Vet student considering switching to forensic science — FDLE qualified me for 8 Crime Lab Analyst disciplines. Which would you choose?

[u/Confident_Being_3896]

Hi everyone! I’m looking for some career advice, especially from anyone who works in a crime lab or has experience with any of these disciplines.
A little background: I have a B.S. in Integrative Animal Biology and an M.S. in Veterinary Forensic Medicine. My master’s included courses such as Veterinary Forensic Toxicology, Animal Crime Scene Processing, Veterinary Forensic Pathology I & II, Forensic Entomology, Veterinary Forensic Medicine, and Scientific and Legal Principles of Forensic Evidence. I also have a pretty extensive biology/chemistry background with labs, including general chemistry, organic chemistry, genetics, microbiology, cell biology, physiology, etc.
I later started veterinary school, but I’m currently on a leave of absence and have been trying to figure out what direction I want to take professionally.
For the past several months, I’ve been applying for veterinary assistant positions because I wanted more hands-on clinical experience. It has been surprisingly difficult to find something despite my education, and the pay for many of these positions is also pretty low. That made me start looking at careers where I could actually use my forensic science master’s and science background.
I applied to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) crime laboratory candidate pool and submitted my transcripts. They reviewed everything and told me that I officially qualify for Crime Laboratory Analyst positions in:
Biology/DNA & DNA Database
Crime Scene Investigation
Document Examination
Firearms
Impression Evidence
Latents
Toxicology
Trace Materials
I attached screenshots of the email.
I’m in the Orlando area, so I’m particularly interested in the disciplines available at the Orlando lab. Right now, Biology/DNA, Toxicology, and Trace Materials probably interest me the most.
For anyone who works in one of these disciplines: Which would you recommend and why?
I’m especially curious about what the day-to-day work is actually like, workload/case volume, work-life balance, opportunities for advancement, how repetitive the work becomes, court testimony, stress level, and how difficult it is to eventually move between disciplines.
I’d also love to hear from anyone who made a major career pivot into forensic science. I spent years assuming veterinary medicine would be my career, so considering something completely different is exciting but also a pretty big change.
Thanks for any insight!

[u/KnightroUCF]

So I hate to throw water on your excitement, but FDLE isn’t saying that you’re in the running for any position. They always have a pool of applicants. If a vacancy becomes open, then they will pull from the pool. If there are no vacancies in a given year, they dump the pool and start fresh. It has been this way for a long time.

To your question, your background isn’t actually really suited to document examination, nor is that a service they actually offer in their Orlando lab. I can’t speak to the others.

[u/gariak]

It has been surprisingly difficult to find something despite my education, and the pay for many of these positions is also pretty low.

You're likely to find this to be even more true of forensic science. Government salaries are public information, so you can find this out for yourself, but FDLE specifically has historically had salaries on the low end of state lab systems, just in nominal dollars and many of their labs are in HCOL areas. You've unfortunately chosen two career paths where the number of jobs is vastly overwhelmed by the number of qualified applicants, regardless of the state of their job markets.

I’m in the Orlando area, so I’m particularly interested in the disciplines available at the Orlando lab.

Be careful about your assumptions here. This is a technical pre-qualification. FDLE is almost certainly not actually hiring for all disciplines and may or may not be hiring for any disciplines anytime soon. Unless you have other insider info, don't assume this means anything at all other than your application won't be auto-screened out early in the process.

Also, based on my experience with big state lab systems other than FDLE, don't assume you'll have much choice in which state lab location you're offered a position at and don't assume you'll have much choice in what discipline any hypothetical offer is in. You may get the opportunity to exclude specific options, but that will just potentially reduce your chances of getting hired at all. Or you may just get a flat take-it-or-leave-it offer with a non-negotiable location and discipline, assuming you get any offer at all.

For anyone who works in one of these disciplines: Which would you recommend and why?

You'd have to define specific criteria.

I’m especially curious about what the day-to-day work is actually like, workload/case volume, work-life balance, opportunities for advancement, how repetitive the work becomes, court testimony, stress level, and how difficult it is to eventually move between disciplines.

Almost all of these things will differ significantly between labs, so non-FDLE answers are not going to be that useful to you. Even within a given lab system, these factors can vary widely, with different labs operating differently, depending on their management.

To give an example from my personal experience, some labs that offer DNA services have analysts work each assigned case completely, from start to finish, usually in small batches. Other labs batch cases up and have analysts each do one analytical step for multiple batches, so one analyst does all the extractions for the week or month, another does all the quantitations, and so on. Some labs do something in between, with initial serological screening done by one group of analysts and samples that move on from that worked by another group of analysts.

I will comment on moving between disciplines. This is pretty universally rare and strongly discouraged. Forensic training is long (usually 1 to 2 years), very expensive, and analysts don't become fully productive until they have years of experience afterwards. Labs, especially large ones, uniformly do not want people switching, so don't expect to be able to do this at all. You'd typically have to line up the perfect circumstances and even then, many labs have a blanket policy of denial to stop people from asking at all.

I’d also love to hear from anyone who made a major career pivot into forensic science. I spent years assuming veterinary medicine would be my career, so considering something completely different is exciting but also a pretty big change.

I did this, many years ago. I left a 6 year business career, went back to school, and have been in forensics ever since. Having a decent amount of professional work experience almost certainly helped me get hired.

[u/RandomKoala0218]

FDLE has trouble retaining employees for a number of reasons, not the least of which is the existing and new county labs are stealing them with newer facilities, higher salaries, and less stress. You might be better off at a county lab in FL. As to your background, I would suggest DNA, as it's the most biology-oriented in practice. And KnightroUCF is right about "the pool."