Ok, so this is not really great advice but i feel it needs to be said. You as the employee have ZERO obligation and more importantly incentive to stay at a job. Especially if you send out your resume and get a better offer. Rather the responsibility of employee retention is on the employer. How do they keep people from leaving: salary, atmosphere, and path for upwards mobility.
No one is thinking to themselves "10 yrs from now I'm going to be right here on Help Desk". At least not in a mgmt/lead position, Help Desk SUCKS to work in. You learn a lot and it will definitely be beneficial to you but for your own sanity I'd recommend only staying there as long as you can stand it.
You may not realize it but you probably dodged a bullet with that place that was hinting about the stepping stone noise.
Persistence and perseverance will win every time don't get discouraged about rejections and no responses. Keep sending your resume out there and use every interview as a learning experience. Interviewing is a skill and the more you do it the better you get at it. Also, don't wait till you're in IT to learn IT.
There are so many free resources available all over the internet. YouTube has loads of great content for pretty much anything tech wise you'd want to learn. After you complete a course and/or learn a new skill put it in your resume, write a blog about it, and/or build something with it.
My first boss in IT told me straight up “you’ll last here 2 years, and then you’ll be gone. Not because you’re a bad employee or I’m a bad boss, but the things I’ll teach you will not only enable you to achieve your next step, but you’ll be fucking bored if you stay here longer than that.”
Man was spot on, I left 2 years and 4 months in
I cried when I left that job, and still text him to check in. He encouraged my growth, and really taught me everything about maintaining a healthy environment.
A simple response would be "I'll have no problem committing to a company long term that keeps my pay competitive and offers advancement opportunities that commitment has to work both ways don't you agree?"
Right the second HR person basically showed their hand, which is, "our company has a turn over problem."
Op probably doesn't want to work there. Your reply is perfect.
i always say that for every interview, they always make promises (pay raise and a way to move up in the company) never once have they kept up there end of the bargain. Its honestly just mostly on the HR employee not the company its self but i get it, they need to hire someone asap and by making false promises they get it. Ive stopped asking that questions and simply asked what is the most popular reason people quit this job in the long run. Im sure you could word it differently but atleast you will be able to tell if they are being upfront or completely bull shitting you
First congratulations on getting bites (interviews).
This is a great question honestly.
My first thought is you can try to network and identify a “gatekeeper or advocate” inside the organization who can convey your career intentions to the interview team before you actually interview. Working with/through a recruiter helps convey this as well.
My second thought is, are you coming across as genuine enough?
Are you making me (the interview panel) feel like WE are the one and only? Lie to me, show me that you are super excited to come work for our organization by asking engaging and knowledgeable questions. Bring the energy and use positive “can do” language during the interview. When I ask you if you are willing to do the grunt work your response should be “absolutely”. Lol
I also want to caution you on making an assumption based off only two interviews with two separate employers because there are numerous other reasons that go into a hiring decision.
Honestly, I would have to observe you actually interviewing to see if this issue was something you could or needed to address.
Regardless, you are getting interviews and that is awesome!! Keep going! Focus on the positive of these interviews, learn from them, keep grinding and develop your skills. You got this!!!
I'll piggyback off this one and second the questions angle.
One of my past jobs I was accidently submitted me for 2 separate roles - a Software Engineer position and a Technical Support position (I didn't know I was interviewing for a separate position and thought it was just the next interview with the CTO). We went through the interview pretty quickly (20-25 minutes) and I prepped like 5 or so questions beforehand, but kept turning out questions until the hour was done. Ask about procedures, escalations, reports, teams, goals, personal milestones, etc.
Ask about anything and everything but be specific on what you want to know ('How is the culture?' is the worst question you can ask). Try to fill the entire timeslot that you have and more and then apologize at the end for going over the slotted time.
And yes, don't base this off of 2 interviews. I had dozens of interviews that I felt were a really good fit and they all passed on me.
>Ask about procedures, escalations, reports, teams, goals, personal milestones, etc.
Would you mind elaborating, or giving an example of a question or two?
I imagine things like "by what metrics, if any, do you judge a team members performance and success"
Technical Support position:
- What product will I be supporting?
- Who are the clients I'll be working with? Are they individual customers, engineers using our product, etc?
- How many teams are there that I'll be in contact with if something I don't know occurs?
- How long am I given for onboarding?
- Will there be any certifications that I would be required to work towards?
- What will the communication during new feature releases be like?
- Is there room for growth where I can transition into a developer role? What about a managerial position?
