Search creators⌘K
  1. Home
  2. Creators
  3. Melvin Williams

Melvin Williams

Melvin Williams works in IT support and documents hands-on learning through home labs in Active Directory, networking, and systems administration. Their posts connect those lab projects to practical help desk work, including account management, workstation support, and software deployment.

Career changeBased on 13 posts · latest Oct 2026
LinkedIn

At a glance

Melvin Williams is most useful for practical IT support content that shows hands-on Active Directory, networking, and help desk tasks.

Best for

An IT training provider or managed IT services company hiring entry-level help desk and junior sysadmin staff.

Not for

A general-audience lifestyle campaign or a brand needing guaranteed reach and paid placement terms.

Key takeaways

  • They manually provisioned 23 accounts across departmental OUs and built global security groups.
  • They added an IT staff group to local Administrators on one workstation.
  • They deployed software solo across more than 40 classroom machines in a first IT job.

Check first: Confirm certification status and ask for follower demographics and role data.

Main ideas
Do the manual steps instead of automating them · Grant access through groups and keep it as narrow as possible · Treat the home lab as direct preparation for help desk work
Read first
Active Directory Phase 4: Group-based access control and local admin delegation
Sources for this section

What they are known for

Melvin Williams shares a hands-on path into IT support, documenting Active Directory, networking, and systems-administration projects alongside work in a production support role.

  • The posts move from building a directory and departmental accounts to group-based access controls and file permissions; another describes account unlocks, workstation reimaging, and a software deployment across more than 40 classroom machines.
  • Follow the work for practical examples of how lab exercises connect to day-to-day support—and candid notes about what they are learning along the way.

Williams makes technical practice concrete by showing both the task and the reason behind it.

  • In the Active Directory posts, for example, departmental security groups replace individual permission assignments, and local administrator access is delegated without granting domain-wide control.
  • The file-share post carries that thread into NTFS permissions and departmental boundaries.
  • The CCNA post adds a useful counterpoint: hands-on learning includes missteps, such as troubleshooting the wrong switch port, not just successful configurations.
  • Together, these examples give readers a grounded view of how they approach access, infrastructure, and troubleshooting, while the production-support post shows how those interests relate to work with real users.
Sources for this section

Ideas and priorities

Melvin Williams writes about building hands-on IT skills through a home lab and carrying them into entry-level support work.

Read more

Their recurring priorities are doing the manual steps rather than automating them, scoping access as narrowly as possible, tying each lab phase to help desk tasks, letting real constraints shape the setup, and showing missteps and unfinished work alongside results.

Do the manual steps instead of automating them

Melvin Williams takes the slower, hands-on route in lab work to learn the underlying details.

Read more

They argue that account attributes, permission inheritance and physical device behavior are what entry-level support staff need to understand, and that scripting or simulators skip them.

In an Active Directory phase, Melvin Williams manually provisioned 23 unique user accounts and nested departmental OUs instead of using automation scripts. In a later phase, they broke inheritance on shared folders, wiped the default permissions and rebuilt access from scratch.

Read original · Original 2 · Original 3

Grant access through groups and keep it as narrow as possible

Melvin Williams argues that per-user permissions do not scale and that access should be inherited through security groups.

Read more

They apply the same least-privilege principle: desktop support should be able to manage a specific endpoint without holding domain-wide rights.

Phase 4 creates GS_IT_Staff and GS_HR_Staff inside a MelvinLab_users OU.

  • GS_IT_Staff is added to the local Administrators group on one Windows 11 workstation, MEL-CL-01, rather than granting Domain Admin.
  • The post says the result was verified with whoami /groups.
  • Phase 3 provisions a secondary admin account, ThomasA.

Read original · Original 2

Treat the home lab as direct preparation for help desk work

Across the lab posts, Melvin Williams frames each phase as practice for named support responsibilities and asks readers what to tackle next.

Read more

They are building a visible learning record that maps lab tasks to entry-level IT work.

