Re: So many jobs want CURRENT security clearances

["Gary S. Callison" <huey -at- interaccess -dot- com>]

On Wed, 13 Aug 2003, epubs -at- astound -dot- net ("Marc A. Santacroce") wrote:
>  I too held TS/SCI with  special accesses, but company recruiters told
> me that if it's been more than 15 years they won't even consider me. It
> may be ageism in  disguise, but I think it's lack of resources.

Clearances are inactivated when you leave the position that required them,
but can be reactivated with a cursory records check up to two years from
that date. After that, a full reinvestigation is required, although
presumably you'll be more ready for it than someone who has never been
through it before. 

>  SECRET used to be a shoo-in, with only a National Agency Check (NAC)
> being performed to make sure the  candidate wasn't a felon; I don't know
> how long that takes now.

Reapproval of an existing NAC takes a matter of several weeks. An interim
clearance can be granted sooner than that.

> TS and  SCI took longer, mine took over a year, but I had lived abroad
> for many years.

The fastest of these I'm aware of still took more than six months.
Post-9/11, it wouldn't suprise me at all to discover this had stretched
into years of backlog. Not to sure how willing they are to grant interim
clearances here either.

There is _always_ a market for writers with clearances. If there's one
piece of advice I could give college kids considering a tech writing
career, it'd be "sign up for the national guard, but only if they
promise you a military intelligence MOS in your contract".

-- 
Huey