Does anyone know the salaries that Peraton pays their full-time hourly employees for Level I, Level II, and so forth up to Level VI?
I left Peraton a few months ago and went back to CACI. I was making $96k as a level 6 investigator, and even if they doubled my salary, it wouldn’t have been worth staying at that train wreck of a company.
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What were the contributing factors that made this place a train wreck?
Due to oversight, you have been around long enough to know why this company is a train wreck.
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I was being somewhat facetious but haven’t been acquainted with Peraton in a long period of time so was wondering what caused someone to leave a $96,000 year job in a stagnant economy like this one.
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They give you unrealistic expectations on all items. You’re expected to call, text, email, and then visit a source in one day, and then write it off. Which, by the way, you get zero credit for… assuming you actually do the work, that they don’t encourage. You spend more time giving them updates than actually working. They want everything either completed or written off within 24 hours, which doesn’t give people enough time to respond. You have ZERO flexibility with your schedule. You have to be signed on at 9 am and enter updates on cases that you already gave your team lead. Long story short, it’s a lot of admin nonsense that takes away from an already unrealistic productivity situation. If you can do it, high five. I’m not willing to compromise my integrity for them.
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Excellent summation.
As an investigator/employee you mean nothing to them except how much they can bonus off of you.
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Correct. I have been an investigator long enough to be aware that my job is to close out cases and earn the company I am employed by money for doing so. I will not however compromise my integrity in the process.
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Oh by the way… my salary at CACI is very slightly less than that of Peraton. CACI’s pay structure is pretty on par for the area that you work in. Not sure where you are located, but I am in the Northeast. I left CACI as a level 4 investigator and came back as a level 3. The pay decrease was well worth my mental health not dealing with Peraton. I was told that when I am ready, I can bump back up to a level 4. I trust my section lead and I’m not ready to make that jump without us being able to bill for legit non-production time. But I stand my my statement that Peraton was a train wreck. Call me “snippy” if you want, but their literal slogan is “Do the Can’t Be Done,” You can’t meet their expectations without compromising your integrity. You’re quite literally DOING WHAT CANT BE DONE. Take that for what it’s worth. Good luck.
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I worked for Perspecta prior to it being Pertaton and it was extremely stressful. In my opinion CACI is a lot better to work for.
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Yeah I came crawling back by telling my boss I made a grave mistake. Hopefully he’s not on here to see this. 
but truthfully, the grass was not greener, and I’m appreciative that he took me back. My experience at Peraton was WILD, not in a good way. I couldn’t wait to get back to CACI.
I know the lower levels make much less than the higher levels. Seems significantly less. The pay at the level I and II isn’t a wage that’s sustainable. Unless you’re a top tier there I think you’ll struggle. Level I is $20 an hour or something and getting to Level VI it’s somewhere north of $40 an hour.
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You are correct. Those are accurate salaries. Giant jump from level 2 to 4 or higher. As someone who worked as a level 4 at CACI, and then was employed as a level 6 at Peraton (I’m a mom who has two kids, one adult and one teenager, so not even little kids) it’s legit not worth the stress or compromising your integrity.
I left CACI as a level 4, went to Peraton as a Level 6, and came back to CACI as a level 3 (my choice) less than 6 months later. The environment in general is not great. I have an amazing supervisor, who is literally the only reason I came back, but my point is please do not base this on dollar signs. It’s redundant, hard, thankless, work, no matter where you go. If you hate the your team lead, by all means, jump ship. A good manager makes a world of difference. If you like your current supervisor, just stay put until you leave the industry entirely.
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The description of your experience with Peraton speaks volumes to still leaving an almost six figure job. It’s hard to believe that Peraton pays $96K for Level 6. They’ve increased their Level 6 pay by 35-40% over the last seven to eight years. Peraton must be making more money on these background investigations.
How many source units or weighted testimonies does Peraton require for their different pay levels? What does CACI require for their output for their pay levels?
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I make almost the same amount at CACI as a Level 3 as I did as a level 6 at Peraton. When I left CACI as a level 4, I took a pay decrease to go to Peraton. The weighted testimonies per day were actually pretty close for a CACI 4 and a Peraton 6. One of the issues is that Peraton does not give any credit at all for writing off items, and CACI does. It’s minimal, but every little bit helps. Also, CACI allows you to look at your work and zone it according to what makes sense to the actual field investigator, and they just want one general update of when work will be completed. Peraton did not allow that and it was first work in, first work out, even if it didn’t make any geographical sense at all, so a ton of time was wasted driving. Also, the amount of daily administrative tasks that they require eats up a ton of production time. It’s not necessary to give 700 updates on every item every day when you can just go to the work and close it out. The micromanaging alone was not worth the money, and the admin stuff made meeting production absolutely impossible without working off the clock, which I won’t do.
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We all need to join together and push back against one day ACDs. It’s unrealistic and unethical and I don’t think the customer would be happy about it. When any of the companies assign those items what they really want you to do is to fudge things and RTUC the item if you can’t actually get the interview done immediately when calling a source/subject. (but NOBODY is ever going to say that)
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I’ve never had a one day ACD. That’s absurd.
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Left Perspecta for CSRA in 2017 because of their unethical practices and distrustful management. I see the name has changed but nothing else.
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Same goes for when they were Keypoint. Nothing but constant micromanaging.
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