Phase 3 covers account provisioning and OU structure; Phase 4 covers identity, access control and local admin delegation; Phase 5 covers NTFS permissions on departmental file shares. A later post describes a first week in a production role with account unlocks, reimaging, print queues and a solo software deployment across more than 40 machines after seventeen years at FedEx.

The sequence moves from lab phases into a first production role, where Melvin Williams says running the same setups with real users waiting is different from working with lab hardware.

Read original · Original 2 · Original 3 · Original 4

Let real constraints shape the build

Melvin Williams designs around an actual problem rather than a generic lab diagram.

Read more

Living in both Philadelphia and Virginia Beach led to a multi-site setup connected with Tailscale. They named each machine for its role and chose each service to solve a specific need: clean DNS, monitoring, security alerts, storage and password management.

The Melvin Global Mesh connects a hypervisor called The Brain, a desktop called The Beast and a laptop called The Traveler from either city, with Adguard for DNS, Uptime Kuma for monitoring, Wazuh for security alerts, Nextcloud for storage and Vaultwarden for passwords.

Read original

Show missteps and unfinished steps, not only polished results

The posts include troubleshooting mistakes and clearly mark unfinished work, giving readers a useful picture of how Melvin Williams works.

Read more

They ask for next-step suggestions rather than presenting every phase as complete.

In the CCNA lab, Melvin Williams spent ten minutes troubleshooting a port before realizing the cable was plugged into the wrong switch. Phase 5 ends with GPO drive mapping still to do, and Phase 4 asks whether to move next into NTFS permissions or Group Policy Objects.

Read original · Original 2 · Original 3

Sources for this section

Start with their work

Active Directory Phase 4: Group-based access control and local admin delegation

This original shows how Melvin Williams thinks about access control and least privilege.

Read more

Start here to see whether their documented work matches the security and account-management tasks common in help desk and service desk roles.

Melvin Williams documents a home lab phase focused on identity and access control.

  • The post describes building global security groups such as GS_IT_Staff and GS_HR_Staff inside a MelvinLab_users OU hierarchy, then using those groups for role-based access control instead of per-user permissions.
  • In one concrete example, the GS_IT_Staff group is added to the local Administrators group on a Windows 11 workstation called MEL-CL-01, leaving the domain controller out of reach.
  • They say they verified the result with whoami /groups and ask whether to move next into NTFS file permissions or Group Policy Objects.

For brands planning a campaign

For a managed IT services company assessing an entry-level help desk or junior sysadmin candidate, this is direct evidence that Melvin Williams can describe security workflows, least-privilege delegation, and group strategy in operational terms. A campaign or hiring brief could use this post to discuss how they would handle access requests, local admin rights, and role separation.

Active Directory Phase 3: Building a departmental OU and user structure

This original shows how Melvin Williams structures a directory and why they chose to practice the manual work.

Read more

Start here to understand the foundation behind the later access-control and file-permission posts.

The post walks through creating a parent OU called MelvinLab_users and manually provisioning 23 user accounts across nested departmental OUs for IT, HR, Finance, and Marketing.

  • Melvin Williams says the manual approach was deliberate: to practice account attributes, password rotation, and data integrity rather than rely on automation.
  • They also describe provisioning a secondary admin account named ThomasA as a backup to their primary identity and using verified administrative group membership for high-level tasks.
  • The post ends by asking whether to move into Group Policy Objects or shared network drives with NTFS permissions.

For brands planning a campaign

This is useful for a brief about user lifecycle work and directory hygiene. It shows a candidate who can talk through account creation, organizational structure, and administrative separation—tasks that map to onboarding, offboarding, and access reviews.

First week in an IT support job and a 40-machine software deployment

This original shows whether Melvin Williams has applied their lab skills in a real support environment.

Read more

Start here to see the production tasks they performed and how they describe the shift from home lab to live users.

Melvin Williams describes their first week in a new production IT support role.

