Police Detective Overview

There are certain skills that many police detectives have in order to accomplish their responsibilities. By taking a look through resumes, we were able to narrow down the most common skills for a person in this position. We discovered that a lot of resumes listed empathy, physical stamina and good judgment.

When it comes to the most important skills required to be a police detective, we found that a lot of resumes listed 11.1% of police detectives included criminal activity, while 10.8% of resumes included crime prevention, and 7.8% of resumes included search warrants. Hard skills like these are helpful to have when it comes to performing essential job responsibilities.

If you're interested in becoming a police detective, one of the first things to consider is how much education you need. We've determined that 43.9% of police detectives have a bachelor's degree. In terms of higher education levels, we found that 11.2% of police detectives have master's degrees. Even though most police detectives have a college degree, it's possible to become one with only a high school degree or GED.

Choosing the right major is always an important step when researching how to become a police detective. When we researched the most common majors for a police detective, we found that they most commonly earn bachelor's degree degrees or associate degree degrees. Other degrees that we often see on police detective resumes include master's degree degrees or high school diploma degrees.

You may find that experience in other jobs will help you become a police detective. In fact, many police detective jobs require experience in a role such as police officer. Meanwhile, many police detectives also have previous career experience in roles such as patrol officer or detective.