Interim Questions

SECURITY CLEARANCE Q&A
1

I just accepted an offer for a job that requires a secret clearance for DoD. Right now, they put me in for an interim. About 75% (according to the team I’ll be part of) of the work is not classified, so there should be work available if the interim doesn’t go through (for some reason, none that I can tell based on my responses.)

However, I’ve been reading a lot of different stories on here from people who were denied, from “I have no idea what it was that led to the denial” to “I had 3 DUIs and forgot to include them on the form”.

I don’t foresee any issues based on my responses and am not asking anyone to consult their crystal ball and tell me the future here (or odds of successfully being granted an interim), but its confusing how fragile interims seem to be and what constitutes an obvious or immediate disqualifier.

If an interim is denied, am I correct in understand that 1) there is no appeal process or way to get the info via a FOIA request? 2) on future SF86s, does the applicant need to answer that they have been denied a clearance?

Thanks in advance for any input, even if it’s a redirect to an existing topic that I failed to locate prior to posting.

2

Not getting an interim is not the same as being denied a clearance, so there is no appeal and also no need to report it in the future.

Some places seem to grant interims fairly quickly, like in a few weeks, while others seem to grant few interims at all. I guess I should say, some places have contracts with customers that grant interims quickly, since it is up to the customer and not the employer.

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3

That makes sense. Thanks for the input!

4

FWIW, I my interim MRPT took just a few weeks and that was with some SOI follow-up that I had to take care of. I have been working full-time for my agency since March which I think helped speed it up a bit (started the whole process in August) but I cannot be sure.