ITCareer #EntryLevel #MarketDynamics #FinancialPlanning #ContinuousLearning
💡 Harsh truth: yes, entry-level IT now pays less than fast food/retail. It’s a tough reality we need to face in the post-COVID world. But fret not, there are ways to navigate this challenging landscape and set yourself up for success! Here are some key takeaways:
🔍 Understanding the Market Dynamics:
- 🍔 Retail and fast food wages are rising due to labor shortages.
- 💻 IT market is oversaturated with new entrants, leading to lower wages.
- 🌍 Global competition and outsourcing are impacting entry-level IT salaries.
💸 Facing the Harsh Truths:
- 💼 Expect lower initial pay compared to minimum wage jobs.
- 📞 Help desk roles are essential; learn and grow from them.
- 💰 Financial planning is crucial to survive the initial years with lower earnings.
- 📚 Continuous learning and upskilling are key to advancing in the IT field.
- 🔍 Small companies may offer valuable learning opportunities, but be cautious of toxic environments.
🚀 Possible Solution:
- 📈 Focus on continuous learning and gaining practical experience.
- 💪 Be strategic about your career moves and aim for growth opportunities.
- 🎓 Consider pursuing certifications and volunteering for valuable projects to gain experience.
- 🌟 Stay resilient, adaptable, and play the long game for a rewarding IT career ahead.
Remember, while the initial pay may be lower, the potential for growth and advancement in IT is immense. Stay focused, determined, and keep your eyes on the prize! Your hard work will pay off in the long run. 💻✨
Can confirm. Wife got offered a part time job as a bank teller making $21/hr. I make $20/hr currently doing tier1/2 helpdesk/desktop support. Friend also makes $20/hr as a hostess to seat people at a restaurant. Don’t plan on staying in this position long but I need the experience.
I really lucked out in 2022. Started my first official IT job as a Tier 1 tech making 52k my first year. 2.5 years in I make 67k plus benefits. No longer tier 1.
Apply yourself and dont sell your skills short! I’m still climbing!
>Navigating Small Employers:
One good exit path from the “I wear a lot of hats” small shop life is consulting.
The entry level pay is absolutely awful. I made $14 an hour for two years at T1 helldesk and now make twice as much at a new Desktop Support job
I mean yes but IT has such great career potential compared to those jobs it is worth it to get paid less.
To be quite honest, this is probably going to get downvoted, but the people who get the A+ and expect a high salary/good paying job immediately are laughable. Most of them are dogshit for the first year or two.
If I was a company owner you bet my ass I’d pay entry level helpdesk roles like shit. Most of the career switchers with a random cert can barely perform the job.
Now college grads with an internship or those with actual work experience? Yeah I would pay them more.
But entry level people? Sorry to burst everyone’s bubbles but most of you are completely useless the first few months.
I don’t think it’s this black and white since area, education, and certs/experience come into play as well, but yeah you probably aren’t making 80-100k out the gate like some people expect. You can make 50-60k though depending on the area.
Personally I’m not applying to anything under 50k as someone with a degree trying to switch into IT since I make several times that and can afford to wait. If you are someone with no degree or certs, those $17-18/hr jobs are a great foot in the door, a large amount of people with degrees won’t look at them and you may be on a similar level as they are a year from now since it will take them a bit longer to get something.
Make $30 hour (62k yr) with BSBA CIS, CCNA, and A+. I have 20 years of contract IT work, but just recently went full time with a salary position. 5 years ago my credentials would easily land me a 90k-100k position. I think I’m severely underpaid as a network admin. Indian orgs call my manager everyday trying to get us fired and for him to hire them instead
This has been the case for at least a couple years now. While I certainly am thankful for my position, I’m shocked at the fact that more people haven’t realized sooner. And the ones trying to skip hell desk are too inexperienced to see it.
I would know – I was that kind of person at one point, too. Thankfully, I’m out of that position. Budgeting and getting a roommate saved my ass so many times.
