Search some popular internet forums like Reddit, and you will quickly realize that the Security Clearance process is one of the most vague and time consuming steps in the Foreign Service hiring process. You will read stories about folks with previous drug use, dual nationality, lived abroad for a decade, and have a Chinese born spouse, getting cleared in 4 months, and then you will find stories of squeaky clean choir boys with no foreign travel waiting 18 months for their clearance.

In order to be hired for the State Department, just about everyone, Medical Providers included, need to be able to obtain a Top Secret Security Clearance. Over 95% of people that apply for one, seem to be granted the clearance, but it is a very time consuming process.

After you pass your Oral Assessment, usually around the same time you get your Medical Clearance Paperwork, someone from HR will send you your link to start the security clearance process and fill out your e-QIP. The e-QIP is the electronically submitted version of a national security questionnaire (SF-86) just about every government agency uses for granting security clearances. You can take a peak at one here. This bad boy is over 120 pages of in depth questions asking you just about everything you can think of about yourself. Where have you lived? Where have you worked? Who have you been married to? Where have you travelled and on what specific dates? Have any foreign friends? Have any foreign assets? Trouble with drugs or alcohol? Any debt issues? Any criminal record? Who are your family members and where do they live? Can you give us some people we can call that have known you and knew you when you lived at so and so address? What about contacts at your previous jobs?

All of these things and more will be asked of you, and you have to be incredibly detailed, going back at least 7 years. I submitted mine the same day I received it, and it was about a 7 hour process, including double checking dates, times, addresses, and phone numbers. You will also be required to submit fingerprints to the Diplomatic Security Intake Department, as well as email them some signed paperwork. Once that is all done, you just sit and wait until you get contacted for an in-person interview with a Security Agent.

I was really on top of all of the above, and less than 4 business days after I submitted my e-QIP, and overnighted some fingerprints, I got an email form Security Intake at the State Department, they had all my information. It wasn’t until about a month later that I learned that every one of my personal references listed on my e-QIP was being contacted by an investigator reviewing my case, and 3 days after that I had an in person interview in my home, where they literally go page for page over your e-QIP, and ask for any clarifications or additional people they might need to contact.

My interview was actually really smooth. The security agent/investigator interviewing me was really nice, and it took less than an hour. The only extra detail he wanted was on my trips abroad, who I travelled with (which happened to mostly be the references he already spoke to), and he checked my passport stamps to ensure they lined up with my travel dates. My wife is a dual citizen Filipino-American, with several foreign family members, including her mother, and numerous permanent resident friends here in the US, and he didn’t seem too interested in that. It seems that by the time you are interviewed, they have done a lot of legwork on your case and they are on the middle, to end of it. He told me they had already done numerous background checks, contacted previous employers, and as I mentioned above contacted my references. A day later, he asked me for one additional personal reference, and he called them the same day, so it seems he works quickly.

After your interview, the only contact most people seem to have is being told they have been cleared. Even in best case scenarios, it is 4 months or so from the time you submitted you e-QIP to cleared, but as seen above, some people wait in purgatory for years. The State Department website is purposefully vague on the time frame, since it seems to truly be a crapshoot. You can reach out to Security Intake, where they will inform you that your investigation was completed and is in adjudication (or not). But that just means they are going over your investigation, which could take several months, and often is the longest part of the waiting game.

Overall, it seems this is the longest and most tedious part of the process. Hopefully if you make it this far it goes smoothly. In my case, from the date I submitted my security paperwork to when I knew I got my clearance was over 7 months.

My next post will discuss the Suitability Review Panel, and what it finally means to make it on the Register of Cleared Candidates.

–Nick