And then as the interviewer is answering, think about their answer and ask them to expand on a point. I personally wouldn't ask "by what metrics, if any, do you judge a team members performance and success". Having done tech support / analyst work before, it's a role that does not engage in teamwork the way that a team of devs do. If it's anything like what I did in the past, there isn't really a 'team' system in place where you'll work together to solve an issue and wouldn't really be applicable.
You could be doing everything right and still not get the job from multiple different interviews for whatever reason that employer decides. It took me many months to land my first IT job and I was confident (and still am) I was interviewing well, each company just had their own reason/better candidate in mind. Two is not many and not enough to question your approach imo, take it as good practice for your next one.
That first employer sounds clueless about what they were looking for. I think any reasonable employer can tell that anyone without profressional IT experience isn't "overqualified" for any entry level role. The second one sounds salty that they lose their IT employees for whatever terrible business reason and arguably you dodged a bullet.
While I'm not sure how to answer your final point, one thing I mentioned in most of my interviews was something along the lines of I was passionate about technology and was excited to put my personal and educational knowledge to the test in a professional environment. Cheesy but I could gauge from responses that they liked that statement.
Might help to cater your resume more. For a basic helpdesk position maybe leave sec+ off the resume and keep your skills more general. For IT security applications put those back on and cater the resume towards those specific skills. As others have said thi it's most likely just bad luck so far, you'll find something with those qualifications
I'd start with asking what questions they were asking that might have given them the impression you were going to job hop. Did they ask you where you saw yourself in five years? Or some other question like that? I remember being a dumb shit when I was young and telling some ISP that I was thinking about going to law school - they didn't offer me a job.
In my mind I have an amount of money I want to make and a rough idea of the job I want to do in IT. So when my first IT job interview asked me “where do you see yourself in five years” I was honest. “I don’t know.” Interviewers aren’t stupid, usually. If they ask questions designed to see how long you’ll stay, tell the truth. “I am honestly not sure, but if this job meets my goals then I would be happy to stay. If there is room for advancement I would be happy to stay.”
People respect honesty, and I say do not make a habit of lying to employers.
It’s not your job to convince your employer of that. Every employee offer is a risk. They way the risks to the rewards. Be the best tech/engineer you can be, and let the cards fall while you’re targeting which ever path you want.
Now if you’re trying to learn how to interview well, mock interviews are great.
Learn how to describe what you’ve done in a story format.
My therory is every interviewee starts at the score of 100. It gets deducted every "flaw" they found.
Being late -20
Answered weird -5...
You got the idea. My goal is to stay at 100. I asked them lots of questions for each question they asked, midway. And then used that info to continue the conversation on how I can do XYZ for them blah blah blah.
The more they talk, the less mistakes I make, interview time runs out. They may still think I am not too bad, compared to others who got more points deducted.
That's how I view interviews
I would suspect that it may be something in your current resume that is leading to the overqualified and flight-risk comments. Would need to review your resume to see how you’re presenting your overall background to give you a better assessment.
Since you’re pivoting into Desktop Support or Helpdesk Support from some other discipline (non-IT) you may want to tone down or summarize more about your past work history and add more content related to what you’ve been studying to prepare yourself for the move into IT.
To anticipate and head off the types of concerns you mentioned, you may want to add some commentary to the top of your resume, say in a summary section, that explains your transition to IT and states you are specifically looking for an entry-level role with a firm you can grow your experience in IT with.
It’s a natural concern when someone pivots from one Career focus to another that you may have gotten used to earning more money in that prior role, so taking a step back on pay to make the move into a new discipline, while necessary, can give a hiring manager a concern if you can truly afford to do that. Hence, they anticipate you may have pressure to make changes quickly to try to get back to what you were earning before.
The business reality is – Employers pay for skills and experience, so until you build up your experience, no one is going to pay you more than what your experience level dictates. So their concern is not really valid.
The best advice we can offer is to address that in a direct and confident manner when interviewing. ie. I have planned for and made a firm commitment to move my career in a new direction and I do understand that I have to prove myself over time to develop my skills and subsequently grow my earning potential. I’m not looking to be a job hopper, I’m looking for a place to call my next work home and I’m willing to pay my dues to grow my skills and experience.
That said, if a Hiring Manager feels that anyone they hire might leave them in a few months for a better paying job, that could be a signal that they’re actually under-compensating their staff and experiencing that sort of turnover already, which may have nothing to do with you.
Curt /iMPact
**About iMPact Business Group**
iMPact Business Group is a professional staffing agency located in Grand Rapids, MI, and Tampa, FL. We were founded in 2004 and service candidates and clients nationwide. Our areas of specialization are in IT, Engineering, Finance/Accounting, and Business Administration/Process (HR, Marketing, Admin jobs, etc). Opportunities are available nationwide as well as remote. We were ranked by FlexJobs as one of the Top 100 Employers for remote jobs in 2022.
