Public Trust suitability investigation

Looking for any insight. Just submitted my EQIP (SF85P) for a Bureau of Prisons corrections job. I do not know what level or tier of investigation Bureau of prisons requires. Just know its Public Trust. My last federal job (2019) there was an allegation against me of sleeping on duty right before I put my notice in and left. I had another job lined up and was on my way out anyways. I was unsure how to answer the Have you been fired, quit before being fired, left under unfavorable… yadda ya question on the 85P. At most i left under unfavorable circumstances maybe, because i was aggravated with them. My previous supervisor and union told me I just put my notice in and left with a clear resignation, and i didnt have to list anything negative towards my departure from the job. Also, my SF50 states that as well. So I chose No for that answer. My concern is, if the topic comes up during the investigation or interview with my supervisor, it may look like I’m hiding it. Or they perceived that I was caught sleeping, told I’d be fired, and resigned. It doesn’t ask on the 85p about any workplace misconduct or performance issues. If it did, I would have listed the sleeping allegation. Anyways, no recourse was taken against me. I was called in and warned verbally and that’s it. I didn’t like how they handled it. I’d been there 10 years. Never been accused of sleeping before. One time incident. Im wondering the level of questioning/digging that is performed by the investigator in regards to the specific investigation for Public Trust. If I’m over thinking it and they don’t really get too intrusive for Public Trust then I won’t have anything to worry about. I just thought if it came up, it may turn into a he said she said kinda thing and my credibility/suitability may be questioned. Is the investigation for Public Trust less intrusive?
The 85P questioning is much less intrusive than the 86. Looking for any knowledge or insight. Thanks

Have they told you that you will definitely be interviewed by an investigator? That will help determine what tier it is.

Depending on which tier you will either A- have an interview no matter what, or B- only have one if they find an issue.

Public trust investigations look at former employments using record type checks rather than an outright interview with the supervisor right off the bat, like it would be for a T5/top secret level investigation. They may discover the issue through those record checks (if it was documented).

If your investigation is the type that doesn’t automatically require an interview but they find the issue in the record check phase, they will schedule an interview to review it with you.

They’ll want to know “your side” so to speak. If they ask why you didn’t list it for the fired, quit after being told you’d be fired… etc question, simply explain it as you did here. Just be truthful and honest and it shouldn’t be a huge issue.

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85P is either a Tier 2 (moderate risk) or Tier 4 (high-risk).

Thanks for the input guys. Anyone know of a site
or reference that has the process/specific protocol’s of each tier of investigation?

I’m not sure you’ll be able to find such a thing. The documents that used even to teach investigators are protected documents and there are strict rules about not publishing or sharing them.

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The more you know about the internals of a process, the greater your chances to game the system. Investigators are not allowed to talk about many of the rules and procedures here in a public forum. This is in addition to the fact that every investigation is different.

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All you can do is bide your time and trust the process.

Thanks to everyone for their input. Can someone in the know settle this for me. After some research and forum posts…I see a lot of ppl having the opinion that Public Trust is more intrusive in nature pertaining to the investigation than a secret clearance. Again, my Public Trust is for Bureau of Prisons so I do not know the tier or level of Public trust. I’m guessing a MRPT or Tier 2. But I cannot understand how a Public trust of any leval would be more invasive than a secret or T3 or top secret. You are given access to much more critical information with secret and up as opposed to Public trust. As we’ve said before on here, PT is not even a clearance. To boot, the SF85 for PT is much less detailed in its questioning than the SF86 is for Secret and above. Maybe the PT for bureau of prisons is more in depth than normal PT because we are dealing with inmates. I do not know.

The public trust is no even close to being as intrusive as any secret clearance. Start with the questionnaires.

The SF 85 even with all the bells and whistles only asks 1/4 of the questions found on the basic SF 86.

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Not sure what you’ve read that would suggest that. It’s not at all true.

Public Trust is significantly less “intrusive” than any T3/T5 clearance investigation.

There is a blog article on this very subject.

Where did you read such nonsense?

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