Tech Support "Languages"

ToasterSparks

ToasterSparks wrote: »

I 'studied' French at school but apart from the subconscious vague knowledge of the language rattling around in the back of my head, I never really learned to speak it or write with any degree of confidence.

I'm a generic Business grad, so was asking out of curiosity really. Something that would be simple to pick up a basic knowledge of would be handy on the CV or for opportunities for travelling too. I'm assuming Gaeilge is pretty redundant (what with the fluent natives being so much better at it than me!)?

Yeah, Irish is redundant for most jobs. As for what's easy, it really depends on the person. Some people find Nordic languages like Swedish are their thing and some people swear Spanish is really easy. Since you've already done a bit of French, it might be an idea to pick it up again, as you'd learn faster than you would with a new language and French generally is quite a useful language for business. Personally, Spanish has been the most useful for me, but I worked in the tourism industry for a while. It obviously has the advantage of being widely spoken and useful for travelling if you like South America. I would only advise learning a language if you have a genuine interest, if you're ONLY learning to get a job, it will be a really hard slog and you probably won't get that fluent.

Welease

ToasterSparks wrote: »

I 'studied' French at school but apart from the subconscious vague knowledge of the language rattling around in the back of my head, I never really learned to speak it or write with any degree of confidence.

I'm a generic Business grad, so was asking out of curiosity really. Something that would be simple to pick up a basic knowledge of would be handy on the CV or for opportunities for travelling too. I'm assuming Gaeilge is pretty redundant (what with the fluent natives being so much better at it than me!)?

Don't take this the wrong way, but having a generic qualification and looking for basic knowledge of a language won't get you much in a highly competitive job market.. Aim higher.. Much higher! (no offence meant, but they are are plenty of graduates (with languages and experience) unemployed atm.)

the_syco

zonad wrote: »

I used to get paid €50,000 a year to working in Desktop Support and now there's nothing but jobs for foreigners. No exaggeration, there are about 5 desktop support vacancies in Dublin right now.

I've seen a few people jump on him for saying that, but "deskside support" can range, depending on the company. I've seen three people being the "deskside support" for over 1500 people, the servers, and everything that comes with it. You can have 10 low paid workers, or 3 people who know their sh|t, and are prepared to do the overtime to get the computers set up for new clients at little notice.

OP: if you are as good as you say you are, don't bother applying for jobs that are on the net. Try remembering what companies your company had used as clients (or the other way around), saw how you did you work, and email them, with a nice cover letter.

Ginkgo

What level does an Irish person need in their working language(s) for tech support, customer services or indeed other roles? Is B2 of the common european framework sufficient? Is the threshold lower for more technical roles involving use of say sql queries etc? The below article states that Irish people with language skills are pipped at the post by foreigners because while they do have some level of fluency it is not sufficient. Is the article a true reflection of the state of play?

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/education/2010/0420/1224268692039.html

Leadership

The old Desktop Support has been dead 5 years, the skills and roles have been what we call "Shift left" i.e. moving the focus as close to full automation as possible removing the biggest cost drivers. So the old functions of Desktop Support are either Automated, Moved to the Service desk or centralised. What we have now is fairly low skilled "On Site" technicians who have enough skills to re-image, replace parts and do basic network trouble shooting. Even a PC re-image is done by the Service Desk using Zero touch technologies.

There are some old €50k job about with companies using old IT support structures but these are rapidy dissapearing as they improve and try to reduce costs. I am a old Deskside Support Tech and I knew what the future would be and I moved on. Most of my colleagues are now working in Software distribusion, Security, Solution Design and service management.

BTW - I work with a multinational who has language roles at the Global Servive Desk in Ireland. Trust me a native Irish person will have a very slim chance of getting one of these support roles. We are measured on Native language speakers and currently the big multinationals are at around 88% Native speakers supporting users. Incidently most of the 12% non native are mostly made up of Native like speakers from Europe for example Danish support agents providing support to Swedish users or French supporting Belgiums etc. Now all of these native speakers need supporting and these are are the higher paid roles like HR, Local IT, Finance etc and these roles are 85% Irish nationals.

Trust me a Rosseta Stone course will not land you one of these roles.

Ginkgo

Ginkgo wrote: »

What level does an Irish person need in their working language(s) for tech support, customer services or indeed other roles? Is B2 of the common european framework sufficient? Is the threshold lower for more technical roles involving use of say sql queries etc? The below article states that Irish people with language skills are pipped at the post by foreigners because while they do have some level of fluency it is not sufficient. Is the article a true reflection of the state of play?

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/education/2010/0420/1224268692039.html

I don't think B2 is sufficient. I'd be around that level in German and I struggled a lot, which is why I was only back-up for German. I have C1+ in French and C2 in Spanish, which I'd say is fairly typical. You don't have to be a native speaker, but you need to be able to speak fluently under pressure, you don't have time to look at dictionaries, etc.

