Becoming a Private Investigator is a tough journey, just ask any PI. Why is becoming a Private Investigator so difficult? There are two reasons:  There is no real and consistent information on the topic or practical real-world Private Investigator training courses. Currently, the process of becoming a PI involves the “sink or swim” method. New PIs are thrown into the career without proper on-boarding. Those that have natural skill and luck make it, many others do not. This process, of course, produces an enormous amount of avoidable investigative mistakes and discourages many capable PIs of continuing in the Private Investigator industry.

 

There is no real Private Investigator training course or education on the subject of becoming a PI and no clear path. People interested in becoming a Private Investigator will take a PI licensing course which will not include practical information regarding the profession. Most of these courses focus on what laws a PI needs to be aware of. This is useful. However, new Investigators still need to know how to perform investigations, such as mobile surveillance. There are almost no PI courses that include practical training. After taking the licensing course, a rookie PI will not know what to do next. They will be given a lot of poor conflicting information, if any information at all.

 

The process of becoming a licensed Private Investigator is similar in most countries, states, and provinces: a rookie will need to meet basic requirements such as age, language proficiency, and other usual requirements of this nature. Furthermore, they will need to take a government approved PI licensing course. In a lot of jurisdictions, there is a specific government body that controls licensed investigators. So, it is this government body that will have a list of approved PI licensing courses. Some of these can be online courses. Once someone interested in the career submits the proof and ability of meeting the requirements and completion of the licensing course to the government body, they will get a PI beginner’s license.  This is where the struggle will begin.

 

A Private Investigator’s beginner’s license will be called something such as, “PI Under Supervision License.” Obviously, an “Under Supervision” license means the new PI must work under the purview of a fully licensed Investigator. However, the term “Under Supervision” will be in namesake only. Rookies will not be supervised or guided by an experienced Private Investigator. In fact, PI agencies are not economically structured to have mentor/ student surveillance teams. And that licensing course? It does not teach investigation, only what laws PIs need to be aware of. This is useful; however, new Private Investigators still need to know how to be successful working investigative operations.

 

This lack of guidance and Private Investigator education is why so many new Private Investigators burn out and quit and why many experienced Private Investigators are jaded. On top of this, PI clients with small budgets typically get the new unqualified Private Investigators, nobody wins in this situation. It is also not fair to small PI clients to use their files to haphazardly train new Private Investigators.

Now the time comes for the novice to work investigations with no PI experience or education. The licensing course that was taken will have focused on legal matters with no real practical PI subjects or topics. Rookie PIs will always be told by employers that “soon you will get some training,” which never happens. This process forces Investigators to take a long time to understand the career. It can take over five years to figure out the industry and get good at a few specialized fields. During that time, Investigators will struggle and probably miss out on several hundred thousand dollars due to losing work opportunities from a lack of skill and education. What is sad is that this is a common story in the private investigation industry.

 

If the new Investigator makes it through this meat grinder of an industry with, usually, over 2400hrs of required investigative experience, they will qualify for a "full Private Investigator license." Some jurisdictions allow the Investigator to skip over needing to obtain 2400hrs of Private Investigator experience if they have a degree in a criminal justice type field. However, degrees do not teach private investigation, so this will not help. So, rookies will get the required 2400 hours of PI experience and or a relevant degree and they can get a full Private Investigator license. This basically means they can open their own PI agency. Hopefully, when they are hiring new Private Investigators, they will appreciate the importance of proper PI education.