The FBI is one of the few federal agencies which conducts its own background investigations. That may be good for the processing time for your application, but bad if you’re hoping a federal determination will make reciprocity easier between agencies – particularly if you were favorable adjudicated but ultimately not offered a job.
A post on the ClearanceJobsBlog Discussions site recently asked:
Several months ago I accepted a conditional job offer with the FBI for a position requiring a TS/SCI clearance. A few days ago the FBI informed me that my case had been favorably adjudicated and I was approved for hire; however, they were not able to offer me a seat in a future training class, so they’re not offering me a job at this time.
The questioner wondered if a favorable FBI security clearance adjudication (including polygraph) would make the application for other intelligence agencies easier. ClearanceJobsBlog forum moderator Marko Hakamaa responded:
The problem with FBI investigations is that the only repository for other agencies to verify an investigation was done and clearance granted is through Scattered Castles, and they would not put you in there unless you had an active TS/SCI clearance. So as datesnotrecalled [another poster] indicated, it depends! My guess is no because you would have had to be indoctrinated (briefed in).
The problems with a favorable FBI determination making another security clearance quicker are two-fold – because the FBI clearance would be stored in Scattered Castles it wouldn’t be possible for another agency (including the DoD, which issues the majority of clearances) to see the favorable determination. The other likely issue is that even though the applicant went through the full security clearance process including a favorable determination, he or she was never read into a program and never held an active security clearance.
The issue is similar with other competitive Intelligence Community and government agencies – it is quite possible to go through the entire clearance process and find you’re not offered a job. While the ideal is to vet employees through federal suitability standards to ensure only the best applicants make it through to the final stage of the hiring process, some agencies end up with more qualified applicants than they ultimately have the positions for.
The good news? Many of these situations ultimately end up with the applicant being considered for a future class or position – if they have the interest (and patience) to wait.
