How to break into crime analysis? (recent grad)
Hello everyone. For context I'm a recent computer science grad with an internship in a fusion center and a few other internships at local law enforcement agencies. I also had a federally funded research project I did a while ago about human trafficking. I unfortunately don't have experience in ArcGIS.
I've been getting ghosted by every crime/intel analyst position since last year and I'm trying to see what else I can do to better my chances for applying. Of the more "entry-level" ones I usually find they require 2 years of experience already which I unfortunately don't qualify for; other positions require an associates in criminal justice at the minimum, but even these ones I don't get responses for. I've also looked into RTCC positions but I find postings for them so infrequently.
I've also applied to private intel analyst jobs, but also no luck there.
I am a student member of IACA, should I bite the bullet and spend the $300 or so for the LEAF Certification, or would I be wasting my time/money for a new grad? Coming from a CS background with a lot of friends that went to private companies, I'm aware of people cold messaging recruiters to kickstart their applications. I'm not as aware on the government side -- would I get the same luck messaging the point of contact for government roles, or is that looked down upon?
Do personal projects also have weight in applications? I've thought about revisiting my human trafficking project and utilize a free ArcGIS alternative since I'm broke lol, but again not sure if it would be worth putting in all this effort for it to not have as much weight as an actually employed position.
The most annoying part is in my previous internships I had exposure on some analyst software, but not actually use it. Given the chance I know I could learn it in 2 days, but you can't put on an application I've seen this software, read some of the SOPs, but didn't actually use it...
Looking for any advice, thank you all!