  • Tasks include account unlocks, enrollment checks, moving objects around OUs in Active Directory, wiping and reimaging workstations, managing print queues, and tracking down a wireless access point to factory-reset it.
  • To understand the iPad side, they logged into a test device as a student, created files, built a PowerPoint, watched OneDrive sync, and sent test emails.
  • They also report running their first solo software deployment across a classroom of more than 40 machines and note that seventeen years at FedEx came before this work.

For brands planning a campaign

For a managed IT services company, this is the clearest indication of production help desk experience rather than lab-only practice. It gives campaign or hiring content concrete examples of ticket work, device management, and deployment under real user pressure.

The Melvin Global Mesh: multi-site homelab with Tailscale, monitoring, and security

This original shows what else Melvin Williams builds and how they connect systems across locations.

Read more

Start here to see their networking and self-hosting range beyond directory services.

Melvin Williams describes building a multi-site home lab they call the Melvin Global Mesh because they live in both Philadelphia and Virginia Beach.

  • They use Tailscale to connect a hypervisor called The Brain, a desktop called The Beast, and a laptop called The Traveler, with Adguard running across the mesh for DNS.
  • The post lists monitoring, storage, and security tools: Uptime Kuma, Wazuh, Nextcloud, and Vaultwarden.
  • They ask engineers what they would look at next in a similar multi-site setup.

For brands planning a campaign

This post shows breadth beyond Active Directory.

  • For an entry-level IT or junior sysadmin brief, it supports discussion of remote access, self-hosted services, monitoring, and security basics.
  • It also shows how Melvin Williams frames infrastructure choices around real constraints, such as living in two places.

Active Directory Phase 5: Centralized file storage and NTFS permissions

This original shows how Melvin Williams handles shared drives and access boundaries.

Read more

Start here for a short, specific example of permission work common in support tickets and onboarding tasks.

Melvin Williams documents a phase focused on centralized file storage.

  • They built a shared folder structure on the domain controller with dedicated spaces for each department, then broke inheritance on each folder, removed the default permissions, and rebuilt access from scratch with NTFS permissions.
  • The post says IT staff can only see the IT folder, HR stays in HR, and no one browses where they do not belong.
  • The Public folder is available to the domain through the Domain Users group.
  • They note that the next step is Group Policy drive mapping so shares connect automatically at login.

For brands planning a campaign

This is a compact example of file-share security and permission design. For a help desk or junior sysadmin hiring brief, it supports questions about NTFS permissions, inheritance, departmental access, and why share-level permissions are not the whole story.

CCNA lab with Cisco routers and switches

This original shows what Melvin Williams is learning on the networking side and how they approach physical hardware.

Read more

Start here to see the CCNA lab foundation behind the Active Directory and homelab posts.

Melvin Williams describes setting up a CCNA home lab with two Cisco 2901 routers and two 3750X switches.

  • They write about trunk links between switches, observing Spanning Tree Protocol behavior, factory wipes, clearing old VLAN databases, and using cdp to confirm devices could communicate.
  • They also describe spending ten minutes troubleshooting a port before realizing they were plugged into the wrong switch.
  • The post asks whether to move next into inter-VLAN routing or another first lab project.

For brands planning a campaign

This post shows networking fundamentals in a physical lab, not just simulators. For an entry-level help desk or junior sysadmin assessment, it supports conversation about switching, VLANs, cabling, and troubleshooting habits.

Sources for this section

Topics and approach

Posts cited for each topic
Learning in public and structured phase documentation5
Career transition into entry-level IT3
Active Directory identity and access control2
Role-based access control and least privilege1
File storage and NTFS permissions1
Multi-site homelab networking and remote access1
Physical Cisco networking and CCNA lab1
Production help desk support and software deployment1

Active Directory identity and access control

Melvin Williams documents a phased Active Directory home lab.

