In category: government agency
Wrap Rate: The Number That Decides What a Contractor Can Actually Pay You
A GS-13 step 1 employee earned a base salary of $90,025 in 2025, according to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management. A cleared contractor filling that same seat bills the government far more than $90,025 for a year of that person's labor. The gap is not the company pocketing th… more
What Sponsoring a Clearance Actually Costs a Company
A Top Secret clearance starts with a Tier 5 background investigation, and the Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency bills that investigation at $5,355 for a non-DoD agency in fiscal 2025. The number is public and precise. It is also close to useless as a hiring budget, … more
Scattered Castles vs. DISS: The Two Databases That Decide If You Get the Cleared Job
The two databases that decide whether your clearance follows you When a defense contractor wants to confirm that your Top Secret eligibility is real and current, nobody phones your last security officer for a reference. A security specialist opens a government system of record an… more
VEVRAA and the Mandatory Job Listing: Why Your Cleared Reqs Must Go to a Veteran-Facing Service
On January 21, 2025, Executive Order 14173 revoked Executive Order 11246, the decades-old rule that had required federal contractors to run race- and sex-based affirmative action programs. Compliance teams read the headline and drew a wide conclusion: the Office of Federal Contra… more
Interim Security Clearance: How It Works, How Long It Takes, and Why It Gets Denied
Federal regulation caps an interim security clearance at one year. Not one year of active work, but one year of validity before the government has to finish the full background investigation or formally extend the temporary grant. That ceiling, written into 32 CFR 117.10, tells y… more