I had contacted FSO and he told me I’ve secret clearance granted on Feb’18. However, no one from the company informed me. Also, I tried to reach out HR they are not answering my email and phone calls either. I’m not sure what I should do? How long this clearance stay active. What is the time period that I should find a job before my clearance go inactive. Any feedback in this regard highly appreciated.
FSO should have briefed you with the answers to a couple of those questions. Once the FSO releases you the clock starts on your 2 year grace period before it lapses.
Keep reaching out to the FSO and the HR dept. These days HR departments are notoriously unresponsive / slow / etc.
My FSO did’t tell anything. How I know whether they release my clearance. I tried to call him, but he is not answering. If I find a job through some other employer do they release my clearance?
Again, thank you for your response.
Now that you have been deemed eligible for a clearance, you have 2 years to find a job in which to use it. Based on your post, that would be February 2020. To be honest, I would look for another job now that you are cleared. If the company won’t even call to let you know that you are cleared, then you aren’t a high priority. They’ve done the hard part in paying for the clearance investigation, now you are free to find work that accepts a SECRET clearance. Nothing says you actually have to stay with the company (unless you signed a contract).
If you find another position, the new employer should be able to grab your record in JPAS. If they don’t know how to do that, or they need help, the JPAS Help Desk can work with them. This happened to me during my clearance investigation. The company that started the investigation lost the contract that I was to work on but the employer who pickup up the contract picked me up to work it.
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In standard practice the FSO would hold the clearance until the HR department informs them that the candidate has withdrawn from consideration or they have terminated the contingent offer. It’s the FSO’s job to ensure HR stays on top of who is and isn’t under consideration because each company only has a certain number of allowed clearance holders as determined by their site security clearance level. (Full disclosure, I am not an FSO, so if any FSO’s can comment here and confirm this that would be helpful). I believe that to be the standard procedure. How your particular FSO is operating may be different.
The fact that the FSO is not responding to you in a somewhat timely manner is bothersome. I would try and reach out to the security office secretary. It could be as simple as the FSO is currently on travel, training etc. Could even be that the FSO you are talking to is part of the guard and is in annual training (typically two weeks). Try and reach out to other contacts, someone should be able to find out.
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I’m not an FSO either but I’ve worked closely with them over the years at various companies and I’ve never known an FSO that had any influence over HR. They can tell them, “John Jones finally got cleared” but that’s about it.
Thank you for your insight.
You’re right. What I really meant is, it’s the FSOs job to know if someone is no longer being considered. There needs to be communication between them. They need to withdraw candidates from the investigation pool if they are no longer being considered. I suspect that contributes to the back log. How many people get a clearance after a year and do nothing with it. Waste of resources.
I suspect that most companies are NOT pulling candidates from the investigative process unless the candidate tells them that they are no longer interested.
Losing a billet isn’t going to cause a company to pull someone who was being considered. The companies know how long this process is and that they could have a new contract and a new position by the time it ends.
Thank you. As you said, I’m trying to find a job through another employer.
could you by chance post your timeline from the SF86 input until complete and what agency the clearance is for. ie, DoD.DoS, DoE, DHS…thank-you.
November 2016- Submitter SF86
March 2017- Denied Interim
November 2017- Interview
January 2018- Investigation closed as per OPM
February 2018- Granted Secret clearance
Let me know if you’ve any other concerns
I forgot to answer your question Agency- DOD
Baju, Do you have exact dates for the adjudication? You said 1 month (January - February) was it a full month? Two weeks?
If you aren’t sure, it’s not a big deal, just curious on current adjudication timelines.
My file was closed on Jan 23, and my clearance was granted during third week of Feb. It took almost a month.
Tim hit on a sticky subject I fought for 6 years. The hand off between HR and FSO. This continues to vex our operating location as people were removed from clearance sponsorship, but hte HR person left them in the HR database as an at will seasonal employee. They have badged access to the site as they may work different contracts. If they show up and ask for more hours, HR will give them…but we are not sponsoring them. I rooted out at least a half dozen and had to escort them off, debrief etc. One was not able to get recleared based on unknown to me data at clearance division. So these CAN get sticky. I recommend HR always consult with Security to make sure a person is sponsored and on the list.
Exactly Amber. Glad someone on that side is able to articulate the situation I was trying to describe.
One way we can all help reduce the backlog is to make sure we pull candidates that no longer have a need for the clearance.
Who’s to decide who no longer has a need for a clearance? If you have an applicant in the pipeline and lose the contract that you wanted them to work on, should they have to go back to step one with another company? Should their investigation be stopped and have to be picked up in the middle again?
We are talking about people’s careers and their livelihood here. I realize that this is secondary to national security but I don’t think that personnel decisions should be made that way.
Actually, I went through a situation very similar to this. I left a company while I was in the middle of my (first) investigation. They debriefed me and said that I had two years for another company to restart my investigation.
I took that as, there was a hold placed on me in JPAS and it could be lifted if another sponsoring agency picked me up.
Any FSO’s @amberbunny maybe? able to confirm this?
If they don’t have that capability built in they really should. it would help move some of the people out of the way that don’t need clearances NOW. Any congressional staff reading this feel free to put in a line item payment to me in the next budget for suggesting this.