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Working as a help desk professional is more than just responding to and diagnosing technical problems. A help desk professional is often all-things to all-people on both the company and client-facing end of the business. They need to combine technical skills with the finesse of people-skills. If you’ve managed to land yourself a job interview for a help desk position, here are a few things to keep in mind that may help you score the job you want.

Brush Up On Your Technical Skills

A large portion of the help desk field provides support for IT and technical equipment within a company and acts as a resource in times of technical struggle. Help desk infrastructures are constantly busy with a range of technical topics from printers and computers, to e-mail accounts, networking issues and more.

Additionally, help desk employees must work with people who have varying degrees of computer hardware and software knowledge. With one ticket, you may be working with a person who has created their own technical networking strategy and just needs minor assistance. Another ticket may have you assisting a new user on how to open an unread e-mail.

Considering this, it is vital to play-up any technical background or skills that you have during your interview and reference particular

events where your technical knowledge resulted in solving an issue.

What Employers Want: More Than Just Technical Skills

Despite having the know-how on troubleshooting technical issues, it is important for help desk employees to keep a professional, customer service-oriented state of mind. Each call is equally as important as the next and you should demonstrate that in your interview and your work experience.

One possible question you will receive is:

“How did you handle yourself when you dealt with a customer or caller who was especially

disrespectful, rude, or difficult?” Employers will watch for key signs in your answer, such as acting professionally regardless of the circumstance, maintaining patience, listening to the customers’ needs and knowing when to ask for help. Have a particular experience ready to reference where you’re customer-service skills helped save the day with a difficult customer

Be Prepared: Answering the Tough (and Not-So-Tough) Questions

When you’re applying for an IT or help desk position, employers will also ask interview questions to test whether or not you have the ability to tolerate stress and work well under pressure.

“Tell me about a time where you’ve had two conflicting work demands and

how did you respond to this dilemma?”

This is the type of question you’ll receive that will determine your ability to multitask, delegate, manage time, and adapt to your work environment. All of these things are vital in a successful help desk employee.

Prepare to share a specific situation where this happened to you - was your colleague out with the flu the day after a system update and you handled it like a pro? Employers want to hear these experiences!

When you head to that interview, remember a few of the basics:

Print out a few extra copies of your resume; you never know how many people you’ll actually run into during the interview process.

Arrive early enough to scope out the office set-up and become more comfortable in your surroundings.

Before attending the interview, research the company and all of the facets that will directly affect your job.

Do you know what type of software they use or what kind of networks and databases that are common? If you don’t know beforehand, this is a perfect question for when they ask, “Do you have any questions for us?”

Make sure you communicate your answers thoroughly and clearly. Communication is a big part of working in the help desk field.

When interviewing for a position, try to keep some of these points in mind as there are a wide range of traits and characteristics that make a great help desk employee. And above all else: take a deep breath and relax!

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