Read more

In Phase 3, they manually provisioned 23 user accounts and nested departmental OUs for IT, HR, Finance, and Marketing under a MelvinLab_users parent OU, avoiding automation to practice account attributes, password rotation, and address-list data integrity. In Phase 4, they built global security groups such as GS_IT_Staff and GS_HR_Staff and added GS_IT_Staff to the local Administrators group on a Windows 11 workstation instead of granting domain-wide admin rights.

Works through lab phases in order, explains the corporate rationale for each step, and verifies results with group membership checks and the whoami /groups command.

For brands planning a campaign

A managed IT services employer can evaluate evidence of entry-level identity administration: group-based role assignments, OU structure, and least-privilege delegation. For an entry-level help desk or junior sysadmin brief, these are the closest documented matches to day-one account management and workstation delegation tasks.

Examples: Source 1 · Source 2

Role-based access control and least privilege

Melvin Williams contrasts per-user permissions with global security groups, describing role-based access control as more scalable.

Read more

The Phase 4 post shows departmental security groups inside the MelvinLab_users OU and local admin delegation limited to a specific workstation, MEL-CL-01. The stated goal is to let IT staff manage that endpoint without affecting the Domain Controller.

Uses the principle of least privilege to guide each permission decision.

For brands planning a campaign

A managed IT services provider assessing a junior admin candidate can use this as evidence of security-conscious thinking: Melvin Williams practices least privilege and explains why domain admin rights are not the default for desktop support. It supports a brief that includes workstation administration, access requests, or group membership changes.

Examples: Source 1

File storage and NTFS permissions

In Phase 5, Melvin Williams built a shared folder structure on the domain controller with separate departmental spaces.

Read more

They broke inheritance, removed default permissions, and rebuilt access so IT staff see only the IT folder and HR stays in HR, with a Public folder available through Domain Users. The post distinguishes share-level permissions from file-system security and identifies GPO drive mapping as the next step.

Rebuilds permissions from scratch instead of accepting inherited defaults.

GPO drive mapping is the next step; ask for a demonstration of the mapping.

For brands planning a campaign

An IT services company hiring for junior sysadmin or help desk roles can evaluate this as evidence of file-permission troubleshooting and access control. It maps to tasks such as maintaining departmental shares, resolving access tickets, and applying least privilege to file servers.

Examples: Source 1

Multi-site homelab networking and remote access

Melvin Williams describes a multi-site lab spanning Philadelphia and Virginia Beach, connected with Tailscale.

Read more

They can reach a hypervisor called The Brain, a desktop called The Beast, and a laptop called The Traveler from either location.

  • The lab also includes Adguard for DNS, Uptime Kuma for monitoring, Wazuh for security alerts, Nextcloud for cloud storage, and Vaultwarden for password management.
  • The stated purpose is to turn theory into skills while working toward a first entry-level tech role.

Names each machine and service and explains the cross-city problem each tool solves.

The post covers planning and the current setup; ask for completed configurations of Uptime Kuma, Wazuh, Nextcloud, and Vaultwarden.

For brands planning a campaign

For a managed IT services employer, this demonstrates home-lab initiative in remote access, monitoring, security alerting, and self-hosted services.

  • It supports an entry-level candidate brief that values troubleshooting across multiple sites and familiarity with common infrastructure tools.
  • Ask for examples of production experience.

Examples: Source 1

Physical Cisco networking and CCNA lab

Melvin Williams set up a CCNA lab with two Cisco 2901 routers and two 3750X switches.

Read more

They worked on trunk links, observed Spanning Tree Protocol behavior, performed factory wipes, cleared VLAN databases, and used cdp to confirm device communication.

  • They also document a troubleshooting mistake: spending ten minutes on a port before realizing they were plugged into the wrong switch.
  • The next planned step is inter-VLAN routing.

Learns by handling physical hardware and documenting mistakes rather than presenting only polished results.

Inter-VLAN routing is planned, not demonstrated; ask for a demonstration.

