Help Desk Interview Questions & Answers: Tier 1, 2 & 3 Support

Are you an employer, HR person, or help desk manager, and you need to beef up your help desk support team with new members? This article is all about the best ways to conduct those job interviews.

Help desk interview questions and answers are often broken down into tiers or categories. The idea is to slowly work the applicant into the interview by having them pass through stages of work habits, past experience, technical knowledge, and big-picture thinking. 

In this text, we’ll give you 27 interview questions in 4 categories, from basic inquiries to the three main tiers of help desk questions.

27 help desk interview questions and answers

Today, we are taking this topic of help desk interview questions and answers and breaking them down into categories. Firstly there is a simple round of warm-up ice-breaker questions, which could be considered tier 0. Then, we have three tiers of questions - all with different layers of inquiry and areas of expertise. 

And if you are in the job market, this is a valuable list that will help you prepare for help desk job interviews. Get a friend to ask you these questions, record yourself answering, watch the recordings, and pinpoint the topics and questions that you are great at answering and those that you need practice dealing with. And, if you’d like to increase your chances of getting a job, make sure to be familiar with help desk best practices.

Common help desk questions and answers to warm up the candidate

Before you get down to experience and technical questions, it is a great idea to set the candidate at ease with these warm-opening basic help desk interview questions. You could even pose these casually as if they are part of small talk before the interview starts.

• How did you get into IT?

Here is the first of our interview tips for recruiters and HR managers. Almost all job interviews will ask the candidate how they started their career in that particular field, and it is not different when it comes to those seeking help desk work. You can also follow up and ask about previous jobs.

• Do you prefer working in IT in a developer’s role or help desk role? 

As a follow-up to the first question, it is good to know if your applicant sees their job description firstly as a technician or as a problem-solving customer support rep. Just because somebody has amazing technical knowledge does not mean they have the right stuff when it comes to customer service skills.

• How important is it for a company to have help desk specialists?

This may seem obvious to recruiters and HR people, but when it comes to IT specialists, it is essential to gauge how they value the role of desktop support staff inside a larger organization. This is less a technical interview question and more about the candidate’s attitude toward customer support.

• What are the most important qualities for someone working in help desk support?

There are many great answers to this question. However, unlike more specific situational questions, an interview question like this can display a candidate’s capacity for abstract thinking and out-of-the-box problem-solving.

• What is your ideal work schedule? Would you work evenings or weekends? 

It is always smart to know right off the bat something about a help desk employee’s work habits and preferred schedule. This is important as an excellent help desk should be open for business almost 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Now that our basic small-talk opening questions are out of the way, it is time to get the interview going with our tier 1 questions.

Tier 1: Basic interview questions for service desk support roles

Tier 1 interview questions for a help desk job are considered to be entry level help desk interview questions. The collection of tier 1 help desk interview questions here are mainly all about the applicant’s background and reasons for wanting to apply for this job. They will also touch on some important areas like teamwork and communication.

• How much technical knowledge do you have?

After the initial warm-up job interview questions, you need to hear more about the applicant’s technical know-how. Surely they would have listed their skills on their resumes, but hearing them describe and explain those skills in person is a good interview tip.

• How are your communication skills?

Many techies are not famous for being good communicators, but communication skills are key if they plan to be working in help desk support. Pay attention to the content of their answers and how they formulate and articulate those answers.

• Do you keep up with the latest in tech news? Magazines? Blogs? Podcasts?

Technical skills are not a static state of affairs; we should always be learning new skills and curious about the latest developments in the industry. Knowing if a job applicant is enthusiastic about the latest news is an excellent way to understand what motivates them.

• Which operating systems are you most comfortable using as a help desk analyst?

This question may be more of a tier 2 question, though some find it a tier 1 question because it deals with fundamentals such as operating systems. Many IT specialists prefer Microsoft tools to Apple, while others are experienced with Linux best. You should seek out an applicant who is comfortable with more than one OS.

• What are some important common questions you would ask someone applying for a help desk job?

This question is very clever in that it creates a situation whereby the roles between interviewer and interviewee are temporarily reversed. Asking this question can give you a broad sense of how they view their potential role and what they value in a help desk position, and this way, you can see if those values align with your organization.

• How important is teamwork among help desk professionals?

Once again, this question takes the candidate outside the standard IT help desk interview scene and places them in a wider context of a help desk customer support team. Clearly, you are looking for someone who values team collaboration and cooperation, so watch out for the answer here.

• What are your salary expectations?

This is a standard question for many jobs, alongside similar ones like, where do you see yourself in five years? This question is optional depending on the interview environment you care to set. Still, it’s important to know what the candidate expects from the company and the role.

That’s it for the background questions of tier 1. You can move on to the next tier of questions if things are going well.

Tier 2: IT help desk interview questions and answers

Tier 2 help desk interview questions are more detailed than tier 1. These help desk technician interview questions will often continue with things like the background but get more into actual technical experience, skills, work habits, and preferences. You should also add some situational questions here, like asking how a service desk analyst would proceed in particular situations.

• How many years have you worked in a help desk position?

This is a variation of the question about how they got into IT in the first place, but now you are looking for specific experiential data. Also, this is a good time to double-check the integrity of their resumes. 

