I am scheduled for two full days of Security Interview sessions next week at an agency northeast of DC with a notorious reputation. Immediately afterward I’ll do the poly and psych on the following day.
The CJO followed the successful foreign-language test and HireVue self-recorded professional interview. The BI is now complete after the investigator phoned me for an hour in September and then interviewed all the relevant peeps. No one has fingerprinted me or medically examined me for anything yet.
Does anyone have experience with such extensive Security Interview sessions (2-day duration on-site)? What do they entail?
Two days of these security interviews and THEN the poly/psych?
Do you have extensive foreign travel or foreign contacts? If so they may want to ask some specific questions related to that. Of course it could be something else entirely, but since you mentioned the foreign language test thought maybe this could apply.
Yes, extensive foreign contacts and travel to various locations, plus an immigrant background. But it still doesn’t explain the 2-day duration. Nothing should be that extensive, when we can cover everything in detail with just several hours, at the most.
So what did it end up being? A one-hour interview the first day and a second interview the next day with someone else? With a lot of sitting around doing nothing in between?
First day: 5-hour interview with a DCSA officer in a horrid little room straight out of Kafka. Near BWI. Gentlemanly, but terribly exhaustive, down to the minutest detail of my foreign background in Europe and Asia, foreign travels and contacts.
Second day: 5.5-hour probing of the same kind, going over every SF-86 detail, and then some. Very polite and amiable, but comprehensive in all the prying.
Third day: was polygraphed for 2.5 hours by a young, aggressive and assertive buck with a somewhat patronizing attitude towards this immigrant. Told me I failed the serious crimes question after all the disciplinarian grilling, but then told me to notify the agency if any new foreign travel or contacts occur while I was still in processing. Routine psychology exam that afternoon, without anything special to report.
Fourth day: 3-hour grilling session with another young polygrapher where I was told I failed both the serious crimes and clandestine foreign contacts questions. At the end, he got increasingly rough and warned me that I wasn’t “making it any easier” on myself. I didn’t wish to inflict all that interrogation on myself anymore and told him to terminate the process immediately, as we’d been going around in circles. He said he needed to call in his manager to do that, surprised as he was by my categorical discontinuation. A woman came in and I had her end my application for employment at my wish, whereby she said she’d notify HR to end processing, but kept insisting that I notify the agency if I was planning any foreign travel while I was still being processed. I didn’t know what she meant because I was withdrawing my application for employment; what more processing could there be after a withdrawal?
He escorted me out; the women at the reception desk downstairs asked me if I wanted a third polygraph, at which I emphatically said, “No!” and walked out to their bewilderment.
Two days later the recruiter emailed me to confirm everything, stated there’d be the need for a third polygraph, which I totally refused after the nasty experience, and he said he’d terminate my processing.