For brands planning a campaign

An IT services company evaluating a junior network or help desk candidate can see hands-on routing and switching practice plus transparent mistake review.

  • It supports a brief involving physical network troubleshooting, VLANs, or Cisco environments.
  • Ask for examples of production network ownership.

Examples: Source 1

Production help desk support and software deployment

In a post from their first week at a new job, Melvin Williams lists account unlocks, enrollment checks, moving OUs in Active Directory, wiping and reimaging workstations, print queues, and resetting a wireless access point.

Read more

They logged into a test iPad as a student, created files, built a PowerPoint, watched OneDrive sync, and sent test emails to better handle M365 and ClassLink MFA tickets.

  • They then ran a solo software deployment across a classroom of more than 40 machines.
  • They note seventeen years at FedEx before the move and say running lab setups on a production network with real users is different.

Tests the user workflow firsthand before resolving related tickets.

The post is a first-week account; ask for examples of long-term production ownership and incident escalation.

For brands planning a campaign

This is the strongest indication for an entry-level help desk or junior sysadmin role with a managed IT services provider: it shows production ticket types, end-user empathy through testing the student workflow, and a completed multi-machine deployment. It supports a role that includes imaging, M365 support, classroom or endpoint deployment, and Active Directory account work.

Examples: Source 1

Learning in public and structured phase documentation

Across the lab posts, Melvin Williams uses numbered phases, labels devices and services, and asks readers what to tackle next.

Read more

Phase 3 covers user provisioning, Phase 4 covers identity and access control, Phase 5 covers file storage, and a separate post covers multi-site networking. The posts consistently connect home-lab steps to help desk, service desk, or entry-level tech responsibilities.

Publishes incremental progress and asks for next-step recommendations rather than presenting only final results.

For brands planning a campaign

A managed IT services company can assess their communication and self-direction. Their documentation shows they can explain technical work, ask for feedback, and break projects into stages—useful in a help desk role that requires clear ticket notes, handoffs, and continuous learning.

Examples: Source 1 · Source 2 · Source 3 · Source 4 · Source 5

Career transition into entry-level IT

Melvin Williams says they are working toward a first entry-level tech role while building the lab.

Read more

Later posts describe their first week at a new job after seventeen years at FedEx.

  • They describe the shift from lab hardware to a production network with real users waiting as a different experience.
  • The posts frame the home lab as preparation for help desk and service desk responsibilities.

Frames each lab phase as preparation for specific job responsibilities.

Ask for certification status: the posts mention CCNA, Security+, and CompTIA hashtags but do not document completed certifications.

For brands planning a campaign

For a managed IT services employer hiring an entry-level help desk worker or junior sysadmin, these posts offer a career-change narrative backed by recent hands-on work. They support a profile that values demonstrated learning speed and the transition from lab work to production.

Examples: Source 1 · Source 2 · Source 3

Sources for this section

Brands and businesses

Melvin Williams’s posts do not disclose paid brand relationships.

Read more

They describe a long prior job at FedEx and technology they use, including Proxmox, Tailscale, Cisco, Microsoft’s Windows Server and Active Directory stack, and AdGuard.

  • These read as tools, not sponsors or clients.
  • Ask for confirmation of any commercial arrangements.

FedEx

Employment

They spent seventeen years at FedEx before starting a new IT support job, which they describe in the same post.

Read more

The FedEx years are presented as the job they left, not an ongoing role.

View example

Proxmox

Mention

Names Proxmox as the hypervisor running their home lab, which they call "The Brain."

Read more

Proxmox appears in the Active Directory lab posts and the multi-site networking build as the platform everything else sits on.

View example

Tailscale

Mention

Uses Tailscale to connect a lab split between Philadelphia and Virginia Beach, making the lab machines accessible from either city.

Read more

They describe it as the setup’s networking layer, alongside AdGuard for DNS.

View example

Cisco

Mention

Runs a CCNA lab on two Cisco 2901 routers and two 3750X switches.

