You like to snoop. You're curious, even nosy. You're pretty sneaky, too, if you do say so yourself. Maybe you should be a P.I. You'll get paid to pry into peoples' family histories, spy on unsuspecting citizens, review their credit card bills, and perhaps find out how many speeding tickets they've received. If you live in one of the seven lucky states -- Alabama, Alaska, Colorado, Idaho, Mississippi, Missouri, and South Dakota -- there aren't even any licensing requirements. (For the other states you might need to be at least eighteen, have some experience in law enforcement, and/or pass a training course.) And, according to the U.S. Department of Labor, "Employment of private detectives and investigators is expected to grow faster than the average for all occupations through 2014."
What You Get: $25,000-$40,000/year, maybe more if you're highly experienced or embarking on a particularly difficult assignment.
Sites to Check Out
- http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos157.htm - What the U.S. Department of Labor has to say about P.I.s
- http://www.indeed.com/q-Investigator-jobs.html has P.I. job listings.
1 comment:
I have done this job. It does pay well. You need to have good phone skills and you need to be good at ferreting info out of the Internet. But you also have to lie to people. A lot. Many of the people you will be invesigating will not want you to find out what you're investigating, like people who are claiming to be disbled for workman's comp benefits, but aren't. You'll be lying, not to them, but to their friends, neighbors and relatives. You'll be lying not just to the friends, neighbors and relatives of the cheats, but the honest folks as well, because you can't assume they're honest. The lies are mostly harmless, but still, I had a lot of trouble with that aspect of the work.
Also, there are certain areas where you may skirt close to the edge of the law (see, "Pretexting") and you will really have to mind your ps and qs.
I worked for a reputable agency that stayed on the right side of the law and made sure its investigators did the same. Make sure you work for one of those, too, because if you don't, you will be the one who gets arrested. Not your boss. You.
Also, don't ever "pretext" the police. It's illegal.
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