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The vast majority of the mentioned tasks by OP are technical-level, tactical work that has been outsourced, as others mention, or solved by external hosting and other 21st Century solutions. Without going into line-item detail, should be pretty obvious from USBLS data and other megatrends (Cloud, outsourcing, distributed apps) that many of those functions are obsolete OR have transitioned to other types of work. Users can solve their own problems better than ever these days, though the need for techs will never drop to "zero". As a function, most of that will become increasingly obsolete and task-based over time. Thus, entry-level.
PS:
Laptop sales are in decline, desktops have cratered. Mobile is on the rise. I wonder if I'm a throwback by buying a pretty powerful laptop just about exactly one year ago, for personal use. I'm a power-user, however. I've never called a "help desk" in my life, for my personal needs.
If someone requires a Bachelor's Degree to perform tech-level work these days, either 1) the nature of the problem-space has ceased being as-tactical and now requires ability to see the strategic or organizational picture (= possible), or 2) Education inflation, due to competition (= also possible).
PPS:
At a business level, plug into HDMI these days in a conference room, it all starts (almost) automagically: the meeting session, content display, etc. Next is doing all that minus the wires, I'm hearing, next few years. I assume that will be "throwing" content at another device (large conferencing monitor, or other device(s) in the room possibly including mobile if they can work out the security kinks). At some point, a projector won't be needed, if that display can be "thrown" from a laptop. One less hassle that requires techs to maintain, as an example.
In a business, and perhaps even personally, as another person said: why on earth would one "troubleshoot" an OS these days, when the tech center can flatten and reimage the machine in three hours? All your data is in the Cloud by default (OneDrive, or Amazon/Google/Apple/Drop Box etc.) Not keeping data elsewhere would be stupid, thus who cares about reimaging. I may be a step behind these days, if parts of an OS can exist as Containers it may be even quicker to backup/restore...
And yeah, throwback apps like on-prem Outlook and Exchange still require some troubleshooting with Profiles and similar. I've seen some weird errors, even relatively recently. Hopefully that's on the wane, though. The techs triaging that are all offshore.
"Why is something like the help desk and desktop support seen as entry level?"
Because it is.
The majority of our help desk people are recent college graduates. We do have a few that are very technical and are at the top of the pay scale and not what I would consider entry level, they've been here for years. They deal with the tools in the production areas, while the level 1 techs do the answering of the phones. Many of the folks in IT started at the help desk a long time ago and they now have different positions.
They set it up in Mumbai and ship it to you. All you gotta do is plug it into power and the network.
Newer trends revolve around diskless, nearly "dumb" terminals that are all interchangeable. Yours breaks, they drop a new one on your desk and it plugs into power and network and you access your virtual desktop through the network--it's no longer "on" your physical desk.
Virtual servers are also taking over. No need to physically "build" a server. It's determined through specifications what type of "server" you need and a virtual server is created for you. If it "fails", another one can start up and take its place in fractions of a second.
Resetting passwords--once done through a help desk person--have been automated. Not really hard to do and really much harder to "social hack" than a person on a phone. Faster, cheaper, and much more secure.
I could go on. These trends just continue on. . .
There are seriously people who would have trouble with this. There are people who use their disk drives as cup holders.
Plus, IT people will be the only people authorized to access the room where any technology is stored. If I went to a pharmacy, I could go behind the counter and fill my own prescription, but I wouldn't be authorized to.
But some of those things you mentioned are pretty cool and I hadn't considered them. Thanks for sharing.
All of those tasks that you listed are all fully automated and not longer needed by a person to setup or configure. There are automated processes created by IT pros that automate all of those fixes or handled by overseas labor.
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Tell that to the last 4 companies I have worked for that they are fully automated. obviously you have not worked in IT.
They set it up in Mumbai and ship it to you. All you gotta do is plug it into power and the network.
Newer trends revolve around diskless, nearly "dumb" terminals that are all interchangeable. Yours breaks, they drop a new one on your desk and it plugs into power and network and you access your virtual desktop through the network--it's no longer "on" your physical desk.
Virtual servers are also taking over. No need to physically "build" a server. It's determined through specifications what type of "server" you need and a virtual server is created for you. If it "fails", another one can start up and take its place in fractions of a second.
