I’m passing along what I was told by a few of today’s interviewees. There are 100+ candidates in the queue at our facility with most of them being in the investigative phase for the past 10 to 14 months. These were all subject interviews and many of them are T3 S clearance candidates. The OPM contractor stated that she’ll be out next week for complete the remaining interviews. Unfortunately, I’m not on her list so I can only pass along what my colleagues are telling me. I know we have numerous contracts that can’t be staffed and are seriously behind schedule because of the clearance delays. My guess is someone high up shook a tree to get investigations completed so these programs can be staffed. None of the affected contracts allow interim clearance work. All program staff must be fully cleared at the S or TS levels. S clearances at our facility have been running about 1 year with TS taking around 12-16 months. The contracts opened over the past 12 months have little to no staff with no end in sight until this week’s interviews started.
The subject interviews averaged 30-45 minutes because our facility has “boring” candidates as she humorously put it. I guess we’re all pretty clean and by “all” I apparently mean everyone but me. Assuming I ever get an interview, I’m sure I’ll be one of those 5-hour jobs so maybe they’re reserving an entire day for me
@acox20 You’re doing better than me - by far! I submitted my last e-Quip the first week of June 2016 so my total elapsed time is now 9-1/2 months with the past 7 months in the investigation phase. I have no credit pull to date and my status remains at “T3 investigation”. At this point, I have only 9 months remaining on my 2nd year’s contract and the way things are progressing, it’s looking doubtful that I’ll have a clearance before my 2nd contract expires in early January 2018.
In the meantime, I’ve found another contracting job not requiring a clearance which I’ll be starting in a couple of weeks while simultaneously completing my current contract. This has been my back-up plan for the past 6 months and it’s now in effect. The clearance process is out of control and I’m tired of being a pawn in their system. If they can’t get their act together in 2 years, I’ll quit the clearance job, continue on with the non-clearance contract and leave this craziness behind.
Perhaps only my fellow FI’s as well as others with hands on experience with these new cases will understand what I’m trying to point out here (again, OPSEC–maybe debatable)… just doesn’t sound quite right.
I have a somewhat vague idea regarding your point. What I’m witnessing at work seems to be deviating from the rigidly scripted FI interview process. I’ll know more after next week’s interviews but I was just informed that a colleague of mine who carries dual-citizenship has not been denied a clearance and will in fact be undergoing an interview early next week. It remains to be seen whether he’ll be required to give up citizenship in his home country as has been widely reported by others here. We have a small bet going at work regarding the outcome of his interview
We have a number of people who have been in the pipeline for 12-14 months who are finally getting interviews. Not all of us though, roughly half of us with the remainder (including me) unsure if or when we’ll ever get an interview. If you’re a recent grad, I would definitely NOT recommend sitting around waiting for a clearance. Get out there and find another full-time position as I don’t believe you’ll see a clearance in less than a year at best.
Alright, another update from my one a few days ago about a credit pull. I am now hearing that my friends are getting scantrons to fill out about me from OPM. Asking to verify what I have put on the application. My question is now that I am at this step; about how long till I can get my interim? I know it is all rough, I am just wondering how long other people have waited from this step?
Hello all,
Thought I would be part of a group in a similar situation. I have read these for a few months but haven’t exactly found an answer to one of my newer questions, but regardless, thanks for your advice and contributions to this topic.
Background on me: Recent grad, and jumbling part-time jobs. (Come June I will be looking for a full-time job)
First of all, my timeline (as is seems to be the thing to do here lol);
This is for a TS (I think t5 investigation) clearance for civilian side position in Dept of Army.
SF86 Submitted Oct 16 2016
Case opened by OPM Nov 11 2016
And nothing since…
To add to frustration, my FSO is now ignoring me. I guess an email every month is too much for some people. So my question, What should I do to get reliable information about my status? I have called the telephone number but they can only tell me if it is open or closed. The lady who I talked to (from the help line) advised me to contact my other FSO (I have 3). Again he ignored me even though it was primarily an introduction email.
Not to seem like a smart-&%@ but you might consider buying one of those magic eight balls. That’s as good as anything else at this point. You’re just not going to get timely and informative status updates. It sucks.
If it is any help your timeline is by no means unusual.
Hey, welcome to the wait. My HR has ignored me about 5 months in and my to be manager has ignored my introductory email. Good thing my FSO still tolerates my emails once a month. I submitted my Tier 3 Secret last May and I am still waiting. Should just find a new job… I should have started looking months ago.
I’m a recent grad as well. I was waiting for my interim for about 4 months and my interim got denied. I’m looking for another job now. My advised would be start looking for another job before it’s too late. I’m already having trouble finding a job.
Yeah this is crazy. I will start looking again for full time work from June on. I’m lucky because my student loans aren’t terrible but still, I can’t put career and retirement plans on hold. The only tricky thing is that every private sector job wants a clearance, too! Any other ideas for a cyber security person like me? (Trying to use my Degree lol)
Is there anybody else out there experiencing incredibly long wait times for a single track investigation for SCI? I originally underwent a dual-track investigation, but for some reason the SCI part of the clearance investigation didn’t complete, but I did receive the TS in 2013. In 2014 my current job put me in for a single-track clearance investigation to get me the SCI component. I had the poly for that in April 2015, and it has been a waiting game ever since. For a long time, getting status updates I was told I was “Pending eval 1”, and in the past 6 months or so that changed to me being “Pending subject interview”. So now I am waiting to hear from an investigator?
Anyone else with similar wait times? From what I have been told there are no timelines the investigators are held to for single-track investigations so that is can take more time.
Not saying I am an expert but if your timeline follows what I have seen on this site and a few others you are looking at 1 year 3 months from submission…(Jan 2018)…If thats the case you have quite a wait. I am no expert just someone who has lurked on this site and few others for awhile. And what everyone else said…
There are a lot of commercial companies starting to worry about this as well. All kinds of companies have vulnerability to cyber attacks. I don’t think any of these firms would require a clearance unless they have a foot in both worlds (for example, I think Raytheon, a major defense contractor, bought a cybersecurity company and they could be supporting both commercial and government work.
Thanks for the insight. I’ll be sure to look around for private sector companies out of the DoD world. My home area,The DMV, is filled with all the clearance positions so that’s probably why my monster/glassdoor searches yield results that have fine prints such as must be able to get a TS/S clearance.
My experience in obtaining an MRPT for DoD contractor was initial interview in early June 2014, getting the job, then investigations began. It took from early July 2014 until Thanksgiving 2014 for approval. Position started Dec 1, 2014. I kept my original job during this time and just gave 2 weeks notice when I found out positive approval status. Prospective employer did give insight on how long the process could possibly take, which was nice. Since processes have changed in the past few years, I’m sure it’s a longer wait now.
My question is this: I no longer work for this contractor and just got hired at a different DoD contractor through a temp agency. Security clearance was not mentioned for this position, but since I already had the MRPT prior, is it still active/transferable?
