while interning I did basic troubleshooting around such as helping maintaining software across Linux, Windows, and Mac OS’s. We also had a podcasting room where we recorded and edited audio files and videos files using premiere pro and audacity for clients. I’ve also done some light programming to for some automation processes. I’ve used photoshop and illustrator for mock ups of websites and signs for the company. Just various AV/IT stuff around the company.
I’ve had almost 3 years of service industry experience and I’m ready to get out! I’ve become a national corporate trainer within one and a half years of working in a corporate restaurant then moved on to becoming the lead pastry chef in an upscale restaurant. It’s a bit hard to translate some of my skills from these jobs into a more technical field.
I don’t currently have any professional certifications, but I will definitely look into the ones you suggested! I also have around 110 credits towards a BS in Computer Engineering if that helps any. Would you recommend that I apply for the job listing that you linked to?
What I like to tell applicants is that we are a help desk, not a call center.
Would you recommend that I apply for the job listing that you linked to?
I personally love giving the “underdog” candidates a chance, but if you don’t currently have a certification then the application would likely never get past the HR screening phase and to me to review. My advice would be work on getting a few certifications, experience when you can manage it, and keep applying. Lower level analyst positions are posted all the time by both UF and Shands.