I had a great interview with the team, and HR called me a couple days later to begin salary negotiations. A couple days after that the VP sent me a contingent offer based on my ability to gain a secret clearance.
Due to the government shut down, things started slowly, but after about a month and a half, I got an email from the VP stating that G2 were withdrawing the offer because an INTERIM clearance was not granted.
I was floored, as I had no idea why I would be denied, especially since I had one in the past and my background is clean.
Three weeks later, I got a call from the investigator that had just been assigned my case, she wanted to meet to start the investigation. Which means that G2 forgot to cancel the investigation.
I wasted over a month and a half in my job search, thinking I had found my new team. Then I lost weeks of sleep thinking I had something in my past that would mark me as untrustworthy.
I spoke with a friend that works on clearances for a living, and found out that there is a difference between being denied an interim clearance, and not being granted an interim clearance. I was not granted an interim clearance, which means the investigator wanted to talk to me to clear something up. The burn of the situation is that nobody at G2 ever stated that they were on a time crunch, and in the interview, the hiring manager only asked if I could get a secret clearance, not an INTERIM secret. Why waste everybody's time by going through the interview process, salary negotiations, and waiting a month and a half for a clearance, just to walk away from a perfectly good applicant?
My guess is they found somebody cheaper and/or with an existing clearance.
So to you, my fellow job seeker, I say this: think long and hard before applying to G2, or any other government/military contracting company. It's a terrible industry that treats humans as nothing more than a number. A means to and end. Even more so that the civilian sector.
