A help desk technician restores people’s ability to work. Every password reset, frozen laptop or missing shared folder means somebody cannot do their job, and your role is to get them moving again as quickly and safely as possible.
Most help desk work arrives through four channels:
A day usually mixes reactive work (incidents) with planned work (requests), such as preparing a laptop for a new employee, installing approved software or giving someone access to a shared mailbox.
These two words appear in almost every support team:
| Type | Meaning | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Incident | Something that worked has stopped working | Outlook crashes on start |
| Service request | A user asks for something new | Access to the finance folder |
The difference matters because incidents are measured on how fast service is restored, while requests are measured on how reliably they are delivered.
Many organisations split support into levels:
Starting at Tier 1 is not a weakness. It is where you learn how the whole environment fits together.
Hiring managers for entry-level support roles usually look for three things:
The rest of this course builds each of these, one section at a time.
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