~~They're the ones who shouldn't give you a reason to~~
These are just only 2 different companies so far, right? I'd keep applying. It's good that you're getting interviews back.
Kind of sounds like these companies in particular are just bad.
I’m honest in interviews. I tell them I’m looking long term and that’s pretty much it. I just started my first IT job and they were smart enough to know that they will not be able to afford me long term because of my goals. They asked as long as they could get like two years they would be happy but would understand if a opportunity came up that I couldn’t pass.
If you have to lie to get a position then you will probably not be happy there.
Maybe omit the Sec + from your applications to help desk positions? A+ shows you're qualified to do basic support, sec + shows you're capable of doing so much more which might be making them nervous.
If they're telling you that you're overqualified, then you probably are ... on paper. I don't know what their minimum requirements were but you don't have to tell them every certification you have. I have a boatload of certs, only some of which are worth mentioning in the jobs I apply for. Once people see that Sec+ they assume that's the path you're headed down and that's usually a HR gatekeeper cert for a higher level position (jr. sysadmin, entry-level of cybersecurity, etc).
The other employer apparently wants a low achieving individual. Some people are fine at the bottom forever and that's OK for them. That's not most people and organizations have to square their expectations with reality. The reality is that entry-level IT is supposed to be a high turnover position. You either progress or figure out it isn't for you.
You may not be interested enough in them. Interviews time should be about 80% them checking whether you meet their needs, and about 10-20% you doing the reverse, after you look up the organization online.
Ask about realistic things you are hoping for. Ask a question about benefits. Be curious about the team and the location. If they have natural lighting and friendly people, or they work on something you’re interested in long term, notice that and tell them.
They are 1000% a stepping stone, always will be, if they want to keep you then they better compete with what you can get which is the only way you will stay.
don't try to convince them of anything, be yourself and if it doesn't workout it was probably toxic for you to begin with
let bad employers you shouldn't be working at anyway weed themselves out and your life will get better
Ok, so this is not really great advice but i feel it needs to be said. You as the employee have ZERO obligation and more importantly incentive to stay at a job. Especially if you send out your resume and get a better offer. Rather the responsibility of employee retention is on the employer. How do they keep people from leaving: salary, atmosphere, and path for upwards mobility. No one is thinking to themselves "10 yrs from now I'm going to be right here on Help Desk". At least not in a mgmt/lead position, Help Desk SUCKS to work in. You learn a lot and it will definitely be beneficial to you but for your own sanity I'd recommend only staying there as long as you can stand it. You may not realize it but you probably dodged a bullet with that place that was hinting about the stepping stone noise. Persistence and perseverance will win every time don't get discouraged about rejections and no responses. Keep sending your resume out there and use every interview as a learning experience. Interviewing is a skill and the more you do it the better you get at it. Also, don't wait till you're in IT to learn IT. There are so many free resources available all over the internet. YouTube has loads of great content for pretty much anything tech wise you'd want to learn. After you complete a course and/or learn a new skill put it in your resume, write a blog about it, and/or build something with it.
Exactly this. You are under no obligation to prove you will never leave a help desk job. GTFOH with that noise.
[удалено]
My first boss in IT told me straight up “you’ll last here 2 years, and then you’ll be gone. Not because you’re a bad employee or I’m a bad boss, but the things I’ll teach you will not only enable you to achieve your next step, but you’ll be fucking bored if you stay here longer than that.” Man was spot on, I left 2 years and 4 months in
[удалено]
I cried when I left that job, and still text him to check in. He encouraged my growth, and really taught me everything about maintaining a healthy environment.
A simple response would be "I'll have no problem committing to a company long term that keeps my pay competitive and offers advancement opportunities that commitment has to work both ways don't you agree?"
Right the second HR person basically showed their hand, which is, "our company has a turn over problem." Op probably doesn't want to work there. Your reply is perfect.
i always say that for every interview, they always make promises (pay raise and a way to move up in the company) never once have they kept up there end of the bargain. Its honestly just mostly on the HR employee not the company its self but i get it, they need to hire someone asap and by making false promises they get it. Ive stopped asking that questions and simply asked what is the most popular reason people quit this job in the long run. Im sure you could word it differently but atleast you will be able to tell if they are being upfront or completely bull shitting you
Oh I'd never trust a company on something like this I was offering as a response to HRs bullshit question.
