In exchange for their expertise, help desk associates earn an average annual salary of $38,601. The minimum education requirement to start a career as a help desk associate is a high school diploma, but advanced roles require a bachelor's degree in disciplines such as computer science or other related fields. The necessary top skills for a help desk associate are the ability to provide satisfactory customer services and technical support and to make follow-up calls to clients. Help desk associates look for new ways to improve and help troubleshoot general software, internet connectivity, and login problems. They also need solid report writing skills.
In general, a help desk associate gives technical support and assistance to customers, ensuring customer satisfaction and efficiency. These services can be provided through face-to-face communication or calls. The duties of help desk associates include discussing product specifications, answering inquiries, troubleshooting problems, recommending services, coordinating with other staffs in filling and organizing documents, and maintaining records in line with company's regulations and policies.
Help Desk Associate Overview
Help Desk Associate Careers
There is more than meets the eye when it comes to being a help desk associate. For example, did you know that they make an average of $19.07 an hour? That's $39,672 a year!
Between 2018 and 2028, the career is expected to grow 10% and produce 83,100 job opportunities across the U.S.
What Does a Help Desk Associate Do
There are certain skills that many help desk associates have in order to accomplish their responsibilities. By taking a look through resumes, we were able to narrow down the most common skills for a person in this position. We discovered that a lot of resumes listed customer-service skills, listening skills and speaking skills.
When it comes to the most important skills required to be a help desk associate, we found that a lot of resumes listed 19.1% of help desk associates included customer service, while 7.0% of resumes included technical support, and 5.0% of resumes included troubleshoot. Hard skills like these are helpful to have when it comes to performing essential job responsibilities.
When it comes to searching for a job, many search for a key term or phrase. Instead, it might be more helpful to search by industry, as you might be missing jobs that you never thought about in industries that you didn't even think offered positions related to the help desk associate job title. But what industry to start with? Most help desk associates actually find jobs in the technology and retail industries.
How To Become a Help Desk Associate
If you're interested in becoming a help desk associate, one of the first things to consider is how much education you need. We've determined that 42.6% of help desk associates have a bachelor's degree. In terms of higher education levels, we found that 3.3% of help desk associates have master's degrees. Even though some help desk associates have a college degree, it's possible to become one with only a high school degree or GED.
Choosing the right major is always an important step when researching how to become a help desk associate. When we researched the most common majors for a help desk associate, we found that they most commonly earn bachelor's degree degrees or associate degree degrees. Other degrees that we often see on help desk associate resumes include high school diploma degrees or diploma degrees.
You may find that experience in other jobs will help you become a help desk associate. In fact, many help desk associate jobs require experience in a role such as customer service representative. Meanwhile, many help desk associates also have previous career experience in roles such as technical support specialist or sales associate.
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Help Desk Associate Career Paths
In addition to switching up your job search, it might prove helpful to look at a career path for your specific job. Now, what's a career path you ask? Well, it's practically a map that shows how you might advance from one job title to another. Our career paths are especially detailed with salary changes. So, for example, if you started out with the role of technical support specialist you might progress to a role such as systems administrator eventually. Later on in your career, you could end up with the title information technology manager.
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Average Salary for a Help Desk Associate
Best Paying Cities
Recently Added Salaries
Job TitleCompany  | Company | Start Date | Salary |
|---|---|---|---|
Williams Lea Help Desk Associate Help Desk Associate | Williams Lea Williams Lea | 06/26/2021 06/26/2021 | $41,74006/26/2021 $41,740 |
Goodwill Omaha IT Help Desk Associate IT Help Desk Associate | Goodwill Omaha Goodwill Omaha | 06/23/2021 06/23/2021 | $33,00006/23/2021 $33,000 |
Randstad Help Desk Associate Help Desk Associate | Randstad Randstad | 06/22/2021 06/22/2021 | $35,47906/22/2021 $35,479 |
Vinfen Help Desk Associate Help Desk Associate | Vinfen Vinfen | 05/05/2021 05/05/2021 | $40,00005/05/2021 $40,000 |
Randstad Help Desk Associate 3Rd Shift Help Desk Associate 3Rd Shift | Randstad Randstad | 05/04/2021 05/04/2021 | $35,47905/04/2021 $35,479 |
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Top Colleges for Help Desk Associates
1. Stanford University
Stanford, CA • Private
2. University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, PA • Private
3. Northwestern University
Evanston, IL • Private
4. Maine Maritime Academy
Castine, ME • Private
5. University of Southern California
Los Angeles, CA • Private
6. California State University - Bakersfield
Bakersfield, CA • Private
7. SUNY at Binghamton
Vestal, NY • Private
8. Villanova University
Villanova, PA • Private
9. San Diego State University
San Diego, CA • Private
10. Bentley University
Waltham, MA • Private
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Top Skills For a Help Desk Associate
The skills section on your resume can be almost as important as the experience section, so you want it to be an accurate portrayal of what you can do. Luckily, we've found all of the skills you'll need so even if you don't have these skills yet, you know what you need to work on. Out of all the resumes we looked through, 19.1% of help desk associates listed customer service on their resume, but soft skills such as customer-service skills and listening skills are important as well.
- Customer Service, 19.1%
- Technical Support, 7.0%
- Troubleshoot, 5.0%
- Escalate, 4.7%
- Active Directory, 4.2%
- Other Skills, 60.0% See All Help Desk Associate Skills
Best States For a Help Desk Associate
Some places are better than others when it comes to starting a career as a help desk associate. The best states for people in this position are Massachusetts, California, New Hampshire, and Washington. Help desk associates make the most in Massachusetts with an average salary of $62,100. Whereas in California and New Hampshire, they would average $61,576 and $61,281, respectively. While help desk associates would only make an average of $60,075 in Washington, you would still make more there than in the rest of the country. We determined these as the best states based on job availability and pay. By finding the median salary, cost of living, and using the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Location Quotient, we narrowed down our list of states to these four.
1. Hawaii
$58,387
Avg. Salary
2. California
$61,576
Avg. Salary
3. New Hampshire
$61,281
Avg. Salary
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