How Do I Get Your Job

This blog is my attempt to help out those who have an interest in working in the computer field, and the knowledge to do so, but haven't been successful in getting hired doing it. I get asked how to get into this field all of the time.

I work for a large group of people in a tower, and I manage technical support requests and web instruction and consultation for them.

Sound like something you'd like to do? Read on.

My degree is not in computer science. This is not a bad thing. I rarely have to do anything that they'd teach in a computer science curriculum. In fact, most people in my kind of position have nothing to do with this. If you have a computer science degree, you are likely able to do programming and more advanced work than I do.

When I started in this field, I took a pay cut to work, answering phones, for a technical support call center. This is one of those giant cubicle based phone farms. There were a limited number of ways to troubleshoot the product that we were handling (dial-up networking).

The technical support farm that I worked on had a phone tree of suggestions. When you call a technical support farm, they are likely following a web page like a flow chart.

It doesn't take a lot of computer knowledge. In fact, when I started, I didn't know much. The company that hired me was panicking because they had received a large contract with a major dial-up provider and didn't have enough people to answer the calls. I knew about basic computer stuff (mostly Mac) and I was hired to do PC support. They had to teach me everything about Windows.

And I sucked up as much as I could. I wasn't a good tech support person. My phone calls took too long. I didn't often fix the correct problem. I was more likely to try to keep the person on the phone and work on the problem until it was corrected than try to get them off the phone quickly.

This doesn't mean that this skill isn't valuable. It's a customer service skill, and that is really what I look for in a potential employee. I don't care if they have a lot of experience, but I do look for an ability to related to the person with the problem and an ability to do what it takes to make the person happy, no matter what the cost.

That's why I'm called the Angel of the Tower.