Read more

The post describes factory resets, VLAN database cleanup, trunk links, Spanning Tree behaviour, and using cdp to confirm the devices were talking.

View example

Microsoft

Mention

Their lab builds use Microsoft’s directory and desktop stack: Active Directory users, groups and organisational units on Windows Server, plus a Windows 11 client for testing local administrator delegation.

Read more

The production job post also covers account unlocks, OU moves, reimaging, and M365 and ClassLink MFA tickets.

View example

AdGuard

Mention

Says they run AdGuard across the lab mesh to keep DNS clean and secure.

Read more

View example

Sources for this section

Topics and similar creators

Melvin Williams writes a lab notebook of IT infrastructure work, moving from Active Directory and file permissions through a multi-site home lab and a Cisco CCNA setup, then into a first production help desk role.

Read more

Start with the phase-based Active Directory posts to see group-based access control, local admin delegation, and NTFS permissions; read the multi-site lab post for remote access and self-hosted services; and read the first-week post for account unlocks, reimaging, and a classroom software deployment. The posts connect each lab step to entry-level help desk or service desk tasks and invite readers to suggest what to build next.

Active Directory Identity and access management Home lab Help desk Service desk System administration Entry-level IT Career change Networking Cisco networking CCNA NTFS permissions Virtualization Multi-site networking Self-hosted services Learning in public Build logs

Larry Karatsoreos

Both treat IT infrastructure as something to make decisions about, not just install.

Read more

Karatsoreos writes about matching firewalls, switches, and wireless gear to an environment and standardizing equipment to reduce troubleshooting; Williams writes about choosing group-based access, local admin scope, and network services for a home lab. Both explain the reasoning behind infrastructure choices for an IT audience.

Karatsoreos writes about MSP operations and client equipment decisions, offering guidelines for managed service providers and IT leaders. Williams documents a personal lab built to prepare for an entry-level role, using phase-by-phase posts rather than vendor or client guidance.

Read original · Original 2

Boyd Clewis, CISSP, CCSK, CISA

Clewis and Williams both write about entering technology work from another career.

Read more

Clewis advises seeking shadowing or volunteer opportunities at your current company and frames security work as business enablement; Williams documents the lab phases and the first production week after moving from FedEx. Both use their own career history as the teaching example.

Clewis writes from a senior cybersecurity background, addressing how to enter cybersecurity and work with the business. Williams works in entry-level IT support and shows the home lab and help desk tasks themselves, with less emphasis on security leadership or consulting.

Read original · Original 2

Huzaifah S.

Huzaifah and Williams both teach practical, tool-based IT skills.

Read more

Huzaifah breaks down IDOR and broken access control testing step by step and lists free security tools; Williams documents Active Directory phases, NTFS permission rebuilds, and a CCNA lab. Both favor concrete methods over abstract advice.

Huzaifah focuses on web application security testing, bug bounty, and offensive security tooling.

  • Williams focuses on Windows infrastructure, identity administration, and help desk preparation.
  • Ask for application security or penetration testing examples if those are important to your brief.

Read original · Original 2

Sources for this section

Audience

Melvin Williams’s posts suit campaigns aimed at entry-level IT support or junior sysadmin audiences.

Read more

They explain Active Directory, networking, and home-lab work through practical tasks, connecting those skills to a first production IT role. Before booking, ask for recent LinkedIn audience demographics and, if the campaign depends on reaching IT workers, survey results or other information about followers’ roles and seniority.

Sources for this section

Partnership options

No partnership or sponsorship offer is documented in Melvin Williams’s posts.

Read more

Across six LinkedIn posts, Cisco routers and switches, Proxmox, Tailscale, AdGuard, Uptime Kuma, Wazuh, Nextcloud, and Vaultwarden appear as tools they use in a personal home lab while building IT skills, not as disclosed sponsorships or paid placements.

