This is an embarrassing one for me.

I don’t even know why I’m going to share this with you except I want you to avoid the mistake I made!

What is an expert private investigator?

There’s a couple of different definitions of what an expert is.

One definition is someone who has spent 10,000 hours doing something.

If you’ve spent 10,000 doing it, that makes you an expert according to one definition and there’s a lot to be said for that. That may not be the best definition, but it’s an interesting little thumbnail way to look at it. Just a straight up, massive amount of experience doing something.

Another definition of an expert is someone who’s made all the mistakes there are to make in a very narrow field of study. That’s an interesting definition as well.

Whichever you choose, I qualify for both of them.

I have well over 10,000 hours in this industry and I feel like I’ve made every mistake possible. Please learn from my mistakes. This is one of them…

My first job in the private security field was as a security officer doing at what is called the K-9 Patrol (which was a lot of fun). I loved that.

But, after while I wanted to do something else, something not in a uniform. Something “undercover” or in plain clothes. I wanted to get out of wearing a uniform and driving around in a marked car and do something a little more covert. Although I didn’t know it at the time, but that thought would eventually lead me to become a private investigator.

Here’s the BIG MISTAKE: As I went around looking for a job where I wouldn’t be wearing a uniform, I kept applying for jobs and submitting cover letters and a resumés. And on the cover letter I kept applying for plain clothes security. That was the term I used, “plain clothes security”!

I sent out quite a few resumés to big companies, places that I wanted to work, looking for this “plain clothes” work. I even remember contacting a mall and asking, “Do you have security guys that wear plain clothes around the mall?” Of course, they said, “No.”

I had no idea the name of the job I was looking for! No idea what the job title was!

What I was looking for and didn’t know was a “loss prevention” position or “asset protection.” In the old days you might call them store detectives. That’s the most common kind of security person who’s wearing plain clothes, just dressed like everybody else, undercover if you will.

I had a pretty good resume even at that time, but I had the wrong terminology. I didn’t know the phrase to use and it gave me away as an outsider!

I wasn’t getting contacted by anybody for a job because the first thing they’d say is, “I don’t know who this guy is, but he is an outsider. He doesn’t know what he’s talking about. He doesn’t even the job title that he is applying for.”

I was wasting my resumes. I might as well have been throwing them in the rash rather than sending them out!

The lesson for you here… I want you to avoid that mistake!

By watching these videos you are miles ahead of where I was. You’re learning the industry. You’re learning the terminology.

You’re learning little things like the phrase “skip tracer” means. That is someone who tracks down or looks for people who skipped down an obligation. A lot of times you can refer to a missing persons case as skip tracing, even when the subject of your investigator hasn’t truly “skipped out”.

A lot of people don’t know what “skip trace” means or what a skip tracer is. Just learning these terms puts you more “on the inside” of this industry. It puts you in a better position to get the job you want.

When you go in to interview for any job in private investigations, process serving, security work, loss prevention, and all you know is what you’ve seen on TV or what you’ve seen online, well, quite frankly, you may seem like an outsider!

If you’re serious about working in this field as a private investigator of process server, please consider getting a little real training and be sure to check out the training I offer over at http://www.ShadowAnyone.com

But, here’s my key for you. Learn the terminology. Learn the industry as best as you can so that when you do apply for jobs that are available (even a private investigator internship, if you can find a legitimate one), that you appear like a reasonable, educated, knowledgeable person.

Committed to your success,
Larry Kaye, P.I.

P.S. – Of course if you’d like to become a private investigator, Don’t miss my special report titled… If You Want To Be a Private Investigator Give Up… Unless You Do These Three Things. You can get it on the home page of my blog.