Started helpdesk at $18 hr making just shy of 40k a year. 4 years later I’m one COLA increase away from 100k. Entry level sucks, but planning out your course and being smart with finances can help. I made it going from making 20hr plus over time being retail manager having just bought a house to that 18hr max 37.5 hrs a week plus no paid holidays. It was hard and took on some debt but in the end the return was worth it.
IT was never a get rich quick scheme. I’m not sure why people sold it that way or who believed it
Too many factors to consider…easy to say maybe in your area but it definitely is not the case elsewhere.
Starting wages can be low but does not mean it’s permanent and if you have experience and know how to navigate the salary progression it’ll work out. Timing and luck is also a big part of it assuming experience is present.
Always been that way in the UK tbh. At least for any apprentice
This post is another cope post. There have been entertaining level jobs paying poverty wages for a while now this isn’t a new phenomenon. How many times have you read someone was making $12 an hour doing lvl 1 work in 2012.
You also do not have to take these jobs the market is getting better. Please don’t jump at the first thing you see if they are going to pay you under what you need to live.
Yes IT is not a get rich quick scheme but it is still a viable career.
I’m vendor support for a product that a lot of big banks, big tech and honestly much of the Fortune 500 uses. I get paid quite well at this point due to niche experience. But the vast majority of these F500 companies has heavily outsourced SRE/DevOps/etc teams. It’s this crazy reverse situation where there is off-shored tech talent reaching out to our on-shored support to help with their infrastructure issues.
Internally we are hiring much of our new tech talent in Eastern Europe instead of the US too. The only hiring momentum in the US that are technical are customer facing roles (sales engineering, TAM, support, field engineering, technical marketing etc)
Hey how do suggest staying in help desk? 6 months or 1 year or more?
Honestly, this is pretty devastating. I just finished my bachelor’s, I worked through school and have 3 years of experience. At a super small MSP, I wore pretty much every hat we had in stock. I started at $12 an hour, I’m up to $15 now. Every job that’s calling me back is offering me $10-15 per hour. I have student loans to pay. I’m fucked right now. According to my email, I’ve applied for close to 100 jobs in the past few months.
Not to mention the qualifications seem to be steeper for entry level. I technically do not qualify for the job im working now based on their current minimum requirements for new hires.
I’ve lived in HCOL areas most of my life. Fast food/hospitality/customer service roles always paid about the same as entry level help desk.
It’s not a new phenomenon for bigger cities. But it’s extended to smaller metro areas.
I personally think it’s the demand/supply of the labor. Fast food workers are well low in supply cause that job sucks. Help desk was low in supply, now it’s not. Too many people wanna get into help desk vs low skilled customer service jobs so the market kinda balanced itself with the pay
I think because IT is not a traditional trade with guild unions, or requires specific education and vetting like a doctor which artificially inflates salaries. You can technically get an entry level IT job out of high school with a little on the job training so like retail or fast food, it won’t pay much until you go into the much more specialized areas
i wish all the yokels thinking of transitioning to it could read this post
All jobs now pay less. Too many people applying.
Thanks for the post. All of that is on the nose. Regarding my situation, I just want to mention that I lucky in my start: I didn’t start in Helpdesk, but in Deskside/ L2. I did so because I adjusted my expectations of getting the job I wanted, and instead applied to 6 month contracts with the chance of conversion.
A little after six months, I did get lucky and got converted to non-contract status with my MSP. So I would recommend to apply to L2 contract gigs, even if the job description states its temp. In this job market, you really have to make your own luck.
Where i live retail/fast food pays $15/hr – minimum wage. You absolutely will not be given full time hours. Entry level IT positions will pay $20-25/hr full time. Often with overtime.
While entry level pay is not great; its highly disingenuous to claim it’s worse than fast food
Also, fast food workers and servers usually get part time hours. Yes they make more per hourly, but it doesn’t mean they get full time employment.
