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Like most jobs, advancing your help desk career doesn’t happen by simply fine-tuning a one-trick work pony. Sure, your technical skills are the fundamental base to climbing that help desk career ladder, but strengthening your communication, leadership, customer service skills and other human components are vital to success in your help desk career as a whole.

Here are a few tips to finding and improving your help desk career potential.

Charming Customer Service

Help desk professionals deal with great amounts of stress, day in and day out. But it’s how you handle yourself when dealing with that stress that can make or break your career, especially in the world of customer service. Blending patience, strong verbal and written communication, leadership, and conflict resolution skills with standard troubleshooting and application-based technical skills can help you see that light at the end of the help desk career tunnel more clearly.

Lead Through Example

One of the best ways to strengthen your communication skills and technical understandings is to take on a mentor-like role with a less-experienced colleague. By taking a rookie under your wing, you’ll grow your explanation skills through valuable demonstration and teaching while reinforcing your own understanding and knowledge. Leading is a sure step toward advancing.

Stay Updated, Even After Working Hours

The field of IT and help desk is a constantly evolving, growing and changing profession. With continually emerging new technology, it’s easy to get left behind. By keeping updated on new industry trends and happenings, even outside of working hours, can help put your knowledge and understanding above the rest leading to greater opportunities for advancing your help desk career.

Make Your Word, Your Bond

In a demanding field like the help desk industry, it’s easy to get overwhelmed with user and client demands – taking on more than you can handle. Juggling projects and commitments and not following through is a sure example of what not to do if you hope to advance through the service desk ropes. Successful IT pros finish what they start – even if that requires you asking for help. After all, a fixed issue, no matter who helped with it, is always better than missing a deadline or not finding a solution altogether.

Be Seen, Be Heard and Get Out of the Box…Literally and Figuratively

Because help desk professionals require so much attention to their computers and software, it’s easy to stay complacent and stationary within the confines of your own desk or cubicle. However, that’s not a smart career move. Possessing a broader knowledge of your company’s overall business goals, mission statement, as well as the roles of coworkers in other departments, can help you expand your networking pool and work relationships for future advancement. Now that you are taking the right steps to advance your help desk career, it is important to brush up on your help desk interview skills and review the important soft skills for help desk professionals.