  • Hashtags and brand mentions organize learning topics and reach other IT practitioners; they do not indicate payment or a formal brand relationship.
  • Buyers should treat the profile as having no documented partnership inventory, not as proof that Williams never accepts sponsorships.
  • For a managed IT services company considering an entry-level help desk or junior sysadmin hire, no sponsored format, media kit, rate, or audience-delivery package is published or referenced.
  • Ask Williams directly about partnership terms.
Sources for this section

Campaign fit

A campaign to shortlist

For an IT training provider or managed IT services company hiring entry-level help desk and junior sysadmin staff, a campaign should show what the work actually involves.

Read more

Melvin Williams fits: the posts document named, step-by-step tasks rather than opinions, from manually provisioning 23 accounts across departmental OUs and building global security groups for role-based access control to adding an IT staff group to the local Administrators group on one workstation, breaking permission inheritance and rebuilding NTFS access for departmental shares, resetting a wireless access point, and deploying software solo across more than 40 classroom machines in a first IT job.

  • The format suits hiring content.
  • Each post walks through a phase, explains the reasoning behind each choice, and asks readers what to tackle next, inviting practitioner discussion in the comments.
  • The posts also show candid troubleshooting, including ten minutes spent on a port before noticing the cable was on the wrong switch.
  • Before booking, ask for follower demographics and role or seniority data if reaching IT workers is essential.
  • Certification status is unconfirmed: CCNA, Security+, and CompTIA appear only as hashtags, with no completed certification documented.

When to choose a specialist

A consumer hardware or software brand seeking a paid placement with a published rate, defined deliverable, and delivery numbers committed up front—for example, a smart-home brand wanting a lifestyle-integration post or a vendor seeking a sponsored series with reach guarantees—should look elsewhere.

Read more

The six posts provide no evidence of a sponsorship policy, media kit, rate card, or disclosed partnership.

  • Cisco, Proxmox, Tailscale, AdGuard, Uptime Kuma, Wazuh, Nextcloud, and Vaultwarden are described as tools running in a personal home lab, not paid placements; a brand hashtag does not prove payment.
  • The posts provide no expected reach or audience composition, so delivery cannot be promised.
  • The subject matter—directory services, file permissions, switching, and VLANs—is narrow and technical, not a fit for a general-audience lifestyle campaign.
  • Several phases are unfinished: GPO drive mapping is named as the next step, and the monitoring, storage, and password tools are described as being set up rather than completed.
  • A campaign requiring finished outcomes should treat these as gaps.
  • The content shown is text on LinkedIn; video or multi-channel deliverables are not demonstrated.
A worked campaign example

Worked angle for a campaign recruiting entry-level help desk staff.

  • A managed IT services company wants to show what the first month involves.
  • Angle: “Lab to live queue,” a three-post LinkedIn series taking one set of tasks from the home lab to a production floor.
  • Post one covers accounts and directory structure.
  • Open with the first-week production list from the new job—account unlocks, enrollment checks, and moving objects between OUs—then show the numbers behind it: Phase 3's 23 manual accounts across IT, HR, Finance, and Marketing, and the stated reason for doing it manually rather than with a script.
  • Post two covers least privilege.
  • Use Phase 4's global security groups and the decision to add the IT staff group to the local Administrators group on one workstation, MEL-CL-01, instead of granting domain-wide admin rights, with the whoami /groups check as the payoff.
  • Post three covers deployment and the user's side.
  • Pair the software rollout across more than 40 classroom machines with the preceding test-student sequence: files, a PowerPoint, OneDrive sync, and test emails.
  • Keep the account's established format in each post: steps, reasoning, verification, then a question for readers.
  • The recruiter or a hiring manager can explain in the comments how the same task runs in their environment, giving the audience a comparison and the buyer a reason to apply.
  • The client provides a role summary, a recruiter account to join the comment threads, and an application link.
  • Before publication, confirm which screenshots or recordings exist, since the posts reference screenshots that are not shown here, and whether the client wants a follow-up post on GPO drive mapping once that phase is finished.
Sources for this section

Who else to consider

Larry Karatsoreos

A better choice for campaigns aimed at MSP owners, IT managers or procurement decision-makers than people entering the field.

