7 attributes of a Private Investigator
If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
if you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too:
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:
Rudyard Kipling
And so the poem continues… “Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it, and which is more – you’ll be a Man, my son!“
Or a woman, in my case. This I will forgive the writer for he wrote it in 1910, and it really wasn’t the done thing to promote women to thinking such thoughts at the time.
The poem, painted on a wall to give sage advice to up and coming police officers, is etched on my mind. I took it with me into battle on many occasions as a police officer and now I have been a private investigator for nearly 20 years, the words resonate for that profession too.
What are the attributes of a great Private Investigator?
1.Strength of character
As an investigator you often stand alone, charged with calling out bad behaviour. On the flip side, your work may find no fault, or fault on behalf of your client. The independent investigator must stand firm in their findings and not waver under pressure. In my mind this is what it means to be ‘independent’.
2. Self-confidence
To gain the confidence of others, you must have confidence in yourself. Know your powers, your obligations, advise your client when they are uncertain. Reassure your witnesses of the outcomes from your investigation. When you make a determination, be confident that you have done enough, and your decision is sound.
3. Flexibility
Things or rarely as they seem (see point about suspect everyone). Plans do not always go as expected. A great investigator is able to quickly adapt to the circumstances and make effective decisions to obtain or secure relevant evidence or manage the impact of the investigation on witnesses.
4. Integrity
“…the quality of being honest and having strong moral principles” (Cambridge Dictionary online 2019) For without it, as a profession, we are lost.
5.Self-motivation and drive
Investigators are some of the most naturally nosy people I know, and for good reason. An eternal curiosity (see point 7) about stuff, drives people to search for more. But as a Private Investigator, working for yourself, you must have the internal motivation to get up, get out there and look for needles in haystacks. And when you have gone through the haystack, and found nothing, be satisfied that you have done a good job!
6. Eye for detail
We all know the saying, “The devil’s in the detail”. Investigators are required to examine and collect evidence. Sometimes that evidence can seem only vaguely connected. The best investigators find the detail and work out the connections
7.An inquisitive mind
Our job is to question, to seek out the answers to the unknown, sometimes the unknowable. It is the work of an historian an archaeologist or a researcher testing hypothesis. But without an inquisitive mind to drive the questions, there is little hope that a suitable conclusion or answer will be found.