dell tech support: any good

bean

There are jobs going in tech support in dell in cherrywood Are they a good co. to work for? Im in a rival co. and its the pits

Emboss

Originally posted by bean
There are jobs going in tech support in dell in cherrywood Are they a good co. to work for? Im in a rival co. and its the pits

worked in enterprise doing server support for 6 months a few years ago, wasn't bad same as any other multi national i suppose.

i thought they'd thrown all the support over to india?

leeroybrown

Offshoring is the keyword in IT Support these days alright.

bean

well, dell have still decided to not go through those darn recruitment agancies and will offer a better degree of permenancy and benefits, i think. Any ideas if its a decent place to be?

DannyMac

Bean....be prepared for the fact that it is phone support work. Other than that it seems like a good place to work..Did an interview a while back, but decided not to take the job as the job not really technical...all the problems you face will be problems people have come across before and have entered into a database, so you type in the error, and it gives you back the solution...no real brain work involved

seamus

I've heard they're ultra-anal. Accounting for all of the time you're not on the phone, be it toilet breaks, water breaks, scratch breaks etc. That's all second-hand to me though, so I'm not sure how accurate it is.

yop

Worked for them for 18 months, was not tech support.
Would definately not say they were the worst I worked for. Issue is though as said is that, I thought, all support was outsourced to the uk so i would be weary.

If the other place is very bad, defo go for them.

Emboss

Originally posted by seamus
I've heard they're ultra-anal. Accounting for all of the time you're not on the phone, be it toilet breaks, water breaks, scratch breaks etc. That's all second-hand to me though, so I'm not sure how accurate it is.

if you're someone who genuinley works most of the time all these things are over looked...


ahh office politics gotta love it

bean

weelll, the place im in are just as anal with time accountablility and its a phone based job too. I was told that they do pay more then im getting and there is no agency involved. I am technical and i really do want a more deskside role (but where?)

shoegirl

It depends what sector you are working for and who your team leader is.

I believe Server is pretty good to work in and people are well treated. There is a good profit share scheme (small bits quarterly and a bigger annual profit share in March) and you can buy shares at a hefty discount if you fancy that (I made nearly 100% profit on mine). The technical training is really exceptional and most of the people there are good to work with. Also there's a good social life - lots of team nights out, oh, and even more to gatecrash. Back in my day they were not bad for giving at least inflationary pay rises so you managed to keep up. There's also a very positive company culture which can be nice unless you're allergic to that sort of happy clappy thing. There's also a good internal recruitment structure and a very fair grading salary strcuture which means that most people get hired at a fixed rate and so there's no resentment about people getting hired for more. There's a lot of opportunity but not good for jobs outside CWD/Bray.

On the minus side the starting pay may have dropped a lot since I worked there, I believe pay rises are tighter and I found the performance review system a bit unfair (they just seemed to forget your good points quick and remembered anything bad you did for a long time). Time management was particularly anal all right. At one point you could barely go to the toilet without raising your hand. They were also a bit vindictive about sickness - especially if you're a bit stressed out they are less than sympathetic. The other problem is that internal recruitment seems to stop inside Cwd/Bray - it seems to be quite difficult to get moved, for example, to Limerick, even though it should theoretically be just the same. Seems to be a huge gap between business units. Also there is very little training given on non core business - such as networking etc. Its a good starter role or if you need experience, or are pissed off but a bit limited in where you go from there.

If you want to stay in the call centre style helpdesk and are pissed off with another similar company then go for Dell - their basic jobs are a bit better than the others. But you could end up just as pissed off in 12 months time so I'd recommend you look into customer helpdesks run by outsourcers or software providers or perhaps try to get into desktop support, where you'll have a lot more opportunity to learn.

I'd suggest checking out the following:

Accenture - Dublin, Grand Canal Place - great company with lots of BPO contracts
Getronics/IBM/HP - lots of Irish customers, many banks, multinationals. Some field service work that isn't too hard. Nationwide.
Siemens - again run a few helpdesks. Also a call centre in Cork (pay varies on the position held)

bean

Thanks very much shoe girl that was very very helpful, like i said i really want a deskside job but the options for me are limited. Thanks again