Read more

Larry Karatsoreos writes advisory posts about selecting firewalls, routers, switches and wireless gear based on visibility, compatibility, standardization and lifetime value, as well as a Microsoft Teams licensing change and what it means for MSPs. That suits a vendor-agnostic purchasing brief, a cloud-licensing explainer or client-facing guidance for readers who already run a network and control a budget.

These posts do not show what a first help desk or junior sysadmin week looks like: there is no account provisioning, permission work, endpoint imaging or classroom deployment, and both assume the reader manages an existing environment.

  • One names Auvik as a platform that provides visibility across mixed hardware; that is a product mention, not documented payment.
  • For a hiring-adjacent brief, ask for examples of entry-level operational tasks.

Examples: Source 1 · Source 2

Boyd Clewis, CISSP, CCSK, CISA

A better choice for campaigns about career-transition advice for people moving into cybersecurity, or for training providers seeking a mentor voice for early-career readers who already hold a corporate job.

Read more

Boyd Clewis advises readers to gain hands-on experience at their current employer through shadowing and volunteer work, earn a certification first and understand the business so security work enables rather than blocks it. That fits a campaign about how to break in when the audience can approach a manager.

The advice describes what to do, not the work itself.

  • An employer screening candidates sees a point of view rather than demonstrations of provisioning, permissions or deployments.
  • The second post draws on a senior security architect role at American Airlines, well beyond the entry-level roles described here.
  • Readers without an existing employer to shadow within cannot easily follow that route.
  • For an entry-level hiring brief, ask for examples of operational tasks.

Examples: Source 1 · Source 2

Huzaifah S.

A better choice when a campaign needs a technical skill demonstration in application security or penetration testing, or a beginner-motivation angle about learning with free tools.

Read more

Huzaifah S. walks through a structured method for testing broken object-level authorization: mapping object types, looking past indirect identifiers such as UUIDs and base64 values, checking update, delete, export and permission-changing actions, and testing privilege boundaries between users and organizations. The second post lists free industry-standard tools and argues that a laptop, a connection and the decision to start are enough.

There is little overlap with the entry-level IT support work described here.

  • Directory services, file permissions, endpoint imaging, print queues and software deployment do not appear; the closest link is a general message about learning.
  • A managed IT services company screening for help desk or junior sysadmin candidates gains appsec depth and a motivational angle, but no demonstrations of first-job operational tasks.
  • Ask for examples of help desk or junior sysadmin work if those skills are central to the brief.

Examples: Source 1 · Source 2

Sources for this section

Build your campaign brief

Editable Markdown templates for planning a campaign with this creator.

Managed IT services company: first-month hiring brief for Melvin Williams

IT training provider: home lab walkthrough series for Melvin Williams

Workforce development programme: IT career-change series for Melvin Williams

Sources for this section

Research methodology

  • This page draws on six full LinkedIn posts by Melvin Williams: three Active Directory lab phases covering account provisioning, group-based access control and NTFS permissions; a multi-site home lab built on Proxmox with Tailscale, AdGuard and self-hosted services; a CCNA hardware lab; and a first week in a production IT support job.
  • The posts explain these details.
  • The posts here have no publication dates, so they cannot be ordered by date.
  • The posts refer to screenshots that are not shown here, so the page describes what the posts explain in text.
  • No certification is claimed here; certification names appear only as hashtags.
  • The posts do not state audience composition or follower demographic data, so reach and audience makeup are not stated.
  • The brand relationships listed are tools named in the posts, not paid or sponsored arrangements; no post discloses a commercial relationship.
  • The similar creators are comparisons based on two LinkedIn posts each and were chosen for shared subject matter, not endorsement.

Brands they talk about