I am in the same boat as you, I got into the DCSA industry as my first job out of college; I now have the clearance but think it would make sense to move towards more of IT-related. What courses/certs do you recommend and did you have any prior education in these?
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I think a lot of former/current FIs forget that not everyone wants to go into IT nor has the skills to. When you live outside of a major metro area where there are a lot of contractor/government jobs, FI pay is almost double what local jobs pay. It’s also more flexible and has better benefits. It’s not as easy for most of us to just jump ship.
Many who post on here chose to work OT - whether on or off the clock. Yes, sometimes OT is mandatory, but some of you sound like you put more stress on yourselves to meet metrics. When OT is recommended, you don’t to do it. You do not have to work weekends or until 9 p.m, unless you want to. As Duetoversight stated, those of you who work the non-required OT and work off the clock contribute to the problem not to violations of company policies. Stop doing it and companies will stop expecting more.
It’s not hard to meet metrics if you are organized and have efficient time management. I exceed my metrics in a 40 hr work week and I have never worked off the clock. If after 1-2 years, you can not meet your metrics, then this is not the right field for you. Yes, the job is stressful. Yes, the contractors make the job more stressful with their inefficient management. Yes, review makes the job ridiculously stressful with their over working requests - but guess what, that is what rebuttals are for.
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Asking for a level down is always an option. I wish people would do that instead of working off the clock overtime which is a pervasive problem that never seems to go away. No one has to accept a level up promotion with more source unit expectations.
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a few months ago, many of you were complaining about not having work and going on LWOP…now there is too much work and don’t want to work OT??? well, there is always gonna be something to complain about. I feel like these forums are not informational anymore, but just a cry wall for many. I wish everyone resolves their issues and hopeful another career path comes along… just like @FIzen said, this job isnt for everyone.
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There’s quite a bit of difference between being asked to work voluntary OT hours and being forced to work OT hours without OT pay.
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YEAH! There shouldnt be any middle ground at all! Come on, it aint hard to be a lil empathetic. We can still have a good amount of work without being pushed into mandatory OT.
People are upset at leadership for their decisions that put us in bad positions. True, back then there was not enough work which was a problem. The issue currently is that there is more work than investigators. They set unrealistic expectations and work us like robots. Everyone has different experiences working with CACI and some folk like being used and abused. I think you might not fully understand the problem…or you are just excusing it.
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I agree KennyD. While I’m a big fan of 10X and insane levels of work I’m also not cool with the unethical and exploitative practices of BI contractors.
Also, the title of the thread should’ve been a tip off regarding the discussion and general tenor he/she was going to read.
And I disagree with glorifed_note_taker (what a handle name 
) that this thread isn’t informative.
If someone really does takes the security clearance background investigations process seriously, and believes it impacts national security, than he or she should be concerned with the stories on this thread.
There are federal laws/regulations/restrictions in most safety-sensitive job sectors. This is done for the safety of the public. Physical and mental work causes fatigue after 8-12 hours and most dangerous errors and accidents occur around this time. Workers in these safety-sensitive jobs are limited in the length of their shifts and required to be off for at least 10 hours between shifts.
Are reviewers expected to be the QC/Safety when they only read what is reported? Much is discussed which is not noted and much is noted which is not reported. The BI is the sine qua non of security clearance investigations and it is vitally important that they are restricted in their work hours and allowed to get adequate sleep and exercise and downtime. Or, the security clearance investigations process is mere theater.
If security clearance investigations are really about national security than why, pray tell, do we not see a similar oversight of the work force and even federal law and regulation??
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@backgdinvestigator, are you with the feds?
@PseudoFed, what did you leave the industry to go and do now?
I am currently with the feds, former contractor.
When I was hired, they did the same thing to me with the SCA pay. I was brought over from Perspecta and told my total pay was $4+ more than I was making at Perspecta. When I called HR out on it, they gave me a vague answer and told me I must have “misunderstood”. Nope, I didn’t, but at that point it was too late. Unionizing would be fantastic. Job market is changing and we deserve better.
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I’ve only ever lived in extremely high COL areas on the outskirts of major metro areas so I admit that I cannot relate to people in your position. I have a 5 figure property tax bill and I live in a pretty normal house, for example.
Even pay as a Section Lead is far, FAR below market rate in my area for comparable positions with comparable levels of responsibility, so for people in my position, this industry simply isn’t competitive from a compensation perspective and so it made zero sense for me to stay any longer than I did.
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Question for you all:
So to get everyone up to speed, CACI is now making it mandatory for investigators to work at least 16 hours of overtime (OT) a month. Now in the last few months there have been a few federal holidays (Christmas, New Years, and MLK Day). I have been told by my manager that for those weeks where there is a holiday, anything over 32 hours for the week is considered to be “over time” but it only counts towards your mandatory OT hours for the week. Anything between 32-40 hours of work that week will count towards your mandatory OT hours but you will not be paid that OT pay. But if you work more than 40 hours than of course you will get your OT pay.
Is this okay? Are we good with this?
Two weeks ago, the mandatory OT was revealed by my supervisor…and then 2 days later, it was made “optional but encouraged”. All sorts of silly rules about the holiday on 1-17 were put out initially…and then crickets. I ain’t doing it. Seems like you are getting “old” news about the mandatory edict, but that is par for the course.
When I started this job I worked D.C., so I understand that the pay for large metro areas doesn’t keep up with the SOL, especially if you want to purchase a home. (But don’t let me digress on a much large social issue on inflation and ridiculous home prices and COL across this country.) Even in smaller metro areas across the country (outside of D.C., L.A., Chicago, NYC), this job still pays better than most jobs outside of health & IT industries. My point in my first post, was that a lot of people think it’s just as easy as finding another job, without thinking about where people live or what their background is. I get that some people don’t want to stay in this job, they have their personal reasons for leaving just like those of us that stay have our reasons for staying.
It’s always been like that at CACI on holiday weeks. Any hours worked between 32-40 are your base pay, then once you actually work over 40, then you get OT. Why would working 34 hrs in a holiday week be considered OT when a F/T FI is required to work 40 hours? Federal law says OT is based on 40 hr work week, so why expect OT on holiday weeks when you don’t actually work OT. (There might be some different laws in some states, CA for example has their own labor laws.)
It’s all subjective, I agree. For many it makes sense to stay in this industry. For many others, it does not, and frankly areas like mine are the ones that have the hardest time retaining talent because they can make more doing lower stress jobs that don’t require a clearance pretty easily.
Again, the BI job is (or was) for people with a pension and another six-figure household income. The job is way too onerous and soul-sucking to be such a low-paying gig. I feel horrible for people who have to work it to make a living.
The job used to attract former LEOs and S/As who worked it as a real investigation. Soon the obscene profit motive combined with the inane bureaucratization of the process turned it into a first job for 20-something wage slaves with college debt. Sad.
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Yeah in my cost of living area, I completely agree. This field was useful for me as a recent grad with no clearance or relevant work history to get a few years of experience and a clearance. But as soon as I got the experience, I jumped ship and have never looked back and you could not pay me to go back to working in the BI world.
Again, for me in my situation in my area, this is what made sense, but I understand that not everyone is in that same boat (although as I stated I personally cannot relate to it).
Caci is paying fis 40 an hour which is exactly what other programs did that failed