• Do you regularly seek to learn new problem-solving skills?

Not only should you ask this question, but make sure to follow up with inquiring about how they are always up-skilling or cross-skilling. Find out how willing your candidate is to share their skills with team members or to be willing to learn from them.

• Do you prefer giving customer support over chat, phone calls, or email?

While you could ask broad questions about communication skills, here is where you will need to place your applicant in a help desk situation whereby they will either thrive or falter based on the communication channel they use. Watch out for those that prefer to avoid customer calls, as this is a sign that someone is not a people person.

• How would you handle a technical support issue that you couldn’t solve?

Ticket escalation is a large part of help desk support. You need to know how far a help desk professional will go in trying to resolve an issue themselves and whether or not they are all too willing to pass the buck upstairs without really trying. Conversely, you do not want applicants who are timid to ask for help or have too much hubris thinking they never need help.

• Can you describe a situation where you would escalate a support ticket?

This is a follow-up to the previous question, but you are looking for a specific step-by-step answer in this case. Make this question is a situational question and have the candidate invent a scenario or recall a past experience. 

In addition, you can use this question to check on the candidates technical skills. For example, you can find out how skilled the candidate is when it comes to using a help desk ticketing system, in addition to learning how they deal with ticket escalation.

• How would you deal with an angry customer?

When it comes to technical problems, many people lose their patience, become frustrated, or even act like irate, angry customers when dealing with support professionals. IT people are not by nature super patient and empathetic, but an IT help desk pro should be ready to deal with angry customers in a kind and professional manner.

• Are you willing and able to train new help desk employees?

Some IT specialists want one single role and they want to stay within it. But sometimes, part of being on a help desk team is training new employees. While the job might not specifically include this task, knowing how eager someone is to spend time training others is a good metric for hireability.

• Do you find troubleshooting difficult when dealing with a customer who has little to no IT skills?

This one might be the lodestar of all tier 2 IT interview questions. The main idea is that people with special know-how work with others needing more technical knowledge. The ability to translate solutions from tech-speak to human language is a large part of the job.

If your candidate continues to impress you with their answers to these tier 2 questions, then it is time to really get into the technical weeds with tier 3.

Tier 3: Help desk interview technical questions for engineers/developers

Tier 3 is all about the high-level interview questions for help desk technician roles. Usually, these questions will mainly go to the more advanced developer or engineer help desk support positions. At this point, you could also understand if the applicant is more of a help desk or service desk person with pointed service desk technician interview questions.

• As a help desk professional, what areas of technical know-how would you like to improve?

Now that we are in tier 3 help desk interview questions, you need to go after specifics. This one is less about willingness or methods to learn new skills but actively finding out which specific skills your candidate has in their sights.

• Do you know the difference between a service desk and a help desk?

This question is a fantastic way to separate those in the know from those still learning. Is your candidate a break-fix type of person, or are they more interested in integrated solutions on a larger scale?

• What is the average amount of time you will try and resolve a technical issue before escalating the ticket?

Harkening back to some tier 2 questions about escalation, there really is no one right answer to this question. Still, however, it is a good way to measure an applicant’s knowledge of what is expected from a help desk role. If you like, follow up with a situational question to hear an example from their experience.

• Can you explain the difference between SQL and NoSQL?

During tier 3, you will need to pose some questions that serve as quizzes or tests to see how knowledgeable they are right off the top of their heads. This is one of many similar technical questions that can serve this purpose.

• Can you describe the pros and cons of different network protocols? Or VPN protocols?

Here is another technical pop quiz interview question. Remember, these may not 100% relevant to the help desk position they are applying for at your company. It is simply an example of a question you could ask to test the candidate’s spontaneous technical intelligence.

• How often do you confront the blue screen? What do you do in the face of the blue screen?

With Microsoft, it’s called the blue screen of death, and with Apple, it is the spinning wheel of death. Many operating systems have that end-of-the-line technical breakdown state, and how one deals with it says a lot about their viability as a great help desk technician.

• What does it mean to go the extra mile when offering good customer service?

Whether or not this is truly a tier 3 technical question is less important than its position in the interview question timeframe. Many interviewers would agree this should be among the last questions asked in an interview, as there are no single correct answers, but a lot of banal pablum in response to this one. Just look out for honesty; it is more important than loquaciousness. 

And that is it for tier 3 help desk questions. Now, this is not a strict schema, and some companies or interviewers will only have two tiers, while others might have four.

Our final points on our service desk interview questions and answers

Well, that about wraps it up. Help desk interview questions can vary greatly depending on the company, position, and level of technical expertise. Tier 1 questions are meant to test overall customer service skills, tier 2 is more focused on how they handle escalated problems, and tier 3 dives deep into specific technical skills. Knowing the difference between each tier of questions can help you ask the right ones to find the perfect candidate for any help desk role. 

At the end of the day, with any service desk or help desk technician role, you need to find someone who, ideally, has IT support certification and genuine interest in always learning. These technical questions should give you some insight into what the candidate knows off the top of their head, but also some ideas about how to probe for real passion and understanding. Good luck!

Remember, these questions are useful for employers and HR people, but also for you if you are applying to jobs and looking for an exciting new career as a help desk support specialist. Use them as a practice round of questions to prepare for any interview and absolutely crush it.