Just out of curiousity, what would cause an interim secret clearance to get denied? I submitted my SF86 back in Apr of this year and the only thing my FSO tells me is that it says my eligibility is pending and that I’ll be skipping the interim and going straight to the fully adjudicated secret.
So I have to wonder if that means my interim was denied for some reason. If that is the case then I have no idea why.
Any insight would be appreciated.
I’m wondering the same thing. I was sidelined when my interim was denied in June of this year. A lot of people are saying that interims are not just handed out anymore and its more about the position you’re going into (whether you’re job is mission critical), but who actually knows.
Could be lots of things. It seems nowadays that you will be denied interim unless you have a completely spotless background and credit history. You may also be denied interim if the agency deems the position you’re being hired for doesn’t require an interim. If you answered ‘YES’ to any question from Section 19 and beyond, expect an interim to be denied. Also consider pulling your annual credit report to make sure there are no black marks you may have not been aware of.
The better question is, how clean do you have to be to get an interim? They are rarely granted these days. I was recently granted a secret clearance by one agency, applied to another agency within 2 months and still didn’t get an interim with that new agency. If you have any hiccups on your record then you probably won’t be getting an interim. By hiccup I mean any debt/foreign travel/criminal charges/employment discipline and so on.
I know that it used to be much more common to grant interims than it is today. This is going back only ten or fifteen years.
I believe that your company, when they request an interim, needs to provide reasons that the position is critical enough to justify putting someone in with an interim clearance. Only then does the agency look to see if the applicant should be granted an interim.
In short, they don’t have to grant ANY interim clearances. It’s actually not the norm but the exception.
I had no idea that my company would have had to request an interim clearance. If that’s the case then I’d put money on it never being requested for whatever reason.
I was under the impression that an interim always came before the fully adjudicated clearance unless it got denied for some reason, and that’s what had me paranoid.
The contract that I’m on allowed me to be on a waiver until my clearance came in so I’m wondering if my company figured there was no reason to even request the interim.
So I wanted to give an update. It looks like my clearance was granted on early last month and the BI was completed in early august. It took until today for me to find this out through my FSO. Better late than never!
Wow that is awesome news! Gotta love them FSO’s that don’t tell you your cleared until weeks after the fact. They should know how stressful the wait is for us.
Congratulations!
It’s not always the FSO’s fault. After all they want you to start work as soon as possible. It often takes time for JPAS or other systems to get updated.
Thanks!
You’re right that it isn’t always their fault but I just don’t have a whole lot of confidence with mine based on past interactions. Either way, I’m glad it’s over. The surprising part is that I didn’t even have an interview.
Not having an interview is not uncommon. There really isn’t a “norm” because it just depends on what the investigator has that needs further information to develop.