The Exciting Career of a Detective!

Career Tips | January 5, 2012 | Share

Ever felt the urge to be like Sherlock Holmes? Felt the triumph when you managed to guess the murderer as Hercule Poirot does in his cases? Or envied James Bond or Nancy Drew? Ever fantasised about being the head of an intelligence agency?

Then you are the right material to be a detective! Yes, being a detective is a great career option if you have a curious and shrewd bent of mind. Plus if you are courageous, brave and clever and posses a knack to pull out secrets, then the profession is full of adventure and excitement!

Eligibility:

A detective needs to have expertise in forensic science, finger print matching, tracking people, having a good spy network and ability to sift through information and get the relevant out of it.

To become a private detective, a particular academic background, as such, is not required. However, good private detective agencies emphasise on a proper graduation in any discipline. However, to go into government services one needs to have specialised skills in forensic sciences. Many diplomas, bachelors and masters courses are available in India and abroad. One could go into, CID, RAW, CBI, and other intelligence services, after studying the same.

Courses;

Some colleges offering diploma in private investigation and criminology are; The Indore Christian College, Indore, The National Institute of Private Investigation, New Delhi, ACE Detectives India International securities, New Delhi, Indian Detective Institute (IDI) University of Pune – Diploma in Criminology.

There are many universities and colleges offering graduation and post graduation in forensic sciences and criminology; some of the top colleges and universities in this respect are;

Central Forensic Science Laboratory, CBI,
National Institute of Criminology & Forensic Sciences (NICFS), New Delhi
National Crime Records Bureau, New Delhi
National Law University, Mandore, Jodhpur-342304
Osmania University Hyderabad
Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi
Forensic Sciences Department University of Madras
University of Delhi, Delhi

Work profile:

The main work of a detective involves being able to find out things without being caught or noticed. There are many branches in this field, like being a domestic detective who probes into unnatural deaths, murders, infidelity of spouse, or getting knowledge about the other family or to be spouse before marriage! Corporate detectives probe into matters of involving fraud, pirating goods, finding people behind violation of copyright or trademark.

These agencies also provide bouncers and body guards. Government detectives are more trained and are police men dressed as plainclothes men. They are referred to as ‘intelligence’ and form a main part of Army and other government agencies like RAW, CBI.

Scope:

The scopes of being a detective are many. One could be a professional in this field as research assistant, forensic scientist, criminologist, investigator and an approaching profession in various governments, private and public sector organizations.

The government recruits detectives for CBI CID, AIIMS, railways, banks, forensic labs, armed force department, insurance companies etc. If one has good connections and the appropriate amount of experience, one can open a private detective agency of their own.

Retired Army officers and government detectives and criminologists often open these. Salary of fresher private detectives might vary from 5-15,000 a month. But, as the business grows it reaches to 15-20, 000 a day or lakh or more for each case! But, for this purpose many countries emphasise on procuring a licence. But, in India, there is no such formal licensing till date.

Thus, if you are interested in being the next Sherlock Holmes, then get ready for an exciting, adventurous and interesting life! Who knows what would you land up doing?

Sanjna Sudan