FAQs About Hiring PIs On and Off The Internet

Private PI Schools vs College Courses

(Assessment Made in Canada Only)

Growing at a rapid pace is the number of private PI Schools opening in Canada.

It is important to be aware that these schools are often owned and operated by private businessmen who have started the school as a business for profit. The schools themselves are private corporations and the curriculum they teach may not be regulated or recognized by agency owners.

Tuition costs can run as high as $4,000 to $6,000 and up. Courses of study run for about four months or less, on average.

The reality of the industry is that someone taking such a course will have great difficulty finding a job.

There are a number of community colleges in Canada that offer the Law Enforcement Course and/or the Law and Security course. This is usually a two-to-three-year course taught full-time during the day (though some of the colleges offer Law Enforcement courses at night).

At the end of the course the student receives a college diploma. This same diploma can also be applied towards university credits in most cases.

We could spend a day telling you success stories of these graduates. This is the best and only way to go, in our view, if you have no experience that relates to the PI ndustry. Some colleges actually guarantee you a job upon completion.

As part of this course the college student must complete a number of unpaid hours of security or investigative work at an agency or related business. The college sets up the placements with the investigative agencies.

In most situations an employer of an investigative agency can get one or two students to come into the agency on this basis to learn the business until he or she graduates.

If things work out between the employer and the student, the student can usually end up getting a job after graduation. The employer has literally been able to teach the student the business at no cost.

A person graduating from one of the private PI courses will have to compete with these college programs. What would you do if you were an employer?

We do not suggest that the private PI courses don't teach valuable information. We do suggest that in most situations employers will take a law enforcement grad (or an ex-police officer) over a graduate from a four-month private PI course with no industry experience.

A day has not gone by where we don't receive a resumé from someone who has taken one of these private PI courses. In many cases the course owners intentionally give out mailing lists of all the PI agencies to their graduates to assist them in soliciting a job. Needless to say, an agency becomes swamped with resumés.

If there is anyone out there who wishes to challenge what we have said, we would urge you to spend some time calling owners of PI agencies in Canada, to inquire about their own training. In most cases it's going to be the college course, police experience, or skills related to the business.

If you're going to spend $6,000 on a PI overnight course, do your homework first. Pick up the phone and call around to some of the agencies.