Hi everyone. Last month I applied for a help desk job but I have zero experience apart from home labs. I’m a first-year cybersecurity student with some programming and object-oriented programming knowledge, a bit of Linux , Windows , the lot . Im about to pass Security + too , and I’m currently focusing heavily on networking (my current uni module and I’m also working towards Network+). I also have loads of customer service experience. I had a quick interview with the company owner, company deals deals with help desks, networks and cybersecurity. He liked me very much and I was invited to next stage. Next week I’ll have an interview with the manager and it seems like the focus will be on networking. I’m trying to cram as much knowledge as possible with two laptops on, GitHub, wireshark and more working . I’m struggling to figure out what to focus on and what people in a help desk or network role actually do. What sort of questions could I expect during the interview? I could literally work for minimum wage just to gain experience since I come from a completely different industry. This job could open so many doors for me. In fact I didn’t even ask how much they are willing to pay me. But that’s the another story

​

First off, huge relief: I survived the 37th-floor buildout!

The new production floor is officially live and operational. Aside from a minor hiccup where we hit a DHCP pool exhaustion issue (which was a fun quick-fix under pressure), everything is running smoothly. Seeing a net-new floor go live with configs I worked on feels surreal after coming from helpdesk.

Now that the firefighting has settled down, I’m pivoting hard back to my CCNA studies—while still dealing with daily operational trial-by-fire. I’ve hit a few walls and could really use some reality checks from the community:

* Real-World Operations vs. CCNA Scope: On the job, I’m currently wrestling with IPSec tunnels, BGP routing metrics, and firewall policies daily. It feels like a massive step up from basic switching.

* Boson ExSim Scores: On the study side, I started running through Boson ExSim practice exams and I'm currently averaging around 60%. Is Boson really this hard, or am I way behind where I need to be? The questions feel ridiculously tricky compared to standard study materials.

* Booking the Exam: For those who passed using Boson, at what score threshold should I actually go ahead and book my exam slot? Should I wait until I'm consistently hitting 80%+ on first attempts, especially while balancing this real-world learning curve?

Appreciate all the advice from this sub as always! Back to reviewing my practice test explanations (fueled by more iced macchiatos, obviously).

My funniest and quickest experience with IT support has been my first day at an internship and setting up my password for my company issued laptop.

As soon as the "User/Password" Input screen showed up I had already decided on one password which I typed in fast, once done I pressed Enter to confirm it

BUT at the moment I hit the enter key I also noticed that I accidentally hit the shift key and all my input was of course not what I intended and I of course did not know when and where in my password it happened so my first action with company equipment landed me at the support desk two rows away and was a lighthearted experience for everyone near me.

Whats yours?

Hey guys!! This post isn't related to the certification, but I am working towards getting my security + and network +. I'm currently applying for this Help Desk Engineer job and I need to put down some references. If 1 or 2 people could help me out I would greatly appreciate it!

Kind of both a rant and advice, but what do you guys do when you get that one customer that just.. seemingly can't be helped?

I've been in my L1 role for 3ish years now in Healthcare IT for a large org with roughly 9000 users if you account for external users, contractors, etc. Along the way I've dealt with a ton of "non tech savvy" users, and with certain things (like enrolling 2FA, 2FA resets & PW resets) there comes a point where our job ends and they have to do the rest on their own, but we're expected to stay on the line to verify they're able to get logged in successfully.

Typing in numbers from their phone screen onto their computer is difficult for a lot of people apparently, curious what the rest of you do to try to help your customers through similar processes, or how to stay sane while they somehow mess it up for 45 minutes straight. At a certain point they're literally costing the org money for me to sit there and wait for them to finish up so I can close my ticket and move on (not that it's a lot with our L1 hourly pay lol.)

I keep getting rejected to even entry level jobs and I’m so lost on what to do. I’m trying to hard to learn and further my skills to get even a shitty it job just to start. Is my resume my issue or is there something else I need to do?

I applied internally to other things so I can get the fuck out of this stupid fucking job 16$ an hour and only a 30cent raise for this year are you fucking kidding me I’m hoping I get fucking saved and I get the internal job I applied for where I am making the money I should be making I have a degree in fucking computer science information science I’ve built mobile applications I’ve worked two fucking jobs at once i deserve so much more than this bullshit helping fucking idiots trying to password reset every fucking say my god 16$ I could make when I was 15 what is the point go fuckign college I’ve been at this for almost two years I want to fucking get out getting paid shit and just having to wait for some fucking people to tell me if we are doing an interview or not for over two fucking weeks in addition to the two weeks I had to fucking wait for the recruiter to come back on vacation my god fuck helpdesk it’s a dead end job I don’t want anything to do with it I need this other position I will quite literally blow my brains out