What You Should Know About Security Guard Training

The security guard business is one of the booming businesses of late in the US. Many candidates aspire to become professional security guards mainly because the pay is reasonable and also because of the adventurous nature of the job. Cashing in on the popularity of the security guard jobs, a lot of institutions offer security guard training courses to individuals. In a rush to start work as a security guard, these candidates hurry up , pay huge amounts of fee, enroll in these courses and finally when they get the certificates, they realize that their institutions are not recognized by many employers outside. By then, it is too late to go back and correct your mistakes. Hence  the following tips will help you to think reasonably on why exactly you need training, what are the institutions available, what are the specializations they offer, how recognized they are in the market, what is the course fee structure etc. Deep-diving into this subject is necessary before you enroll yourself into one of these courses.

Types of courses

First and foremost it is important to realize that there is no “one course” that teaches one to be a trained security guard. Training requirements are different; nature of the security guard job is different, so naturally there would be different types of courses to suit these different needs. The candidate must first understand what he wants to be – armed or unarmed and then take courses accordingly. There are specific courses for firearms dealing, report writing, responding to emergencies, technical, personal, industrial security etc. There is no use realizing midway into the course that this was not where you wanted to be.  Hence the candidate must do proper research into which category he wants to fall in and then choose his course accordingly.

Criminal record investigation

This is an important training requirement. A candidate might be allowed to enroll into courses of specific institutions only if he passes the criminal record verification process. Here the candidate is required to submit his fingerprints electronically to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The FBI, along with the Department of Justice of that particular locality then sets to work to check if the candidate has a clean record in the past.  Hence it is better that a candidate who has even the slightest criminal record in the past, refrains from applying for the security guard post.

Online courses

Most of the institutions offer online training courses or free security guard training courses to suit the needs of the candidates. These online courses are easy to register and give the much needed flexibility and freedom to the candidate to work on. Hence candidates should choose institutions that offer online support, than the conventional training schools, because the latter takes up a lot of time and effort.

Placements

The candidate should choose training institutions that have a reasonable success rate of placements in the previous years. Institutions that help the candidates with employment opportunities upon successful completion of course should be given top priority by the candidates.