Digital Forensics doesn't seem to have many job openings when I search for it on websites and all I keep hearing about is mostly people who can't seem to find any work in the field or get their foot through the door.
Does one really have to become a police officer first in order to work in the public sector with a police station or can you actually be a civilian?
Can one join the military once they earn a bachelors degree and gain experience with digital forensics?
Most DF jobs are not entry-level. The ones that are get snapped up by the best and brightest.
Some departments hire civilians, some do not. There are more civilian jobs in Federal LE than local or state.
If you are going to join the military, let them pay for your education. That said there are a lot of contractors working DF for the military. Of course that may all come to a screeching halt with sequestration.
Thanks for your response Bithead, that makes me a little bit better and I wouldn't attempt to get an entry-level DF position I'll surely wait until I have finished my bachelors at least.
I check this site often and the employment section and I see there are many jobs in the UK, I wouldn't mind traveling or joining the military to gain experience.
no
Digital Forensics doesn't seem to have many job openings when I search for it on websites and all I keep hearing about is mostly people who can't seem to find any work in the field or get their foot through the door.
Does one really have to become a police officer first in order to work in the public sector with a police station or can you actually be a civilian?
Can one join the military once they earn a bachelors degree and gain experience with digital forensics?
I'm sorry armresl,
can you corroborate further than just a no answer pertaining to why not?
This is a very difficult career to start. Every company out there that wants to employ a forensic computer examiner wants to employ an expert. In this business that means something substantially more than getting a 1st degree with honours from a top university. It means having certifications and experience using the tools of the trade and preferably a large amount of examinations already performed. Ideally they want someone who will have more experience and qualifications than the opposing examiner in court.
There are several paths you can take to get to this level of expertise
Firstly you can take your degree and get your top marks (anything less than that and you'll probably need to choose a different path). Then you can get a job as tech support for a year or two whilst waiting for an unpaid internship at a forensic company. If you're lucky enough to get that unpaid labour job you then need to impress that company enough that they take you on afterwards in a low paid position, just imaging hard drives or similar. You'll pay for your own extra training and certs in your spare time. Eventually you might get promoted and finally, four or five years after you've finished university and vastly in debt, you've become an examiner.
Secondly, you can join the police or the army, earn reasonable money, learn valuable life skills and investigation skills but keep pursuing computers as a hobby. Eventually a position may become available in a high tech crime unit and they'll train you up with the certs you need. Four or five years after you've started with the police, you've become an examiner, and you've seen and done some incredible things.
Thirdly, you can become a programmer or some other computer career. You'll earn lots of money, there are plenty of jobs, you'll learn a huge amount about computers and easily be able to afford to pay for training and certs in forensics in your spare time. Four or five years later, you should be able to get a forensic job if you want, but it would pay substantially less than you'd already be earning.
Finally, you could stay in full time education, taking an MSc and a PhD, again getting into vast amounts of debt, but there can be no doubt of your expertise when you introduce yourself to the court as Doctor tryan6.
Once you've finally reached the dizzy heights of forensic examiner, the job can be very enjoyable. If you like problem solving and the suspect has hidden evidence on their computer then working your way through that puzzle is a great feeling. Helping put paedophiles in prison is also a very good thing.
If you want this career because you like computers and think forensics is cool because you've watched CSI then this career is NOT FOR YOU. Forensics is pretty much the lowest paid of all computer careers and one of the most difficult to get into. There are far more inexperienced graduates than there are positions they can fill, and once they have experience and expertise then employers are not willing to pay the rates that an expert requires. This will improve as forensics moves more and more away from policing and law enforcement based cases, towards corporate based cases, but for now I'd advise anyone wanting to do computer forensics to have a good long look at other careers first.
Forensics is pretty much the lowest paid of all computer careers and one of the most difficult to get into. .
I agree that it may be difficult to get into. The unpaid internship route is your best option for getting great experience. My degree (Criminal Justice) required a semester of an internship. I was lucky enough to get in with a local PD with their cyber crime division. I was also lucky enough to extend that internship over a few years while going to school. Most people do not have the time nor energy for such a long unpaid internship but it did help me accelerate my career after graduating.
I don't completely agree with the statement that it is "pretty much the lowest paid of all computer careers". Surely, IT help desk gets paid lower )
But in all seriousness, in my experience after you get out of that first year (or even before) you start getting paid well. After that first few years and if you jump jobs you should see a SUBSTANTIAL pay increase. That is your experience starting to show at this point.
From my personal experiences, I get paid near or better than many high level programmers I know and digital forensic consultants (I am no longer consulting but working in a digital forensic lab, regardless). Again these are just my experiences. For reference, I have worked on the east coast in a very digital forensic concentrated city and now in a not so concentrated city… getting paid even more than the big city.
Don't get discouraged… it is a great, rewarding field if you are willing to put the work and time in.
Thank you so much everyone for your honesty and advice, helping me deal with some of these issues I've had trouble finding more information about.
So far everything's gone good I should be finished by 2013-2014, I do have an internship in the works as we speak but since I'm just starting out and don't really know that much about DF yet I'm not sure if that's a good thing or if the process is more of learning from other professionals than being expected to know everything.