Helpdesk Job Description

If you're lucky enough to be hiring right now, you already know that candidates are swamping the job market. Even more so than usual, helpdesk jobs are hot commodities, and many people are interested in them. So, what's the best way to ensure that you get the candidates that fit perfectly for your needs? It starts with writing a helpdesk job description that encompasses everything that your team finds valuable about support.

In this blog post, we'll break down how to write a helpdesk job description fit for a support pro and also provide you a template to take and use as you see fit.

What to consider

When working on a helpdesk job description or a post to try to attract people to your company, it's essential to think about what is unique about how you do support. Do you offer out of the queue time for your team members? Is there an ideal path for upward trajectory? Will they have the opportunity to work with really cool customers? Are your company values unique and special to your team? These are all things to include in your job description.

Beyond that, make sure to note any job expectations that are outside of the norm. For instance, will they need to know specific programming languages? Are the expected hours outside of the standard nine-to-five in their timezone? Will they be required to go and visit clients in person? If something makes the role different from a traditional support job, you should be sure to note it in your job description.

Lastly, try to figure out a way to weed out candidates that may just be mass applying. While it may seem cold, if you can cut down on a few of the bulk applicants, you will give yourself space to more deeply consider other candidates in your applicant pool. Some companies choose to ask in the middle of the post that people include a sentence in their cover letter proving they read the description. Others may ask some to solve a simple math equation. It's like a CAPTCHA, but for your application process. We’ll give an example in our template.

How to structure it

You aren't writing a novel. Figure out what is most important to convey to your reader, and write it as concisely as possible. The three key components to include in a listing are:

• An introduction that amps the potential employee up to be a member of your team.
• A summary of the day-to-day expectations for the role
• Any education or credentials that it would be excellent for the candidate to have.

Bulleted lists make your listing easy to read and quick to skim. Even though it's ideal for a candidate to read the whole listing (thus the sneaky CAPTCHA like we mentioned above), allowing them to quickly skim first ensures that you'll get even more eyes on your listing.

Start with the most critical information to the company (why you're fantastic!) right at the top, and the essential information to the candidate (what they need to get hired) at the bottom.

Other key components

While a summary, idea of the day-to-day, and required credentials are the meat and potatoes of any helpdesk job description, there are other things that you may choose to include in your job listing. For instance:

• Benefits that you can offer
• Perks for working for the company
• Information about the company's fiscal stability—for example, did you just get a round of funding?
• What the interview process will look like
• Where the candidates can find you on social media

Similarly, consider where this page will live. Do you have a place where all of your jobs are listed? If so, what does it look like? The job page may be the first thing that many individuals see of your company. Try to ensure that you are putting your best foot forward.

Include tons of great pictures of your culture, show partners, or companies currently using your product. Add testimonials, link to Glassdoor, and share links to your blog posts related to working for your company or company culture in general.

Always ensure that you double-check your postings for biased and alienating language or role requirements that may discriminate unnecessarily. For instance, does someone really need a bachelor's in computer science to succeed in the role? If not, remove it. The language you use here indicates the types of individuals you'll draw attention from—consider every word and what kind of person it resonates with.

What it looks like

Here's a template job posting that you can pull from for your own company. We've also designated some aspects of the listing that would be better for a Tier 1 or Tier 2 support person.

Introduction

At [your company], we are building a dedicated team of individuals committed to [your values]. We recognize that there is more to support than just answering emails and empower everyone on our staff to do best by the customer every step of the journey. [Add information here about what makes your company or working in support at your company unique and exciting. This is a great place to talk about unique benefits or specific, fundamental problems your product is trying to solve.

What to expect (Day-to-day responsibilities)

Your objectives will center around supporting our customer base both proactively and reactively and will include some of the following:

[Tier 1]

• Responding to customer inquiries as they come through email, chat, or phone
• Reviewing recent social media responses and inquiries and routing to the appropriate team
• Working out of the queue to create new ways to excite and engage our customers. Some examples from the past include custom video email signatures, interactive branching documentation, and proactive email series.
• Creating documentation to help our customers solve their problems without our help
• Resolving tricky billing issues
• Staying late (or early!) to hop on calls with new clients in faraway places

[Tier 2]

• Handling any email tickets that come through about technical problems related to improperly constructed HTML or CSS, websites, or other technical issues with our internal product
• Setting up calls with prospects if a prospect wants to debug or troubleshoot a technical problem.
• Having calls with users that want to talk about passing through information using our API.
• Debugging issues with styling and design.
• Triaging technical tickets and bugs before they are sent to our engineering team.

You may be a great fit if (Role requirements)

[Tier 1]

• You're willing to commit to working a minimum of two years on our support team upgrading processes, helping our customers, and implementing new functionality to help our customers be even better.
• You like empowering users with the knowledge to do things for themselves in the future, not just fixing things for them.
• You're an A+ listener and communicator. You can synthesize feedback and be the customer's voice to help your teammates become better marketers, designers, builders, and more. You'll also be eager to spend your days speaking with customers on the phone, via email, and through chat.
• You are reading this and include a "Hi, I love marshmallows!" in your cover letter, so we can know you've read it.
• You're ardent about figuring things out and comfortable being uncomfortable. Our team is small and new, but we'll give you the autonomy to help build processes from scratch.
• You're driven and goal-oriented. With so much freedom and autonomy, it can be challenging to stay focused. Striving towards the prize on the day-to-day is what aligns us as a company.

[Tier 2, in addition to the above]

• You have 2+ years of relevant Solutions/Sales/Support Engineering experience for a cloud-based software company.
• You're technically astute and have a strong foundational understanding of web frameworks (i.e., React, Angular, etc.), HTML, CSS, JavaScript, APIs, and debugging tools (i.e., chrome dev tools).
• You love collaboration. You want to work with the support team members and teams outside of support to do what's right for the company and the customer.
• You're excited to gain a deeper understanding of how our software and integrations work. Our customers use different web/mobile technologies, and you are hungry to understand how they work and how Appcues can work with them.

Closing

Many companies choose to include a statement about diversity and hiring here. An excellent example of that might be:

Our company is devoted to equal opportunity hiring and is an affirmative action employer. We recognize that a diverse team is a strong team.

Make it your own

No matter how you choose to include these aspects in your job listing, make sure it reflects your company. Your values and what makes your team unique will make your helpdesk job description exciting for the people reading it. Shine light on all of the things that you and your team members do that are special.

Start by introducing your company and the things you find essential, and then move on to explain what the candidate can expect and how they'll know they're a good fit. Traditionally support responsibilities are nice to include and make sure to draw attention to anything that may be out of the ordinary, such as stretched hours or more advanced knowledge. Make it compelling—people should be excited to want to work for you, not just applying to stick another feather in their hat.

Check out our Customer support interview questions and 3 Things to Look for When Hiring for Customer Support Job.