Hello! Do you have to be a federal employee to receive a Statement of Reasons? My husband was just notified that he did not pass the federal security clearance for a contractor job he’d been offered but we haven’t received a SoR and the contractor said they didn’t know why he didn’t pass (he lost the job). Any ideas on next steps? He’s a computer programmer and a lot of the jobs he’s seeing require clearance-- is there any way to see what happened with the clearance check he didn’t pass?
Just to be sure . . . He filled out an SF-86? There was an investigation? Did he have an interview with a federal investigator?
If yes, then he will receive an SOR within 30 days. This will explain what issues turned up and provide a copy of the Adjudicative Guidelines which explain what each reason means, why it is an issue and what can mitigate it. There will also be an explanation of the appeal process.
You can look up the guidelines now and try to figure out where the problem might be. The most common are financial issues and these can usually be mitigated unless you have actually been ignoring your debts. Other issues can be foreign contacts, criminal/drug activity, mental health and some less common problems.
If he has computer programming experience there are a ton of good jobs in the private sector where you don’t need a clearance. Like Ed said tho, most denied BI are due to financial reasons.
That’s what I wanted to ask, because some contractors actually run their own pre-screen, based on their own questionnaire, before even starting the SF-86. Some places do a very good job and are very professional about it, while some are not quite so reliable… or so I’ve heard.
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Hi All!
Thank you so much for your responses! We looked up the SF-86 form HERE and he said those were the questions he was asked, but the formatting on the screenshots looked different. The link that he was sent was called “IIS Candidate Security Questionnaire,” which makes me think it was their own screening (like @EdFarmerIII and @sbusquirrel were getting at). There wasn’t an interview with an investigator, just the paper work.
Hmm. Sounds like there’s really no recourse for finding out what happened if they were doing their own pre-screen. Would you say that’s accurate?
Thank you again for all your help! The denial was very discouraging and I really appreciate you all helping it make sense!
The SF-86 has gone through several revisions. Some agencies still old versions or their own from what I can tell.
If this was a company pre-screen, then there is really nothing that you can do. As noted though, if was an actual investigation, they will notify you within 30 days.