Tips for Landing a Job in IT Support… and Keeping it!

So, you’re ready to find a job in IT support and maintain a successful tech career.

As much as the industry requires technical knowledge, it is not just about being the smartest guy in the room. 

Providing support is about being valuable to your company’s clients, as well as to your team and yourself. 

Here are our top tips for doing just that. 

Be purposeful and intentional when finding companies offering IT support jobs

Part of landing an IT support job that builds long lasting progress for your career is finding a company you can grow and evolve with. 

You should apply to companies you actually like which align with your values and lifestyle. 

You can do the following to get an understanding of how much you would like working for a company:

1. Check out what others have said about working for the company on websites like Glassdoor.
2. Follow companies you are interested in on social media and look at posts about their workplace environment.
3. Read testimonials from clients and staff members on the company’s website. 
4. Read articles on their website and LinkedIn to learn more about the company. 

You can also get a feel for whether or not you would like working for a company based on the interviewer’s style of talking to you. 

Watch out for the following tells of a negative workplace environment:

• The interview feels like an interrogation, not a conversation. 
• The interviewer is serious and never cracks jokes.
• The interviewer takes no interest in who you are as a person. 
• The interviewer is patronizing or belittling. 
• The interviewer talks negatively of other people in the company during the interview.
• The interviewer shoots down your ideas.
• The interviewer seems annoyed when you discuss scheduling logistics for travel, taking time off and essentially having a life. 

One of the biggest mistakes you can make as a job seeker is underestimate how much power you have. 

Half the battle of scoring a great job in IT is knowing what you do and don’t want in your work environment. 

Practice makes perfect if you want  to rock that support tech job interview

Before your interview, it is good to practice answering questions you might be asked. 

You can prepare those potential questions based on your experience level and the tasks that fall under it. 

Depending on experience, you should prepare answering questions about the following:

Practice roleplaying for your IT support job interview

So… You are working as a support tech, and the CEO of one of the companies you provide support for calls. 

He is going into a meeting in 10 minutes, but he can’t print out some papers he needs. He’s also kinda freaking out. 

What do you do?

Hopefully you don’t freeze up if you’re asked something like this during your support tech job interview!

Role playing scenarios like this might arise, so you need to get your mind sharp. How proactive you are will reflect how well you will be as an employee. 

You can prepare for role playing by:

• Taking an online tech support quiz that has role playing scenarios.
• Practice with a friend or family member who can pretend to be your interviewer. 
• Look on the company’s website for any clues about specific softwares or hardware that might be addressed in the roleplaying. 
• Practice composing yourself before answering questions. Don’t stress yourself out by answering too fast.  
• Consider some interview improvisation techniques strategies to help you relinquish some pressure you might feel when  being on the spot. 

The more comfortable you are with the spotlight being on you, the more confident you will be in your answers. 

Be so valuable to IT companies that they fear not adding you to their team

There is more to getting an IT support job than being knowledgeable in the field. You also have to be likeable and present just how valuable you are. 

A clever trick to increase your value is to create a sense of urgency. 

Companies that take an interest in you should feel terrified that they will lose you to someone else if they don’t hurry up and claim you. 

You can do this by:

1. Talking about other options you have, as long as you don’t act braggy.
2. Stating you have another interview tomorrow with another company you might work with.
3. Saying you have to weigh your options from other interested companies, so they should let you know as soon as they can. 
4. Ask them for a realistic timeline for hearing back from them. They will be more likely to get back to you if they actually answer that.
5. When interviewing for jobs in IT support, make sure your interviewer knows you’re a hot commodity and someone else might snatch you up.

You can also show your value and be extremely likeable by showing a giver’s mentality. Companies are hiring because they have a problem. You need to make it abundantly clear that you can solve it. 

You can reveal yourself as a problem solver by doing the following:

1. Suggest things you can do that you notice the company doesn’t already do.  
2. Explain how you can produce even better results than what is being asked of you.
3. Speak about extra skills you have that will be beneficial to the role.
4. Describe how you will take initiative to improve upon the role.

Turn your job in IT support into a career in IT support

So you followed all the tips above, and you got the job. Yay! 

Now you really want to impress your new bosses and have longevity in the company. 

There are a few ways you can show your bosses that you want to grow with the company and have a successful IT career.

Being a reliable team player is always our first recommendation. It is not rocket science to understand how to be just that. All you have to do is:

• Followthrough with great customer service for those stressed out clients that call the help desk.  
• Follow communication procedures. If your boss says to only use the chat for urgent situations, then only use the chat for urgent situations. 
• Be accountable and responsible with the ticketing system and client issues. Stick to establishing new tasks in the ticketing system and updating them there. Don’t get sloppy and initiate new tasks in the chat or through email and create a headache the next day when the most recent action isn’t even updated on the ticketing system.
• Help develop better procedures and help your boss automate parts of the workflow to work on the business, not in the business. 

You also need to help your bosses see you as playing a role in the growth of the company.  This will surely secure your future. 

You can help them see this by:

• Making suggestions in team meetings of ways to improve your role.
• Recommend softwares that you think would help produce better results or improve organization.
• Test ideas you have to improve things, and discuss them with your boss when they follow through.
• Offer to do things that aren’t asked of you. 
• Talk about the future of the company with your boss, so that he or she associates you with scaling the business. 

Just remember that you have more power than you think. 

You are a valuable problem-solver. If you are confident in what you bring to the table and show that you are constantly growing, your employer will see that too. 

We hope you feel more confident in your IT support job pursuit. If you are confused about anything, we are happy to clarify so do let us know in the comments below.