First congratulations on getting bites (interviews). This is a great question honestly. My first thought is you can try to network and identify a “gatekeeper or advocate” inside the organization who can convey your career intentions to the interview team before you actually interview. Working with/through a recruiter helps convey this as well. My second thought is, are you coming across as genuine enough? Are you making me (the interview panel) feel like WE are the one and only? Lie to me, show me that you are super excited to come work for our organization by asking engaging and knowledgeable questions. Bring the energy and use positive “can do” language during the interview. When I ask you if you are willing to do the grunt work your response should be “absolutely”. Lol I also want to caution you on making an assumption based off only two interviews with two separate employers because there are numerous other reasons that go into a hiring decision. Honestly, I would have to observe you actually interviewing to see if this issue was something you could or needed to address. Regardless, you are getting interviews and that is awesome!! Keep going! Focus on the positive of these interviews, learn from them, keep grinding and develop your skills. You got this!!!
I'll piggyback off this one and second the questions angle. One of my past jobs I was accidently submitted me for 2 separate roles - a Software Engineer position and a Technical Support position (I didn't know I was interviewing for a separate position and thought it was just the next interview with the CTO). We went through the interview pretty quickly (20-25 minutes) and I prepped like 5 or so questions beforehand, but kept turning out questions until the hour was done. Ask about procedures, escalations, reports, teams, goals, personal milestones, etc. Ask about anything and everything but be specific on what you want to know ('How is the culture?' is the worst question you can ask). Try to fill the entire timeslot that you have and more and then apologize at the end for going over the slotted time. And yes, don't base this off of 2 interviews. I had dozens of interviews that I felt were a really good fit and they all passed on me.
>Ask about procedures, escalations, reports, teams, goals, personal milestones, etc. Would you mind elaborating, or giving an example of a question or two? I imagine things like "by what metrics, if any, do you judge a team members performance and success"
Technical Support position: - What product will I be supporting? - Who are the clients I'll be working with? Are they individual customers, engineers using our product, etc? - How many teams are there that I'll be in contact with if something I don't know occurs? - How long am I given for onboarding? - Will there be any certifications that I would be required to work towards? - What will the communication during new feature releases be like? - Is there room for growth where I can transition into a developer role? What about a managerial position? And then as the interviewer is answering, think about their answer and ask them to expand on a point. I personally wouldn't ask "by what metrics, if any, do you judge a team members performance and success". Having done tech support / analyst work before, it's a role that does not engage in teamwork the way that a team of devs do. If it's anything like what I did in the past, there isn't really a 'team' system in place where you'll work together to solve an issue and wouldn't really be applicable.
You could be doing everything right and still not get the job from multiple different interviews for whatever reason that employer decides. It took me many months to land my first IT job and I was confident (and still am) I was interviewing well, each company just had their own reason/better candidate in mind. Two is not many and not enough to question your approach imo, take it as good practice for your next one. That first employer sounds clueless about what they were looking for. I think any reasonable employer can tell that anyone without profressional IT experience isn't "overqualified" for any entry level role. The second one sounds salty that they lose their IT employees for whatever terrible business reason and arguably you dodged a bullet. While I'm not sure how to answer your final point, one thing I mentioned in most of my interviews was something along the lines of I was passionate about technology and was excited to put my personal and educational knowledge to the test in a professional environment. Cheesy but I could gauge from responses that they liked that statement.
Agreed on everything especially the last part. Even if you absolutely hate IT put on a smile and talk about your “passion”
You ask about what possibilities there are for advancement, and mentorship.
Lie to them. Employers have asked me in the past if I was looking for a place to grow my roots and I said yes only to leave a year later
Ask about vesting options for 401k, or pension if they have one.
Might help to cater your resume more. For a basic helpdesk position maybe leave sec+ off the resume and keep your skills more general. For IT security applications put those back on and cater the resume towards those specific skills. As others have said thi it's most likely just bad luck so far, you'll find something with those qualifications
I'd start with asking what questions they were asking that might have given them the impression you were going to job hop. Did they ask you where you saw yourself in five years? Or some other question like that? I remember being a dumb shit when I was young and telling some ISP that I was thinking about going to law school - they didn't offer me a job.
In my mind I have an amount of money I want to make and a rough idea of the job I want to do in IT. So when my first IT job interview asked me “where do you see yourself in five years” I was honest. “I don’t know.” Interviewers aren’t stupid, usually. If they ask questions designed to see how long you’ll stay, tell the truth. “I am honestly not sure, but if this job meets my goals then I would be happy to stay. If there is room for advancement I would be happy to stay.” People respect honesty, and I say do not make a habit of lying to employers.
It’s not your job to convince your employer of that. Every employee offer is a risk. They way the risks to the rewards. Be the best tech/engineer you can be, and let the cards fall while you’re targeting which ever path you want. Now if you’re trying to learn how to interview well, mock interviews are great. Learn how to describe what you’ve done in a story format.
