Deciding between law enforcement and private sector

I'm going to be facing the same decision in about a year, but right now I'm leaning towards law enforcement. It's a great feeling to help put the bad guys behind bars.

Besides that, having one of the big three letter agencies on your resume is nice if you ever want to go to the private sector down the road.

Law enforcement digital forensics is good career, but keep in mind that it's difficult to land a sworn law enforcement position that will allow you to go directly into digital forensics work even at the federal level.

The original poster's location indicates that he's from the MN area. If you want to go into state and local law enforcement in the state of Minnesota, there are more hoops to jump through than in most states to become eligible to be licensed by MN POST.

To the OP, you are sitting on top of one of the best labs around. Target.

Take whatever you can get. Number one piece of advice is keep an open mind, keep learning and be prepared to sweep the warehouse floor for a while.

From an employer's perspective, it's very attractive to have a candidate that is willing to do the boring mundane stuff that they NEED done, but that is tallented with the right attitude that you can move up as the business grows and as you start to trust that person. Too many graduates want to go straight into full computer forensic work and expert testimony without experience. Do the time, develop your skills and network and it will pay off. If possible, get a part time job now with a private firm doing some work imaging or tidyng up their labs and good luck.

To the OP, you are sitting on top of one of the best labs around. Target.

That is correct. They probably have one of the biggest cf labs in the state, but they are also very particular about recruiting talent. I check in on their Careers site often, but have yet to make any contacts there.

Take whatever you can get. Number one piece of advice is keep an open mind, keep learning and be prepared to sweep the warehouse floor for a while.

From an employer's perspective, it's very attractive to have a candidate that is willing to do the boring mundane stuff that they NEED done, but that is tallented with the right attitude that you can move up as the business grows and as you start to trust that person. Too many graduates want to go straight into full computer forensic work and expert testimony without experience. Do the time, develop your skills and network and it will pay off. If possible, get a part time job now with a private firm doing some work imaging or tidyng up their labs and good luck.

This is basically what I'm expecting. I was speaking with a LEO recently and when he mentioned they don't take on interns because of the nature of what they deal with, I wanted to blurt out "I don't care! I'll sit and image drives for 8 hours a day.. please take me on!"

[quote="ehuber"Law enforcement digital forensics is good career, but keep in mind that it's difficult to land a sworn law enforcement position that will allow you to go directly into digital forensics work even at the federal level.

The original poster's location indicates that he's from the MN area. If you want to go into state and local law enforcement in the state of Minnesota, there are more hoops to jump through than in most states to become eligible to be licensed by MN POST.

It's even more difficult, although possible, to find a job in criminal justice doing CF work without becoming a sworn officer. I'm aware a career in a high-tech field requires continual education; but I'd like to put off acquiring additional certs and training until after I start working.

Good advice so far. Thanks!

What you need to ask yourself is whether you are willing to join a law enforcement agency and pay your dues until you potentially land a computer forensics job.

In other words, are you willing to do grunt work like pushing a black and white around (the traditional starting place for municipal law enforcement officers), working in a detention setting (many sheriff deputies start in the jail) or doing general criminal investigative work (FBI, etc) until you potentially get a shot at a computer forensics gig?

Yes, you can go directly into a computer forensics job in law enforcement (a civilian FBI CART slot, for example), but there is a lot of competition for those types of positions.

Having been a police officer myself, I neither encourage or discourage people to go into law enforcement. It's a very personal choice, but I do encourage people to understand what they are getting into. You become a police officer because you want to be part of something larger than yourself and because you want to put bad guys in jail. If you're comfortable doing that in a non-forensic role before you potentially land a forensic role, then go for it. If not, then you need to ask yourself some hard questions about your motivation before think about going that route.

Personally, I think there is a lot of merit doing grunt work before you land in a computer forensics position. I learned a lot about myself, people in general and being a good cop by doing non-technical law enforcement work like patrol.

