Friday, October 28, 2011

Job hunt

Here in Lincoln, there are two universities that offer graduate degrees in forensic science.  I suppose there are 20 or more people who graduate with a master's degree in this field every year in Lincoln.  I doubt there are five jobs that open up annually in the entire state of Nebraska for forensic scientists. I get the sense that the same phenomenon occurs elsewhere in the United States. It is another aspect of the CSI effect, I suppose.  Our gain, though, because a significant number of our police recruits these days are graduates from these programs.

On the other hand, the field of crime analysis seems to have a significant number of job openings at any given time, and I know from my own experience that sometimes good applicants are hard to find for those jobs. Here's a sampling of job postings from a single source (the International Association of Crime Analysts) in just the past several weeks. Anyone looking to get involved in policing, but not as a sworn officer, would do well to consider this field--especially anyone interested in applied technology, problem solving, computer software and data mining, as applied to policing.

Earlier this week, I had a conversation with a friend who is a crime analyst at a mid-sized California police department.  She has a very bright intern who is interviewing for jobs as an analyst.  I offered to help with some references, as I am acquainted with people at the two agencies where she had applied.  If my friend thinks she is sharp, I have no doubt that she'd be a good one.  In reality, the intern needs to decide where she would prefer to work, because in her job hunt, she will have choices to make and need not settle for the first offer.  That's not true in many fields these days.

The International Association of Crime Analysts website is a great place to go for working analysts looking for resources, or for students exploring potential career fields.  Crime analysts do varied and interesting work, and have the opportunity to make a major impact in their community in many different ways.

6 comments:

Steve said...

Crime analysis: Crime is bad! Do I get the job?

Tim Hegarty said...

Director,
We're looking for an analyst down here in Manhappiness, so feel free to send someone our way!

Anonymous said...

Tim-What happened on the football field in Manhattan yesterday was a crime. Do I get the job?

256

Steve said...

Ok, if "crime is bad" doesn't work, how about "crime doesn't pay"?

Anonymous said...

I was one of those folks in the Masters program and was all excited about my job prospects until I did my first year internship, where the staff commented that they haven't hired anyone new in 5 years and that the field was very limited. With my shiny new degree, I work in IT.

Anonymous said...

7:44 IT is where it all begins to retrieve data. It's a great place to get experience in your field.