I am current full-time Federal Contractor Investigator (not 1099) working in Massachusetts. A couple NBIB positions just opened here and I applied for one. Anyone here worked for the Government and as a Contractor in this field? Was wondering what the Negatives vs the Positives compared to each other.
I myself have not worked in this field but I’ve known several people who worked as background investigators, some contractor, some fed, and it seems like the federal employees (DIS/DSS/OPM/whatever comes next) don’t get beat up and harassed as much about numbers and quotas. The ones who seemed to like their jobs the most were retired feds who worked as independent contractors.
In discussions I’ve had with agents, it’s clear they are granted more liberties in the execution of their tasks when compared to the contractors.
G-ride is a plus.
One negative is they’ll only offer GS7 even if you’ve been on the contract forever (not sure if this has changed recently but this has been the standard practice for a bit per my discussions with agents and contractor employees who were given offers)
I’ve been both a contractor and now an agent. The job is the same job on either side, there’s a ton of work to be done. I do much more work as an agent but much a whole bunch less rework . The GS-7 pay is hard on my family and there’s no mileage reimbursement as there is a government car. To my next point, I have a pretty crappy “G Ride”…it’s an old Hyundai. I had a good experience when I was a contractor, I made decent money and the company was not so bad. However, I’m thrilled with being a fed, my quality of life in my job has improved substantially. I believe this is due to not being at the mercy of shareholders. Just my thoughts.
Back in the day they started as GS-5 so that’s a small improvement.