Showing results for: network

Bill Rate vs. Pay Rate: Why Your Recruiter Cannot Go Higher

A price list on GSA Advantage bills a Network Security Engineer at $105.39 an hour and a Senior Network Security Engineer at $132.76. Real awarded prices, contract GS-35F-527AA. Neither is anybody's salary. What separates a published rate from your offer letter is mostly not nego… more

OCI Under FAR 9.5: The Rule That Can Disqualify the Cleared Candidate You Just Offered

Search the full text of FAR subpart 9.5 for the word "hire." It is not there. Neither is "employee," "employ," "hiring," "recruit" nor "staff," anywhere in its roughly 3,000 words, checked against acquisition.gov on July 21, 2026. All nine worked examples describe companies suppl… more

Do Government Contractors Get Paid During a Shutdown?

When Congress ended the 2025 shutdown on November 12, 2025, it did not forget the people who had gone unpaid. Section 116 of Public Law 119-37 made federal employees whole. Section 120 rescinded reduction-in-force notices issued during the lapse and returned those employees to du… more

CI vs. Full-Scope Polygraph: Which Programs Require Which, and What Each One Asks

The Defense Department retired the phrase "full scope polygraph" in writing. Its polygraph instruction defines the exam readers mean, then adds five words in the glossary: "Previously known as full-scope polygraph." The government-wide directive did the same. Energy's rulebook ne… more

What a Cleared Hire Really Costs: Time-to-Fill, Agency Fees, and the Job-Board Math

In the third quarter of FY2025, a Top Secret background investigation took an average of 163 days. Three quarters later it took 57. That figure comes from the Security, Suitability, and Credentialing Performance Accountability Council's Trusted Workforce 2.0 report for FY2026 Q2.… more