ToasterSparks

Welease wrote: »

Don't take this the wrong way, but having a generic qualification and looking for basic knowledge of a language won't get you much in a highly competitive job market.. Aim higher.. Much higher! (no offence meant, but they are are plenty of graduates (with languages and experience) unemployed atm.)

I know what you mean, and I have a Masters too, but I just recognise how common my qualification is. I'm trying as hard as I can, but it's tough! Anything I could be doing in the jobless interim that would be of benefit can't be a bad thing.

seawolf145

Ouchette wrote: »

If employers want a 2nd language and you want a job, then I think you know what you've got to do.

Out of those languages, I'd go for Swedish. There can't be that many Swedish speakers in Ireland so you wouldn't have much competition. It's much simpler than French or German and it's so closely related to English that if you worked hard at it you'd be reasonably fluent in a year, and you'd even be able to claim to understand some Norwegian and Danish too.

You could probably even move there for a bit and keep claiming your dole, or even do a bit of bar work or something. Beats sitting at home complaining about the unfairness of it all.

Wrong a Norwegian understands swedish and danish,A swede doesnt understand Norwegian or Danish.

shoegirl

zonad wrote: »

It really frustrates me that speaking English, all of a sudden, isn't enough if you want to do technical support in this country. I hate doing job searches online only to get back language jobs.

With the technology available for telecommuting (VPN, VoIP, LogMeIn) why do they even have these people working here? They should get these people to telecommute. Recruit them back in their home country.

I used to get paid €50,000 a year to working in Desktop Support and now there's nothing but jobs for foreigners. No exaggeration, there are about 5 desktop support vacancies in Dublin right now.

Other jobs say they are desktop support but they are really infrastructure support or they are looking for someone to do light development (scripting, T-SQL). When did a Desktop Support person ever need to know Java for feck's sake?!

I've never been on the dole in my life but I'm thinking about giving up and signing on.

50k for desktop? Would love to know where that was as the best pay I ever heard for for desktop was around 30k a year for permie. I have to say I moved out of that field into infrastructure and delivery/service management 5 years ago. I can't see anybody getting that kinda money for desktop nowadays, not without extensive specialist skills.

I had a good chat with a senior manager at one of the companies mentioned above and one thing he pointed out was that its the languages that has kept these centres in ireland. As another poster correctly posted earlier, these centres do also have some work for english speakers and lots of support roles that make up a good percentage. There are by the way, a few companies that use different models - i.e. they answer calls in native language with non technical or limited tech staff and then pass to a translator and more senior staff. At least 2 are doing this.

The places that ONLY hired english speakers are mostly gone - bar Dell in Cherrywood, thanks to the mess that was made in Bangalore some years ago. Its fair to say that the multilingual centres are here because they cannot be offshored, attractive as it might seem.

You should move away from desktop and into infrastructure - Citrix, Hyper V or vmware, server technologies. Lots of demand for linux out there right now. And Cisco of course - always a good move. Software distribution systems are also good to investigate.

MysticalRain

the_syco wrote: »

I've seen a few people jump on him for saying that, but "deskside support" can range, depending on the company. I've seen three people being the "deskside support" for over 1500 people, the servers, and everything that comes with it. You can have 10 low paid workers, or 3 people who know their sh|t, and are prepared to do the overtime to get the computers set up for new clients at little notice.

It's not "deskside support" if someone is expected to look after servers and do other roles above and beyond that level. That's more of an IT Admin type of role which a salary of 40-50K would be appropriate for.

shoegirl

MysticalRain wrote: »

It's not "deskside support" if someone is expected to look after servers and do other roles above and beyond that level. That's more of an IT Admin type of role which a salary of 40-50K would be appropriate for.

Exactly, but it would be very difficult nowadays to get a got administering servers/infrastructure without skills in servers and strong networking knowledge.

I've seen people get the foot in the door into that area 4 or 5 years ago, get laid off and then find themselves unable to find another job because they've almost no understanding of networks and only have maybe 2000 server or at best 2003 while employers now want 2008, Hyper-V and often a CCNA or VCP (or both) as well.

There is, however, some degree of demand at the moment, for people with roughly that skillset. And I know because I've spoken f2f to 8 companies in 6 weeks, starting a new role this week, on a salary very significantly above the ballpark salary mentioned. I worked very hard part time on improving my skills, technical certifications (many of them outside my immediate field) and also completing a business degree part time.

MysticalRain

shoegirl wrote: »

Exactly, but it would be very difficult nowadays to get a got administering servers/infrastructure without skills in servers and strong networking knowledge.

