In todays market of choosing a PI and making sure you find a good one, something not spoken about (until now) is how a private investigators background effects the level of service you will get depending on the service required.
Please always ask what their background and experience is as it really does effect how they approach your case.
Generally speaking there are three main backgrounds that enter into the private investigation industry which are;
Now, the industry is not limited to those three backgrounds and there are some incredible private investigators out there who came from working in a warehouse and one who was a chef! The three backgrounds listed above are simply the majority of the industry.
The main background for the industry as the the role of being a police officer provides great transferable skills to being a private investigator.
The main benefit of hiring an ex police officer is their knowledge of the law and the working knowledge of it in action. Ex police officers also have experience in the system and process of an investigation and can put that into practice with natural ease.
A downside of hiring an ex police officer though is there is an arrogance as they have a working knowledge of law that they sometimes think they can twist or exploit for more profit on cases. When hiring an ex police officer make sure you know the fees in advance!
The second largest background for people entering the industry is ex military. Again, the transferable skills brought from a military career lend themselves perfectly to working well as a private investigator – especially in the surveillance niche.
The main benefit of hiring an ex military private investigator will be the outside of the box thinking we provide. I, myself am an ex Royal Marines Commando and pride myself on the out of the box thinking to achieve the goal. Most often this allows my clients to have an investigation completed cheaper than my competition.
The downfall of ex military private investigators is the working knowledge of law. We are knowledgeable in military law especially Law of Armed Combat however, the knowledge of common laws is usually a work in progress to learn so please check the experience level of an ex military private investigator.
The least common private investigators background has to be that of secret services or special forces. When I say this, please think of MI5/ MI6 and the SAS and SBS. These guys first and foremost benefit is always the level they have worked at previously. These guys have worked against other governments intelligence agencies and terrorists.
That level breeds the most professional guys and girls which is their biggest USP.
Their downfall; they are too risk averse. Their background has lead them to be as too much risk in their previous roles led to serious consequences for their team first and possibly even lead to political issues or tensions being sparked.
This means their client base tends to be large companies with large budgets to accommodate less risks being taken. Losses on surveillance are common for these teams because of it which in the private sector is usually not ideal.
Now, I please ask that you take all of my points above as my own opinion (and likely biased) as to what different private investigators background provide in the way of pros and cons. Some will disagree entirely at my points but this is my experience from over 9 years as a private investigator.
As always, thanks for reading! Dan
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