Criminology, completely useless?

BIGeastBEAST
Thu, 10 Jun 2010 18:05:12 +0000

I’d like to add that you should be actively finding the jobs you’d like to have (or have someday) and take a look at the criteria. More than likely it will be general, something like, “The applicant must possess 10-15 years of professional experience comparable to the duties and responsibilities related to this position”, then go find out what the duties and responsibilities of the position are…that will give you a good indicator.

Also, to beef up your skills as an analyst, you need to get some analyst skills. It sounds like you’ve mistakenly focused on the wrong aspects of the job, meaning you focused on crime, rather than the skills needed to analyze crime/security and compile it.

Here are some basic skills neded for an analyst. If a person has these skills, they have potential to do the job well.


Private and open-source database systems
GIS (Geographic Information Systems)
Quantitative Methods
Applied Statistics
Technical Report Writing
Research Process Methods


Those are in no particular order.

Now, I don’t know how it works in Canada, but here in the US some federal agencies will do large-scale hiring of intel analysts. The competition is high, mainly former military analysts, investigators, and current analysts from other agencies. So walking in cold is extremely difficult.

Here is my advice for you.

If you are deadset against joining the military or law enforcement, your best bet is to get an entry-level job for a government agency that also has analysts. Then after a few years, try to laterally move into an research/intel position. However, this is no sure shot, not by any means.

As I said, I know nothing about the Canadian government, so you’ll have to do your own research and figure out how they operate.

Also, you need to give up the idea of working for a US agency. It’s not going to happen. The first two questions on every application I fill out is, 1) Are you a US Citizen, 2) Have you registered for the Selective Service.

And as I mentioned previously, even if you did get your citizenship (which would be a silly thing to do just to get a job you probably won’t get), your chances of being granted a security clearance are low.

Foreign contacts are a major deal in clearances, and it’s just not realistic. Especially for an intelligence position, they don’t play around or take chacnes.