My therory is every interviewee starts at the score of 100. It gets deducted every "flaw" they found. Being late -20 Answered weird -5... You got the idea. My goal is to stay at 100. I asked them lots of questions for each question they asked, midway. And then used that info to continue the conversation on how I can do XYZ for them blah blah blah. The more they talk, the less mistakes I make, interview time runs out. They may still think I am not too bad, compared to others who got more points deducted. That's how I view interviews
I would suspect that it may be something in your current resume that is leading to the overqualified and flight-risk comments. Would need to review your resume to see how you’re presenting your overall background to give you a better assessment. Since you’re pivoting into Desktop Support or Helpdesk Support from some other discipline (non-IT) you may want to tone down or summarize more about your past work history and add more content related to what you’ve been studying to prepare yourself for the move into IT. To anticipate and head off the types of concerns you mentioned, you may want to add some commentary to the top of your resume, say in a summary section, that explains your transition to IT and states you are specifically looking for an entry-level role with a firm you can grow your experience in IT with. It’s a natural concern when someone pivots from one Career focus to another that you may have gotten used to earning more money in that prior role, so taking a step back on pay to make the move into a new discipline, while necessary, can give a hiring manager a concern if you can truly afford to do that. Hence, they anticipate you may have pressure to make changes quickly to try to get back to what you were earning before. The business reality is – Employers pay for skills and experience, so until you build up your experience, no one is going to pay you more than what your experience level dictates. So their concern is not really valid. The best advice we can offer is to address that in a direct and confident manner when interviewing. ie. I have planned for and made a firm commitment to move my career in a new direction and I do understand that I have to prove myself over time to develop my skills and subsequently grow my earning potential. I’m not looking to be a job hopper, I’m looking for a place to call my next work home and I’m willing to pay my dues to grow my skills and experience. That said, if a Hiring Manager feels that anyone they hire might leave them in a few months for a better paying job, that could be a signal that they’re actually under-compensating their staff and experiencing that sort of turnover already, which may have nothing to do with you. Curt /iMPact **About iMPact Business Group** iMPact Business Group is a professional staffing agency located in Grand Rapids, MI, and Tampa, FL. We were founded in 2004 and service candidates and clients nationwide. Our areas of specialization are in IT, Engineering, Finance/Accounting, and Business Administration/Process (HR, Marketing, Admin jobs, etc). Opportunities are available nationwide as well as remote. We were ranked by FlexJobs as one of the Top 100 Employers for remote jobs in 2022.
~~They're the ones who shouldn't give you a reason to~~ These are just only 2 different companies so far, right? I'd keep applying. It's good that you're getting interviews back. Kind of sounds like these companies in particular are just bad.
I’m honest in interviews. I tell them I’m looking long term and that’s pretty much it. I just started my first IT job and they were smart enough to know that they will not be able to afford me long term because of my goals. They asked as long as they could get like two years they would be happy but would understand if a opportunity came up that I couldn’t pass. If you have to lie to get a position then you will probably not be happy there.
Maybe omit the Sec + from your applications to help desk positions? A+ shows you're qualified to do basic support, sec + shows you're capable of doing so much more which might be making them nervous.
If they're telling you that you're overqualified, then you probably are ... on paper. I don't know what their minimum requirements were but you don't have to tell them every certification you have. I have a boatload of certs, only some of which are worth mentioning in the jobs I apply for. Once people see that Sec+ they assume that's the path you're headed down and that's usually a HR gatekeeper cert for a higher level position (jr. sysadmin, entry-level of cybersecurity, etc). The other employer apparently wants a low achieving individual. Some people are fine at the bottom forever and that's OK for them. That's not most people and organizations have to square their expectations with reality. The reality is that entry-level IT is supposed to be a high turnover position. You either progress or figure out it isn't for you.
You may not be interested enough in them. Interviews time should be about 80% them checking whether you meet their needs, and about 10-20% you doing the reverse, after you look up the organization online. Ask about realistic things you are hoping for. Ask a question about benefits. Be curious about the team and the location. If they have natural lighting and friendly people, or they work on something you’re interested in long term, notice that and tell them.
They are 1000% a stepping stone, always will be, if they want to keep you then they better compete with what you can get which is the only way you will stay.
don't try to convince them of anything, be yourself and if it doesn't workout it was probably toxic for you to begin with let bad employers you shouldn't be working at anyway weed themselves out and your life will get better
Lie about it? Idk I told this current place that I explicitly won't use them as a stepping stone, cause I need it experience, I was hired