Your background investigation involves personal source interviews from all aspects of your life to verify your judgment, trustworthiness, and suitability for properly handling protected information. The goal of investigators conducting personal interviews is to gain insight into the subject as a “whole person”. Interviews are conducted with roommates, neighbors, teachers, classmates, supervisors, coworkers, former spouses, friends, and acquaintances.
As the subject of the investigation, you can speed up the process by preparing your sources for contact with an investigator before you have your subject interview. I am not advising you to “prep the witness’ with what to say about you during an interview. But you can “prep the battlefield”. By that, I mean I am recommending you give a simple heads up to current and former neighbors, classmates, teachers, supervisors, and coworkers that you list. Ideally, you reach out to these individuals prior to listing them on your SF-86, to ensure you have their accurate contact information. When you contact them, you can let them know you listed them on your security form and that the U.S. government is conducting a routine background investigation on you for employment purposes, and they may be contacted for an interview. If you do not know your neighbors, this is the perfect opportunity to knock on doors with a plate of cookies. You can introduce yourself while informing the neighbor of the possibility of an investigator contacting them. Win! Win!
How to make the interview easier for your sources and the investigator
It is a best practice to determine up front if the source is willing to cooperate with the interview request before pinning down specific details. While you may not have options with some sources (listing a specific employer, for instance), in many cases you have options for who you list as a reference on the form. Choose the neighbor who you know, have met and who is willing to assist you over listing the cranky hermit who will hang-up on every investigator request.
Upon agreement, obtain the best time and method of contact for the source. Your sources are doing you a favor by agreeing to be interviewed. You owe them the courtesy of accommodating their scheduling needs. Ask your source if he or she prefers to be interviewed at a specific location, such as work versus home. Providing your source’s contact information, logistical preferences and/or limitations to your investigator during the subject interview will set the investigator up for a successful interaction, and help him or her gain trust and cooperation from your sources. This in turn will help to speed up the investigation process.
Depending upon the complexity of your investigation and the need for information, the investigator may reach out to a variety of sources which you haven’t listed on the form. But the more agreeable you make the first-line references, the easier it will be for the investigator to line up additional references and verifiers if needed.
Sources are often the most time consuming aspect of a background investigation. A few hours spent by the applicant on the front end of the investigation, lining up willing verifiers and ensuring accurate contact information, may save weeks of investigator time and shave months off of the background investigation process. For the security clearance applicant, it is time well spent.
