Looking for some career advice
I’ve been unemployed for about 8 months and finally received two offers for contracting roles, but I’m struggling with the timing/security clearance aspect and could use some advice.
One offer is a contracting role with DoD. I already received my interim Secret clearance and could start as early as next week.
The other is with ICE, and honestly it’s the job I’d prefer overall (hybrid schedule, better benefits, better fit for what I want long term). The problem is that the public trust process hasn’t even been initiated yet. The FSO said he guesses it could take around two weeks to get the interim determination, but I’m skeptical about how accurate that timeline is.
So now I’m stuck trying to decide whether to:
- Take the DoD job that’s ready to go immediately
- Or hold out for the ICE position that I’d rather have, but with uncertain timing
I’m posting this in here because the background check/timeline piece is honestly the biggest factor here.
Has anyone dealt with something similar? How reliable are those “couple week” estimates for public trust/interim determinations?