Private PI Schools vs College Courses

(Assessment Made in Canada Only)

My Run In With The Oakville PI School, By Kevin Bousquet, CFE

My Run In With The Oakville PI School, By Kevin Bousquet, CFE

We get a lot of resumés from various people with various backgrounds. In most cases I will just file them unless we are hiring.

As I have said before, the owners of these private ten-week PI schools give their graduates a mailing list of every PI agency in Ontario. Needless to say, if you own an agency in Ontario, you're averaging at least one resumé a day from graduates of these private courses.

From the two-year law enforcement courses (i.e. the community college courses), I see maybe 30 resumés a year. I have hired graduates from these courses with at least five years agency experience. That's our minimum if you want to get through our door.

In the fall of 1998, I had one of the graduates of the Oakville PI school send me a resumé. She had finished high school, had no related experience, and had now finished this course. When she made a followup phone call, I just told her that we were not not hiring (that's all I said). She had the highest marks in her PI course and could not accept the fact that no agency would hire her. She followed up almost every three months after that.

Finally, I had to tell her that our agency did not recognize these private courses. I indicated that she should call around to other agencies, most of whom (like us) would want agency experience, the two-year law enforcement college course, or a law enforcement police background. In no way did I disparage the course; I merely explained the competition factor.

A number of months later our agency was handling a fraud investigation for one of the leading finance companies in North America. At the time, I was working closely with the director of security.

It just so happened that the owner of this Oakville PI school knew one of the people we were investigating. As a result, I had to take a statement from her.

My Slap Across the face!

We had the owner come to a particular office in order that her statement could be taken. My client (the director of security) was also present. As I tried to take the statement from her, she would not proceed unless I explained to her why I would not hire her graduates. She felt insulted because I had told one of her graduates that they would have difficulty finding a position with this course alone. I then had to spend five minutes explaining to her that I only commented on the competition factor and never made any comment on the course or its instructors. It was almost as if she would not give the statement unless I promised I would recognize her course. That did not happen. We managed to get a ten-page statement from her, so the day did have a productive ending.

The problem was that this incident, although minor, happened right in front of my client. It was a very big deal to me. My client, although not annoyed, just smirked at the whole situation. No damage was done. This incident, however, stuck with me like glue. I don't know why. Maybe I was being unfair about what I said about the competition factor and these courses.

Six months passed, and then while driving through Oakville to my office in the morning, I saw almost twenty people with picket signs out in front of the Oakville PI school.

The picketers, students from the school, were slowing traffic and trying to bring attention to their cause. They were picketing because they had spent thousands of dollars on a course and could not find a job in the industry. They felt betrayed, ashamed, and ripped off. I felt sorry for them in my own way and wished there was something I could do.

I heard later that they tried to get the press (the Oakville Beaver) involved to write a story on the strike, but the paper declined.

It was obvious to me why the paper declined. From a civil standpoint this school has done nothing wrong. They taught an interesting course and they gave you a certificate at the end. Probably not one of these students made a single call to any established investigation agency before spending the money on this course. They jumped into it cold without any industry research.

My Slap Didn't Hurt That Much!

I obviously could not wait to tell my client about this strike as a means to replenish any credibility points I may have lost that day.

I have written this to help those individuals trying to get in the door of this business. I have written exhaustively about the courses you should be taking (on the previous page) if you don't have the experience.

The Act and Regulations that govern Private Investigation Agencies do not yet enforce any formal training. This means that every agency will differ in what they are seeking when they hire a new investigator. But I think that you will see consistent patterns, if you call around to reputable investigative agencies--agencies used by law firms, insurance companies and major corporations.

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