I am EnCE certified, soon to be CCE certified and will gain my A.A.S degree in computer forensics next quarter. Should i try to get a job in private or public? Also, is this sufficient to start or should i go for my bachelors before applying? (planning on tranferring anyways.) Any opinions on getting started welcomed!
Greetings,
It's really what you make of it, there is no sure fire path to success. If you're good at networking and selling yourself, you should be able to get a job with your current skillset.
Many employers want to see a bachelors, if only as a sign that you can commit to a project for four years. You can talk your way around this by saying that you'll be continuing work on your degree. And, if you get a job in academia the classes might be free.
Public vs. private is more about what you want to do. They're very different work environments, and types of cases. If you go public, ie law enforcement, you should plan on going through the academy and then through a lot of other positions in the department before doing forensics. Often departments will rotate personnel through various positions so you might only get two years in cybercrime before doing something else, like it or not.
The private sector covers an enormous range of options. You could work for a big forensics company, a small one, or for yourself - lots of pros and cons to each, and they all depend on the sort of work environment that you like. You could do ediscovery which, though it is related to forensics, is a field unto itself. You could work for a corporation doing internal projects, either full time or as part of an IT position. You could go into incident response which has a forensics component but is yet another field.
I'm kind of in a similar situation due to a geographic move and am running through a lot of these options myself. I'm really trying to figure out where I'll be the most content and challenged.
If you can afford to do so, try finding some unpaid internships with various firms so you can get a taste of what the environments are like. Find your local HTCIA chapter and talk to people there. If you're near Seattle, talk to the HTCC people. Network, learn, try ….
-David
To be honest, I'd start by firing up a web browser and heading on over to indeed.com or simplyhired.com, enter in "computer forensics" and my zip code of interest, and see what's out there. What are companies looking for? Then it the county web site and see if they're even hiring…no sense in trying to figure out whether to go public or private if there aren't any opportunities in one of those areas.
thanks for the quick reply, i totally agree with talking your way through, its hard to find a computer science degree with a good emphasis on computer forensics, many bachelor degree programs have even less credits in the forensic field than i have already taken. I have an unpaid internship lined up for a big forensics firm here, so i'm hoping to get a good sense of the private side of things.
Going to hopefully transfer to Champlain college in Virginia. They are the only school i found with a good, strong bachelors degree for computer forensics. They are honored by the NIJ for their achievements in C.F. and many of the teachers are CISSP certified along with other certs. If anyone has gone to this college please let me know your opinions of it!
tycmxc I noticed in your post that you want to transfer to Champlain College - it's in Vermont, not Virginia. I just started the computer & digital forensics program there. Since I'm still new, I can't give you a whole lot of info, but from what I've observed and my experience so far, the professors are very well respected in their field as well as the community. It really is a unique program.
I might be wrong but you'd do well to check your map before heading to Virginia. There could, I suppose, be a Champlain College there but I think the one you're referring to with the acclaimed degree in CF is in Burlington, VT (Vermont). As a retired law enforcement officer and with a Masters in Computer Technology I was able to complete a "certificate" in CF there this past December. Living in VT I took some online and some on-campus courses. Gary Kessler is the man who heads the department and has an excellent reputation in the field.
Where do you go from here? Good question for both of us. I'm a bit longer in the tooth than you having been both a journalist for 20 years and 20+ years as a cop. Still, I wanted to return to LE in the CF area and was told because of my LE background I had a good chance at the ICAC unit with the Burlington PD. Alas! Federal money fell too short for new personnel. As for private or corporate work I've yet to find an entry level position either in VT or anywhere in job searches in such places as Indeed, DICE, Monster, etc. There are jobs out there but they all want three to five years experience.
I seem to be whining (again) and don't mean to be. You asked about Champlain College and I can tell you that the certificate program, at least, gave me a good, overall understanding of CF but I feel a little shortchanged on the "hands on" side. That's the result of online attendance and my not taking advantage of campus lab facilities they way I should have even though I live some distance from the campus. All in all, I would say that if you want a degree then definitely consider Champlain College. (The one in Vermont! ) )
sorry about the confusion, i am indeed talking about the one in Vermont ( been lookin at alot of job postings for CF in Virginia)
I am graduating this month from Champlain's C&DF program. I completely agree with Seeker. It is a good option if you do not have a program near you and you don't want to or can't move to Vermont, but you definitely miss the full lab experience. It also made it difficult to apply for any kind of federal internship/scholarship program since they want a letter of recommendation from your program director and the staff at Champlain do not know you well enough to write one for you. Still happy with the program, though.