I lost two team members this week alone. I know many are leaving now that the 1 year is up. Can anyone tell me about 1 Force. They are recruiting heavily. I would like to hear the pros and cons. Thanks.
1 Force is a subcontractor to Keypoint. Scott kobasik, the former opm program director for keypoint, I believe is in charge of the project there. Paul Herman, the former director of training, is high up in the recruiting and training department at 1 force now.
From the postings I have seen, they do not have full time investigators, only contractors.
If you are a contractor I dont see a bad side to getting on board with another contractor.
They are so new to the game I doubt anyone can really give a pro or con. I think they started working the opm contact this past summer, 2015.
Does anyone know what is going on with the background investigation industry? What agency will be doing investigations in the future?
Southrose,
It feels like everyone doing this job on the private side is so dejected, demoralized, that they canât muster up energy to even complain about things or be optimistic about other options. A couple of years ago things were lively on this forum and there was a lot of good constructive criticism and seriousness about the process. There was hope for reform. Things were bad a few years before USIS went down. But since USIS went down there has been nothing but churn and burn and the absence of consequence for this m.o. has only made the private side focus on further churn and burn tricks and tactics. Read some of the latest reviews on Glassdoor. Also note how the private contractor companies have moved on to the I-donât-give-a-sh*t stage by not even posting a few bogus reviews with management speak words like âchallengingâ, etc., like they used to.
You know the stress of the job is getting to you when you have a dream like I had the other night. I had a dream I went to an ESI at a shopping mall. When I met the guy, who looked like a younger, thinner Rex Ryan, I thought I knew him from somwhere. Sometime during the interview it dawned on me why I know this guy. Snowden. Edward. âOh yeah, heâs the guy⌠What the hell!!! Even he can get a clearance after what he did?? What a joke! Ugh, this ESI and this case will be a nightmare. Then itâll be an RZathon.â Fortunately the dream quickly morphed into me being back in college and at the end of the semester and realizing that I had registered for a biology course that I forgot to attend. Yikes.
âIt feels like everyone doing this job on the private side is so dejected, demoralized, that they canât muster up energy to even complain about things or be optimistic about other options.â This is so very true. I donât even have enough energy to complain in my own words anymore. 
New in the NewsâŚ
Lockheedâs Doug Thomas: New Federal Agency to Oversee Security Clearance Process:
Also, straight from the FY15 Q2 Cross Agency Priority Goal Quarterly Progress Update:
âIn response to a Presidentâs Review Group recommendation, provide a recommendation to the PAC AG on whether background investigations/security clearance vetting should be an inherently governmental function, and if not, whether it could be performed by a non-profit, private sector corporation , considering best practices.â
I donât think any of the contactors will be happy to hear ânon-profit.â
the National Investigative Service Agency
http://federalnewsradio.com/defense/2015/12/new-agency-likely-federal-security-clearance-process/
Wow, this sounds like the changes to the security clearance BI process all of the investigators here have been suggesting. The for-profit contractor companies, in combination with an ever-bureaucratizing administrative cookie-cutter investigation process, has made background investigations extremely half-assed and shoddy at best. The Subject effectively controls the field investigation because of the onerous case requirements and ever-shortening deadlines by contractors (and even OPM). ESIs have become 90% pumping Subjects for names and numbers to cover all of his or her RESIs, EDUC, EMPLs, REFEs, et al.
And the end of year investigations are like lemon cars built on Friday. Contractor companies are in serious churn and burn and pump and dump mode to get as much in before the end of the year. Company executives need to be put into prison for the complete and utter disregard for national security. When someone intentionally compromises national security out of personal greed we call them a traitor and spy, like Aldrich Ames, and we lock them up and throw away the key. But what about people whose personal greed compromises national security? Should they not be viewed equivalently? As the quote goes, in matters of great importance there is no distinctionâŚ
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Did everyone see this post?
http://clearancejobsblog.com/clearance-process-will-include-social-media-checks/
I found it an interesting development on the whole âContinuous Monitoringâ effort - while this isnât CE, it is asking agencies to do some kind of social media/public web review of cleared employees twice every five years. Do you think itâs a good idea? Bad idea? Iâd love to hear any thoughtsâŚ
I think itâs a great idea and about 5 years too late. Iâd be curious to see how they intend to actually implement it. Iâd also be curious to see what kind of parameters they intend to use to develop issues. Would a picture of someone at a party holding a drink indicate a drinking issue? Would people be required to report all social media usernames for message boards and forums? Or would they focus on sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and the like? I think itâs a great idea if implemented with common sense and clear definitions.
Well itâs official now
article also includes details of the new agency
NBIB
also a good acronym for a used car dealer.
Thanks for sharing @mdcontinv.Hopefully this will start down the path to an improved background report of investigation that actually has some substance and the ability to ferret out and address issues that have been too long ignored. What caught my eye was the fact that OPM is hiring 400 new investigators by the end of the year, so what will they be doing once national security is turned back over to DoD? My guess is they will continue to do the low, moderate and high risk public trust investigations.
Well the actual investigative work will be handled by the new NBIB, which will fall under OPM still (why my god why) but the computer networks and information security systems will be DOD run (thank god). Get ready for every web site to be blocked.
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I wonder what this means for the prime contractors and the investigators that they employ⌠Walking papers again!!! Just like when USIS collapsedâŚ
discrepant,
they will not be getting rid of contractors anytime soon. I have actually converted to fed a little while ago. We had our district holiday party in December and based on how many investigators are needed to be hired makes it impossible to hire at the speed needed to meet the demands and keep up with agents who are quitting or finding other opm jobs. We would need to hire 3,000+ new agents to take it all in house and it takes us a year to hire 400. Plus we are not able to hire the best qualified individuals, the usual fed hiring bs. My boss and his boss all want to hire a bunch of contractors and bring them fed but they canât do it.
Weâre having the same hiring problems too, only vets and former feds make the cert. I heard during the next wave, it will be direct hiring authority.
Direct hiring authority is great. Those contractors better dust off their resumes for a rare opportunity to move over.
Thanks for the insight mdcontinv and fed! I hope some things start to change soon.
What is scary is going to be the transition. How long is it going to take? Are investigations going to be stopped when the IT system switches over? Contingency plan for when the changeover is messed up and the system goes down?
And donât forget about accesses by agencies that are needed to verify investigations and clearances. DoD uses JPAS and the rest of the federal government uses OPMâs CVS. Will the rest of the government agencies be given access to JPAS, will they continue to use CVS, or will they stand up a new system?