So I have recently been offered a job out of college that is contingent upon me obtaining a secret security clearance. I am unsure how to list this on the employment section of my SF86. I made an agreement that I would work for my father’s company in exchange for living at home for the duration of college as a way of pulling my weight around the house. There was never an exchange of income, just an obligation to work 15 hours a week. I am guessing I should list this as an unpaid internship and detail the circumstances in the comment section as it is on my resume? Also I understand I shouldn’t use family as a work reference but the company is only my father and uncle and my part time contribution so how should I go about listing a reference for employment dates? I just want to avoid any hiccups by providing all the information necessary.
It is not a problem to list family as references for employment if that is who you worked for. Just put a remark in the comments section for that employment that it was a family owned business.
What Marko said . . .
I have worked for my father’s tax business for years. My supervisor there is my sister who manages the office. I list the company as my employer and my sister as my supervisor on my SF86. In the explanation box, I clearly indicated that this was a family business and my relationship to both the owner and the manager. The investigator who was assigned to my case contact both my sister and my father but didn’t have a single question about the job for me.
Remember, there WAS an exchange of goods. You bartered room and board in exchange for your effort.
I had the same thing for my fathers company. You basically have to report it because IRS records will show up that his company is receiving 8500 bucks in tax benefits/deductions (or whatever the proper nomenclature is) a year. Since age 16, I was on the dole with my fathers company up until I graduated College and made more than 8500 dollars a year so he couldn’t deduct taxable income for his business (Any CPAs or tax people can correct me on this stuff). Your parents will get investigated but no big deal. My investigator came to my house to interview my parents (Since the business address was my home address) and asked all the usual stuff. I completely forgot to put it down on my SF86 because I never got paid so it didn’t feel like a real job. I was an “Administrative Assistant” whose job duties included “taking out the trash” and in return my mom cooked and dad provided a room. Its laughable IMO but yeah they wanna know about it and make sure no funny stuff is going on. I believe our fathers had the same objective with hiring their kids lol.
Concur. No issues. If you worked for family, list family. But do not use family for verifiers on where you lived, even if at home, or for the three character references. A neighbor or a friend can vouch for living at home. Co-workers, best friends, scout leaders, church groups, youth groups, Pastors, teachers etc can make solid character references.
Thanks for all the replies! I feel much better about this now. For some reason I had it in my head that since there wasn’t an exchange of income that I was wrong to claim it as employment.