I've seen people get the foot in the door into that area 4 or 5 years ago, get laid off and then find themselves unable to find another job because they've almost no understanding of networks and only have maybe 2000 server or at best 2003 while employers now want 2008, Hyper-V and often a CCNA or VCP (or both) as well.

There is, however, some degree of demand at the moment, for people with roughly that skillset. And I know because I've spoken f2f to 8 companies in 6 weeks, starting a new role this week, on a salary very significantly above the ballpark salary mentioned. I worked very hard part time on improving my skills, technical certifications (many of them outside my immediate field) and also completing a business degree part time.

I think it's becoming increasingly difficult for anybody to get a job in this industry the way employers are carrying on these days. I'm not sure why anybody would bother really when there is easier money to be made elsewhere. God help the current generation who just graduated from college. The best advice I could give people would be to start their own business and work for themselves.

dan_d

I am not qualified in IT, but I am currently unemployed, and have tried to go and do a course in the Alliance Francaise in Dublin.

Unfortunately it didn't work out for a number of reasons, however I'll be returning to them in Sept, when their new term begins. I think I'm also going to pick Spanish up - I started a few years ago for 2 terms, then stopped due to work commitments. My french is quite good - I understand very well, but my speaking is a bit rusty, and I wanted to brush up on it.I'm a total beginner at Spanish, but same as any other language - I'll just learn it. Tried German for the JC, and I just didn't like it!!

It's so hard to find work out there, but equally, the Irish attitude of "sure it's our country, I should be entitled to a job" is a crap one. Go out and upskill. I know that doesn't guarantee you anything, but at least it shows you're proactive and it may open a lot more opportunities aswell.

Mysticalrain - I've come to the same conclusion as you. The problem is trying to figure out what kind of a business to start!

mike kelly

A lot of these languages jobs are for native speakers only, ie no irish need apply. OP, yes learn a new language but java or .net, not Swedish or German. Computer language are much easier to learn than natural languages and offer far more opportunities.

jd83

The only thing that annoys me about these jobs is the job sites. You search for a tech support there is no option to exclude language jobs. When i was unemployed i was registered for email job updates and everytime it would be all language jobs.


Apart from that i dont care. The people working in these jobs come here pay tax and contribute to society.

Blackdragon

jd83 wrote: »

The only thing that annoys me about these jobs is the job sites. You search for a tech support there is no option to exclude language jobs. When i was unemployed i was registered for email job updates and everytime it would be all language jobs.


Apart from that i dont care. The people working in these jobs come here pay tax and contribute to society.

I completly agree, I hate going through page after page of launguage jobs, really wish I could filter the language requirement.

shoegirl

MysticalRain wrote: »

The best advice I could give people would be to start their own business and work for themselves.

Maybe not for everybody. You lose a lot of welfare entitlements should things not work out and many people have no capital or savings to keep themselves afloat in the early days.

Students at least have WPP1 and the option of emigration which in fairness is a closed door to many people who are over 30 or not skilled enough for very stringent and expensive application processes.
The people who really need to be upskilling are people already in jobs who might be at risk in future. I saw my own situation coming nearly 2 years ago and accelerated my study as much as possible given the strong risk. It really paid off for me, even though it was expensive (though tax deductable) and time consuming.

MysticalRain

shoegirl wrote: »

Maybe not for everybody. You lose a lot of welfare entitlements should things not work out and many people have no capital or savings to keep themselves afloat in the early days.

Students at least have WPP1 and the option of emigration which in fairness is a closed door to many people who are over 30 or not skilled enough for very stringent and expensive application processes.
The people who really need to be upskilling are people already in jobs who might be at risk in future. I saw my own situation coming nearly 2 years ago and accelerated my study as much as possible given the strong risk. It really paid off for me, even though it was expensive (though tax deductable) and time consuming.

I won't be giving up the day job just yet. Running a business on the side is just a parallel strategy to my day job. For the moment anyway. I do plenty of upskilling outside of work. Just not the expensive and time-consuming certification route.

I would love to emigrate. But that's not an option for me either.

dMaN24

Sorry OP. I shall pack my bags right away, and go back to Sweden. That way i'm not stealing the position you might've got instead of me. Hope you know Norwegian though.

seawolf145 wrote: »

Wrong a Norwegian understands swedish and danish,A swede doesnt understand Norwegian or Danish.

Not quite. Even though Sweden and Norway are landlocked, Norwegians and Danish seem to understand eachother better than let's say Danish-Swedish.

I'm having no difficulties with either (working for a norwegian company and i myself is Swedish.) I understand my Danish collegues, but if something is to be brought through in a hurry, English is the better language between us.
I speak and write "fluent" Norwegian. But that's because i've been in this line of business and these languages for ages.