This week I wanted to do something similar to what we posted a few weeks ago on Marketing Jobs, but this time, we’re going to focus on on-demand IT jobs that you can apply to right now. Of course, just as with the previous post, these jobs conform to our new reality of remote work and lend themselves nicely to freelancing.
IT Help Desk Support
Help Desk can easily be defined as the process of providing information and support relating to company information as well as information regarding the products and services of the organization to the end users/customers. Help desk support is the level 1 support provided by any organization to external clients and may be maintained by the organization itself or may even be outsourced to external service providers.
In other words, Help Desk Support is the frontline of personnel that connects the IT company or service with the day-to-day user. An IT Help Desk Support worker will manage incidents like service interruptions, and requests, and they will also handle all things having to do with communication for things like outages and planned changes to services.
Though there are similarities to the services offered by a Call Center and a Helpdesk, the latter focuses more on providing a centralized resource to answer questions, troubleshoot problems, and facilitate solutions to known problems. On the other hand, a Call Center has a broader scope and handles a wide array of activities including customer service, product support, order processing, and other things.
If you would like to learn more about Helpdesk Support, check out Freshwork’s article explaining everything in great detail.
Client Support Tech Roles
Not too dissimilar to the job above, a Client Support role attends to employers and customers who need help with their computers. They perform the classic function of helping individual users with remote troubleshooting of their technical needs and situations.
It’s common to have good communication skills for posts like this; writing, speaking, and listening skills are must-haves; and statistics show that you can perform as a Client Support Techie with or without a college degree. According to zippia.com, about 35% of CSTs had a bachelor’s degree, and only 7% had a Master’s, proving that a General Education Degree or a High School Diploma are still viable options (A good idea for college students, for example).
Since the activities a CST might perform are various, I thought I’d list some of the possible ones here:
- Running diagnostics on malfunctioning hardware or software can be done in person or remotely through remote computer access.
- Setting up profiles, emails, and issuing access passes for new employees, and assisting in all password-related issues
- Running security checks on all systems.
- Implementing and assisting with the roll-out of new applications or operating systems:
- Learning about new applications or operating systems;
- running tests before implementing them in all systems;
- evaluating new applications or operating systems; and
- Installing them on all systems in the company.
High Tier Engineers
As it pertains to IT, there are several echelons of Technicians. This system is used to sort through issues; giving tasks and problem-solving to those more suited for each specific case. Tier 1 Techs are what you would imagine, they offer the basic helpdesk support, and guide you through the essential steps of troubleshooting.
Tier 2 Technicians are experienced and knowledgeable technicians who assess issues and provide solutions for problems that cannot be handled by Tier 1. They don’t need to be engineers or programmers involved with the integral design of the product, but they do need in-depth knowledge of the product to offer advice and come up with solutions.
However, should Tier 2 be unable to find a solution, Tier 3 is engaged. Tier 3 offers expert product and service support. They have access to the highest technical resources available for problem resolution or new feature creation, and they dedicate the most effort into finding the root of the issue and also work to develop fixes and countermeasures using product designs, code, or specifications.
Tier 3 Specialists are usually people involved with the design of the product, making them highly skilled product specialists. They might be engineers, or even the creators or chief architects of the product in question. Chrissy Kidd and Joe Hertvik for BMC Blogs provide a good explanation of the topic, should you wish to check it out.
Start Today!
As you can see, these three options for remote IT work go from the basic to the most specialized. You can begin your IT career by yourself, job hunting for that one job for you; or perhaps you could start with us! Freelance Latin America is always on the lookout for new additions to our ever-growing roster. Connect with us, and reach those IT jobs!
See more articles by Paola Rodriguez
