I am glad you got out after 7 months. You would be singing a different tune after 3 years. The job itself is important and what the BI actually does is meaningful. It’s the companies policies and sucking the life right out of you is the problem. After all the abuse from the contracting companies, we should need to remember WHY we did the job! That is what was important.
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This.
IT in general is a high demand field with a massive shortage of qualified workers. I’m going to my local community college to get an associate’s in Cybersecurity but even that isn’t necessary to get into IT.
If anyone is floundering and unsure about where to go next I’d suggest picking up an A+, Net+, or Sec+ book and study the material. If it seems interesting and something you can make a living doing then great! Take the certification exam and get to work in a growing field. If not, then you’re out less than $50 and can maybe even turn around and sell or gift the book to someone else and continue searching for your next move.
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Buddha, I agree 100%. IT is the way to go. With the agency going to “Continued Monitoring”, we will all be out of a job soon.
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No need to buy a book, check with your local library. 
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Great advice! I know my local library at least has the new A+ exam books.
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I’m studying for A+ myself. Good luck to every one out there!
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I have to disagree with your assessment of this job has many skills others don’t and is attractive to other fields.
Everything you described above is something any decent Senior NCO in the military does, with the exception of knocking on doors. They just have to brief Generals with little to no notification at times.
They write reports and operating procedures with much greater detail, cross referencing local, higher headquarter guidance that at times conflicts with each other. They have to get details out of subordinates as to why they are late, got a DUI, lost an ID card, lied to the commander.
No one honestly cares that an investigator drove to a bad neighborhood or interviewed an attorney. Try being deployed and briefing a 4 star general about a mission that could get really messy, with the make or break decision riding on what you tell them.
The skills the background investigator has is nothing special, which is why it is hard to write a resume with it.
Saltiness aside, you’re unwittingly proving my point. The skills you list that are possessed by “any decent senior NCO” are not everyday skills. The skills you list are rare and special, skills that - marketed correctly - should be very attractive to an employer. Just like the skills that come with being a background investigator.
If you are convinced that your skills as a background investigator are “nothing special” then you’re probably conveying that belief about yourself to potential employers.
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What does that mean?
My background time is only one line on my resume. The rest is my military background. The job I got post background investigator was based on my military time: managing people, budgets, prioritizing spending, cutting programs to focus on important tasks, reorganizing mission priorities to meet customer demands just to name a few.
And I have a right to my opinion.
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You of course have the right to your opinion, but high turnover has always been an aspect of this industry.
Other threads on here about “investigator churn and burn,” reviews all over Glassdoor for the major contracting companies, and just anecdotal evidence that everyone who’s been involved in this industry can provide all attest to that.
So if it’s so hard to translate these skills into other jobs…where are all of the departing investigators going?
It’s not that it’s hard to translate the skills into another job, it’s just hard to translate the skills into a job in a different field, that’s not an administrative type position or personnel security position, which is “drone work” according to another user
They’re going onto unemployment…
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They are getting certificates or going back to school, per the threads you referenced.
These types of jobs are what awaits someone who only has a BI skillset, exceptions are always there.
I was making decent money, around $5K a month as a contractor, but that was working 12 hour days, sometimes 6 days a week. No holidays, no vacation, unless I didn’t want to not be paid. Did my year and left.
Now I make $30 an hour, working 8 hours a day, with holiday pay, paid time off and vacation days. My Military time is what got me my job. I was blessed, even if I didn’t have the background job or my current job, I make over $80K a year from military retirement and VA pay alone.
All I am saying, it will be extremely difficult to find a well paying job without expanding your skillset, beyond the BI skills.
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Fair. I personally think that the skills provided by being a BI are a good baseline, but yeah, they really need to be rounded out with supplemental training.
Though personally I don’t think that’s necessarily a major obstacle. High performing individuals will always be seeking to learn and to better themselves so I’d expect them to be doing certifications or something similar.
For the ones who don’t, well, that’s a problem they’ll need to work through.
One major caveat is that the pay for entry level BIs is unlivable, so I think that the BIs who barely last a year in this field don’t necessarily have the same salary requirements as someone with many years of experience. Which means, they may be happy to take 45k a year to reinvent themselves in a totally new industry.
Also, 60k a year for 12 hour days? Yikes. Hope you’re not in a high cost of living area.
I am not. Very reasonable.
Its a process… I would research jobs in your area and then go get a cert. Do you have a degree now?
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I’m in the same position so I feel exactly as you do backlog gone so is the day to day work. Thank God for retirement and VA. For those who aren’t that fortunate you all need to think outside the box of just DoD I’ve seen jobs for District Attorney Investigators…Bank Examiners…Fraud Investogations …Workers Comp investigators just to name a few. Dont let the BI hat shade your potential theres plenty to fall into you just have to network and search for it. I myself found a different lane to fall into where I still control my schedule because as a retiree I dont want another cubical city job working 9-5. But doing what I do now when I want the hours they are there.
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Amen, man! Thank you.
So what did you find Babygirl911 with great flexibility? I couldn’t imagine going back to a 9-5!