At BLD, we believe that a brilliant training course cannot be brilliant without a great trainer to deliver it. Especially in the complex area of digital investigation. We’ve all been on those training courses where otherwise great content is delivered by someone who just doesn’t know the subject, and those courses are… okay.

We don’t want to do okay courses; we want to do exceptional ones, and that means having exceptional trainers. Do you have an understanding of digital investigation? Or a background in training delivery? Would you like to spend anything from a few days to a few weeks out of the year supporting our training programme, without having to leave your current role or change careers?

If so, we’d like to hear from you!

1. You’re asked to prepare and deliver a 20-minute talk on your favourite hobby to a friendly audience of 25 people. Do you:
a) Ask if you can have 40 minutes instead, and then start smashing out a slide deck worthy of a TED talk before practicing your delivery enthusiastically in the shower;
b) Shrug and agree, with no worries other than whether your slide clicker needs a new battery;
c) Curl up into a ball and start to twitch at the thought of speaking to strangers.

2. You notice that someone in the office is clicking ‘print’ repeatedly and becoming frustrated with the lack of action from the Epson in the corner. Do you:
a) Explain to them in simple terms how to cancel the 43 queued print jobs that they have sent to the wrong printer, before showing them how to select the proper one as the default;
b) Sigh, fix it for them, and resign yourself to having to do the same thing again next week;
c) Sympathise with them as you continue writing your latest report in a Pukka Pad because you can’t get it to work either.

3. You are asked to oversee an investigation in the workplace into a potential theft by a sacked employee before they left the premises. Do you:
a) Draw on your knowledge of professional investigation to put together a simple plan of action, securing evidence from witnesses and ensuring that things like CCTV and computerised access logs are properly captured;
b) Do what you can to get an accurate story from someone, and advise that perhaps the police need to be involved so that nothing is missed;
c) Wander around with a magnifying glass looking for footprints, reminiscing about your childhood dream of joining Scooby Doo’s team in the Mystery Machine.

4. You are asked to explain to a senior manager exactly how a complicated, technical aspect of your job works. Do you:
a) Come up with a brilliant analogy that nails the whole thing, meaning not only that they understand it but they can now go and explain it to others;
b) Review the technical parts and try to simplify them where possible, and hope they are bright enough to follow your explanation;
c) Speak very slowly and a little louder than usual, while using as many acronyms as possible, to somehow make yourself sound both clever and stupid at the same time.

5. Someone buys you a Raspberry Pi for your birthday, and while you know they’re cool you don’t really know what to do with it. Do you:
a) Dive into the tutorial, teaching yourself some Linux and even a bit of Python in order to create your own custom-built Raspberry Pi homebrew project;
b) Follow some basic guides and learn enough make it play snake;
c) Snort at the idea of learning something new, declaring “New-fangled nonsense, it’ll never catch on!”

Okay. Now, calculate your score:
A = 5 points
B = 3 points
C = 0 points

How did you do?

21-25 points: We need to talk. Get in touch.
12-20 points: Now you can still get into this bracket with one or two (c) answers and so it’s hard to tell if you’ve got the right stuff, but maybe you’re just having an off day. Drop us an email, let’s talk?
0-11 points: Well. We could make a snarky comment about how you’re in luck because one of our competitors is hiring, but it would be totally uncalled for and someone would complain.
————————
Joking aside – we are looking for good people to join our team of associate trainers, and while a sense of humour is a definite plus, there are one or two other essential skills we’re looking for. Our ideal Associate Trainer must have:

– Experience of acquiring and/or interpreting digital evidence (eg. telecommunications data, digital forensic/device data, OSINT, networks) in the context of a criminal investigation
– Experience of delivering practical/theoretical/workplace training

In addition, the following would be desirable:

– Qualification(s) in education & training
– Accredited or vocation-recognised training in digital investigation (any discipline)
– Experience of creating engaging training experiences or CTF-style exercises

Our range of assured and accredited training products continues to expand, and so must our team. We welcome interest from those currently still working in digital investigative roles – this opportunity is to support our training portfolio for anything from several days up to several weeks of the year. Where relevant, we can work with you to seek approval from your current employer to join us on this basis.

If you would like to know more, please contact: mark.laing@bluelightsdigital.com.