Sitting in an office > being screamed at by customers and cooks in a boiler room environment
But yes, inflation, saturation of people desperate for a paycheck, and a service economy that favors employers is causing entry level IT to be a cesspool.
The difference is fast food / retail, You’ll have been in the same position for years. With IT you’re supposed to do entry level for a year then move the fuck on.
I started my career making $12/hr as helpdesk, learned as much as I could setting up my homelabs and doing all kinds of things with it, jumped to sys admin in a couple years and started making money. It all depends how much time you put to learn everything in your free hours because at work you won’t learn much. It’s an investment and a process, I know people that besides helpdesk don’t do anything else at home than playing games and after some years start complaining why they still are in helpdesk.
Agreed with most of what’s been said here. One thing I’ll highlight, though. Working helpdesk, in my opinion, is a far superior gig to fast food or retail:
– It’s a desk job. You’re not on your feet 8+ hours a day
– Hours are (usually) non-variable. You know what your schedule is and it doesn’t change very often. Which means you can actually have a life outside work.
– It is (presumably) in the field you want to work in, so you’re gaining valuable experience.
– Many helpdesk jobs are or can be fully remote. Take full advantage of this and maximize work/life balance or put in extra hours studying and leveling up
This was all made even better back when I got started, and a helpdesk gig was $15/hr while the average pay was $8-10, but the year or so I spent taking calls got my career off the ground and now I’m a software consultant.
Can confirm.
I took a help desk role just over 2 years ago after coming over from retail during covid. I was done, spent a decade with the last employer, and covid was the perfect time to change it up. I had always wanted to pursue either IT or Finance (good luck getting even an Accounts Payable or Accounts Receivable job without at least a related Associates Degree). I make $18.48 now and sustained myself using my savings (apples to oranges, I took a massive pay cut. It’s apples to oranges because I was previously in a managerial role and I got bonuses). The more time drags on and the less I’m able to advance the more I contemplate returning to retail because this isn’t working out like I’d like. But I’m trying to give it an honest effort right now, going to spruce up my resume and cover letter one more time and blitz those out and hope for the best, again.
For whatever reference: I don’t have a degree but was pursuing one in accounting, had to put it on hold due to more pressing matters. Been knocking out various training modules like Google IT Support in Coursera and CompTia in Skillsoft.
Well you’re not wrong. I started IT 2 years ago in helpdesk at 60k, second job was 52k, and now I’m at 58k. Seems the average is going down even as I gain experience
I just started doing the IT thing on my own after passing the trifecta and fiddling with a bunch of donated equipment and VMs. Im not saying fast food should make less (honestly, I wouldnt go back to those jobs even if they paid 25/hr.)
And Im also not in the mood to be getting yelled at by a Karen who doesnt understand how to set up her blutooth pairs.
Going for the CCNA and have a few projects that Im hoping to finish and document for positions that pay decently.
Though I will say that I did see a lvl2 IT support position advertisement with Switch data centers a while back with a pay range in the mid 50k range a couple of years ago.
I even found things difficult at the end of last year with 8 years of IT experience & 5 years of admin/IT manager experience at companies ranging from <100 to a F500.
Ended up going to an IT adjacent position where I do site surveys and consulting for other companies and their IT department (I work as a solutions engineer for a consultancy and value added reseller). Not sure if I would consider transitioning back to internal IT again or not.
IT might start out at retail wages but you only go up from there. In retail might start out at $13 and you won’t ever see much more than that unless you become a store manager or something.
Putting in dues in IT/Cybersecurity isn’t a bad thing. I can usually tell working with someone if they did the traditional help desk/network admin/firewall/SOC/T2 pipeline or military vs someone that just moved into Cybersecurity off the bat.
I train a lot of interns directly into Cybersecurity and while they are smart and pick up new technology really easily, they don’t typically work too well with other groups.