Resetting passwords--once done through a help desk person--have been automated. Not really hard to do and really much harder to "social hack" than a person on a phone. Faster, cheaper, and much more secure.
I could go on. These trends just continue on. . .
wow what IT world do you live in? I have been doing IT for 15 years and have yet to see anything start up and take over in fractions of a second. Virtual servers still run on hardware it does break you know?Every job I have worked at the number 1 call is password resets.... so much for automation.
There are seriously people who would have trouble with this. There are people who use their disk drives as cup holders.
Plus, IT people will be the only people authorized to access the room where any technology is stored. If I went to a pharmacy, I could go behind the counter and fill my own prescription, but I wouldn't be authorized to.
But some of those things you mentioned are pretty cool and I hadn't considered them. Thanks for sharing.
Quote:
Users can solve their own problems better than ever these days, though the need for techs will never drop to "zero".
Agree with greenmamba. You are seriously overestimating the intelligence of the user population. We have users who can barely check a power cord that "mysteriously" fell out. Helpdesk will never be obsolete because there are way too many people with zero common sense.
Agree with greenmamba. You are seriously overestimating the intelligence of the user population. We have users who can barely check a power cord that "mysteriously" fell out. Helpdesk will never be obsolete because there are way too many people with zero common sense.
*raises hand* Thank you! That would be me. You can all have the bozo with the troubleshooting manual and I'll take the motivated entry level IT person who can solve my problems. I was on the phone with our IT helpdesk just today. They can log into my terminal and take over, doing what they do so well and giving me the shortest downtime.
Agree with greenmamba. You are seriously overestimating the intelligence of the user population. We have users who can barely check a power cord that "mysteriously" fell out. Helpdesk will never be obsolete because there are way too many people with zero common sense.
This is not about the users. A helpdesk (HD) or desktop support (DTS) person and a normal company end user would have nothing to do with each others chain of command. The HD/DTS people are in the Technical IT chain.
In every job I have worked as a consultant, once the computer is configured to run on the LAN (and sometimes before that is done), it is turned over to the IT developer/contractor who must complete the install of everything they need to use. They generally have no idea in their first or second week what the local configuration should be - but for some idiotic reason they are required to do it anyway.
If someone who is not familiar with the environment can walk in off the street and set up their own development env that definitely does not bode well for a HD/DTS not being entry level.
Agree with greenmamba. You are seriously overestimating the intelligence of the user population. We have users who can barely check a power cord that "mysteriously" fell out. Helpdesk will never be obsolete because there are way too many people with zero common sense.
Story of my life! lol
We set up a clinic (configured their networking, set-up the workstation to be fully functional, the works). We provided them with a label printer and two days after, the manager called us saying we are incompetent techs because the label paper ran out (and somehow that's our fault).
My co-worker asked her, what does she do when her computer printer runs out of paper? Oh yes, you go to the store, buy a pack of paper and put it in the printer. It is the same logic when using a label printer. You have to refill it on your own.
I know for my company, we will never be replaced by an automated machine. We deal with highly sensitive and sometimes emergency cases where people's lives are at risks. It's like telling a doctor who's about to operate on someone, "Please press one if you are locked out and can't log in" or tell a manager who's missing $100,000k and is on a tight deadline, "Please press two if you want are unable to connect".
I say it depends on the company you are working for (the field that the IT company supports and how big it is).
We set up a clinic (configured their networking, set-up the workstation to be fully functional, the works). We provided them with a label printer and two days after, the manager called us saying we are incompetent techs because the label paper ran out (and somehow that's our fault).
My co-worker asked her, what does she do when her computer printer runs out of paper? Oh yes, you go to the store, buy a pack of paper and put it in the printer. It is the same logic when using a label printer. You have to refill it on your own.
I know for my company, we will never be replaced by an automated machine. We deal with highly sensitive and sometimes emergency cases where people's lives are at risks. It's like telling a doctor who's about to operate on someone, "Please press one if you are locked out and can't log in" or tell a manager who's missing $100,000k and is on a tight deadline, "Please press two if you want are unable to connect".
I say it depends on the company you are working for (the field that the IT company supports and how big it is).
LOL we occasionally get the "printer is out of paper" call. Scary
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