You go into law enforcement beacause you want to be a police officer. Not because you want to do digital forensics. If your primary motivation is become a police offier and catch bad guys, it can be a great experience. If your primary motivation is to do digital forensics, that can be done in the private sector.

Kind of following the train of thought, and I can not believe I am using this analogy - The Karate Kid.

Student wants to get in there and mix it up, kick b**t, get the girl, etc.

But instead he is washing cars. Painting fences etc.

The idea is that there are many of life experiences from various sources that help you prepare and build a base of skills for the road ahead. There is not necessarily wrong or right path - it is what you gain from experiences from one area that develop critically thinking and logic to solve issues in others.

So why not take your time? You seem young and that you have the willingness to learn; feel out as many different options as you can. Be patient and as Eric said it is a very personal choice.

Now that you are done with school you are ready to learn.

I cannot agree with Eric more. It took me 13 years of Patrol/plain clothes/Detective work before I was able to get close to getting a computer crime Investigators spot, then it took me another 3 years just to get into our forensics lab.

If you want to go into Law Enforcement, that is a choice that no one can make for you. Like Eric stated, it is a very personal decision. LE demands that special people take to it. Believe it or not, for some it is a calling (as corny as that sounds). Just remember, you may have to dodge bullets, fight people, write a ton of reports and chew up a lot of road before you get your DF spot.

If it isn't in your heart to do it, there are plenty of civilian positions that you can compete for.

Whatever your choice, good luck!

I'm not really in a position to give advice as I've yet to find a forensics job, but I figured you still might be interested in my experiences.

I finished my BAS in Network Security and Forensics last August. I did well in all the areas we studied (graduated with a 4.0 GPA) but forensics was the part I enjoyed the most. Law enforcement was the only avenue of forensics I knew about going in, so I was thinking that it would be great to use my powers for good and do something I love and help put away bad guys at the same time.

Unfortunately (for me) I found that as the previous posters mentioned all the LE forensics jobs predominantly require that you be in law enforcement already (and for many years at that.) I for one never really wanted to be in LE and have pretty much no interest in any are of it aside from digital forensics. Even if I was willing to do go that route I don't think that I'm capable of it at this point in my life because I lack the physicality required. But, even if that weren't the case I still wouldn't go into LE now in hopes that MAYBE by the time I'm 50 I MIGHT get a forensics job.

I have seen some of the FBI positions Eric mentioned and I always apply for them when I do, but as of yet I've never received a reply and I don't really expect too. As he said, there's lots of competition for them and people who are already Federal employees will almost always get them first I think.

So, I've been looking more to the private sector side as well as government contractors and still have no luck. Both seem to only want prior experience. The contractor positions seem to be a little more flexible if you already have a security clearance. Even if you do have experience most of the contractors still only want people that are already cleared.

I did manage to get 1 interview for a Media Exploitation Analyst job for a contractor in Afghanistan and it went well and he said that if it was just up to him he'd hire me, but since it was a government contract someone in the government has oversight over it and has to approve and he only wants people with prior professional experience.

So, basically I'm having to put forensics on hold for now. The best I could find locally right after graduation was an IT phone support job. It's just a temp job with no benefits and very little pay. But, the company is a very large contractor, so I was hoping to get on full time and move from there. I accepted a full time position with them on another help desk back in February. This desk is part of DHS so it does require clearance so I'm still waiting on that to come through. My hope is that after I get a clearance I can move to one the many forensic jobs I see that require clearance. Since I've been waiting 5 months and still haven't heard anything I'm starting to lose hope in that position and look elsewhere. I still look and apply for forensic positions, but I'm thinking I'd be better off to just head more toward IT and am working on my MCSA Security now.

If you do get a chance for an internship jump at it. Our school didn't do internships, but I went ahead and tried to contact the only local company I know of that does forensics and asked if they had any intern or part time positions, but I never received any replies from them. If you are young and single then you'll have an advantage over me as I'm already 34, married with a daughter that's turning 3 next month, and my wife is a stay at home mom. So, I can't really afford to take an unpaid internship even though I'd love to (unless it was really short term.)

7