What sort of non-technical IT jobs are there?

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Like say you wanted to work in IT but not get your hands dirty as in fixing issues, what jobs would you be looking at?

 

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Information security I suppose could be one of those perhaps, just go around and tell people not to leave their passwords written down ha ha

Ed

 

None ! Hated being a non techy for five years. Service management was just a load of BS at the place I worked. I took VR and went back learning the techy stuff again. So far since I did a three month Windows 7 rollout at a NHS hospital. I enjoyed every minute of it - no politics and 100% job satisfaction. Stay techy !

 

Thanks this is a question from a friend of mine tbh, he started in helpdesk about a month ago (possibly less) and he will not stop complaining and says he wants out. He says IT seems to pay quite well so he wants to stay in the industry but get out the tech-side.

 

Well to be honest a lot of help desk jobs are pretty stressful and also very underapprciated. Help desk personnel are often looked down on by second, third line, infrastructure teams etc. Well let me tell you it's the hardest job in IT. It requires interpersonal skills, need to be thick skinned and you are often expected to fix complex problems on the spot. I've done most roles and helpdesk is far the most demanding. If your friend moves into second line support he will enjoy it a lot more. Tell him he needs to stick with it, learn some skills that enable him to move up the chain.

 

Interesting as I work on a helpdesk to but imagined secondline tobe 10x worse and thirdline being 10x worse than second.. Please expand on this, quite interested in why you think this.

 

In what way do you mean 10x worse ? Not the case at all. You get to spend time fixing issues and can get involved at more depth. You get to visit customers and discuss issues. You get to do more interesting stuff that you can't do on a help desk because generally you are not allowed the time to do it.

 

This is 100% spot on. Couldn't agree with the more @garycul

In my last place there were 4 of us working in Desktop Support and we had one guy who was a lazy, obnoxious clown!
Any time he had a call assigned he pretty much just assigned it back to Service Desk with the "Needs More Info" line. Absolute waste of space and it got to a point where all the calls he sent back to them, I said just assign to me so I will update and assign to him. That way, any questions from him would come to his colleague rather than berating SD.

He was fired soon after as he was on a Personal Improvement Plan and just didn't bother.

Saying that, in the last place again (See why I left) we had a guy in 3rd Line who was just as lazy and done pretty much the same thing but to Desktop Support rather than Service Desk.

 

well what I absolutely hate about helpdesk is issues are so random you become a jack of all trades master of none I wish I could just specialise in one area and master that. I hate the fact its all about call volume and you never truly learn anything, its all about can you atleast bodge the job for it to work for the next 24hrs.. I wont lie Ive had cases where Ive ducktaped the issue (figure of speech) knowing full well tommorow it will reappear just to stop the whips cracking my back and get on another call asap. I hate this alot its moraly wrong and doesnt benefit me nor the caller.

 

So there in lines the problem of bad management, if you have repeatable issues that can be resolved if someone spent some time investigating the cause then your call numbers go down because the root cause is fixed, a decent manager would understand this and let the root cause be found.

As far as non technical roles out there, working in Service, Release, Incident, Security and Project Management etc are all possible although each would require some level of understanding of what it is that the function does.

As a side note, IT is a large monstrosity and finding the right kind of role may take time, the advice I often give is get some experience, find out if that's the right industry for you and if it's not move on.

 

Tech pre-sales is a nice place to be, nice mix of staying reasonably technical but not support.

Yes there is a sales element to it but to be honest it's quite good fun.

 

I love the helpdesk but when there is a major issue on i tend to get calls for easy things which by then I have missed a chunk of the action. One reason why I am moving from where I am, its purely to be a lot more technical, no more setting up for assemblies or other random stuff that's thrown at you.

I dare say f hes complaining now then he will complain a lot more when his manager is breathing down his neck. If he gets spare time on the helpdesk and there will times where that does happen, he can research stuff or even go working with the second line guys, everybody has to start somewhere

Ed

 

Only one thing I can think of. You get your hands dirty...literally. Racking and stacking equipment is stuff that isn't TOO technical. Cabling in DC's isn't TOO technical.

 

There are tons of not (usually) very technical jobs in IT. That doesn't make them easier or less stressful tbh.
At risk of offending somebody out there, consider roles such as Service Delivery Manager. Quite a lot of sales guys are former engineers too.

 

This much is true. Racking and stacking can be a good way to get fit too RE: my above post. It's about the only IT job where you're active and on your feet