Job searching strategies?

Drakeon

Hey, was wondering if anyone had any tips of searching for jobs for a criminal justice graduate. I graduated last year and have a BS in Criminal Justice and have yet to be able to put my degree to use. I imagine some of the reason is because I live in California, but the past month or two I've really been looking outside the state and was wondering if there was a better way then just searching indeed.com for investigator jobs in virginia or checking each individual states websites for law enforcement type jobs. I've also looked at usajobs a lot and haven't had a lot of luck there either.

So, I guess, in short, what I'm asking is, is there an easy way to look outside your own state for jobs in your preferred field? Because I've kinda given up on finding anything in California and now just want a job that will pay me a salary that'll let me move out of my parents house.

Drakeon

Anyone? I'm pretty desperate here for some new way to look for jobs, because it is depressing as hell just refreshing the same old sites and not seeing anything

Sentry

I mean... the thing is a CJ degree doesn't really enable you to do much of anything in the criminal justice field. If you want to be a cop then you would need to go to police academy and go through whatever departments process you were trying to apply for. Otherwise, your CJ degree really just enables you to work anywhere where the only barrier to entry is a degree. In that case you just cast a wide net, Monster.com, your college's career center, etc. etc.

Exactly what kind of job are you looking for? I saw investigator up there, but really that is a pretty specialized job, probably not one available to someone with just a CJ degree.

Just so you know, I have a degree in Criminal Justice too. It's not the most useful thing you can graduate with, I will tell you that.

LearnedHand

Yeah, it's a useless degree. I have a similar pointless degree. Ten years after graduating, I've never had a job that required a degree. And likely never will.

It's not necessarily a bad thing, though. I mean, going to university was a huge waste of time for me (as it is for many people including, hate to say it, probably you) but most jobs don't require a degree.

Indeed, how many jobs require a bachelor's degree anyway? I mean just a bachelor's degree. I can think of teacher...umm...well, there's teacher.

So you have to think of what you want to do. The difficulty here is finding out what sorts of jobs even exist. Police officer is an obvious one but there's loads of related jobs. For police-related crap there's: dispatcher, 911 operator, probably administrative stuff I would think. Then you can look for jobs at law firms...man, I don't know...there's administrative crap, certainly. Paralegal is maybe an option but probably not right out of university. Get some related work experience first. Courts: bailiff, security, administrative stuff, probably other shit. There's work in jails...guards, obviously but again there's always administrative shit as well.

And there's loads of ancillary places. Bails bondsmen, private investigators, forensic stuff...and again, I'm not suggesting that you be a bail bondsman but there's always administrative shit at these places. And this can lead to more interesting jobs down the line. And plenty of other shit.

So I don't know. Do the research into what jobs are out there and what you'd be interested in.

MichaelLC

- Find companies that are in your area, and search for branches in other states.
- Look up trade/industry information for industries you'd like to get into, and see what companies are mentioned.
- Do an SEC (something else now, I think) search at your library for industries and companies.
- Find out where some of your classmates went.

So, no, , not really other options than lots of 'net time. Trade magazines (like ASTD or T+D) can be good.

Karrmer

If you're trying to get into law enforcement... just apply and take the test. Most departments are still hiring in California, at least the larger ones (generally Sheriff departments or very large cities, LAPD is almost constantly struggling to get enough recruits and offers some crazy incentives to join them)

Drakeon

Sentry wrote: »

I mean... the thing is a CJ degree doesn't really enable you to do much of anything in the criminal justice field. If you want to be a cop then you would need to go to police academy and go through whatever departments process you were trying to apply for. Otherwise, your CJ degree really just enables you to work anywhere where the only barrier to entry is a degree. In that case you just cast a wide net, Monster.com, your college's career center, etc. etc.

Exactly what kind of job are you looking for? I saw investigator up there, but really that is a pretty specialized job, probably not one available to someone with just a CJ degree.

Just so you know, I have a degree in Criminal Justice too. It's not the most useful thing you can graduate with, I will tell you that.

I know, i figure its marginally more useful than a poli-sci degree, which was my next choice. I liked both fields, and both fields degrees were pretty useless.

Yea, your right, investigator jobs mostly require experience and sometimes a degree as well. But most, if not all, require experience, which is the thing that handicaps me.

I've found a few jobs to apply to, I've just felt kind've hopeless when I keep looking and not being able to do much about my situation, but I suppose it's not that different from a lot of other peoples situations. Also never get called to do an interview, which grates on me after a while, feels like what I'm doing is useless.