Working as a Chinese Linguist for the US Govt

[Nathan Mao]

It depends on the clearance level.

Confidential and Secret are pretty much permanent.  They will only be reviewed if you give them a significant reason to doubt your trustworthiness, but that still is an investigation on whether to take it away or not not to renew.

At the Top Secret level, once acquired, it lasts for 5 years, and then has to be re-investigated every 5 years.  The re-investigation is much less intense than the initial background check, because in a re-investigation they are just looking for obvious red flags.

Marrying a foreign national can result in an extra review, but that is usually focused on the topic of how you met and looking into the background of the prospective spouse's family (considering the US' limited ability to investigate in foreign nations, right?), and may involve a polygraph test just to check for anything...interesting.

 

Once you leave a position that requires/uses a security clearance, your clearance will lapse.  But I'm not sure if that happens in 6 months, or 2 years, or just until your next 5-year anniversary (for Top Secret clearances).

 

Sometimes, one organization will not recognize another organization's clearance.  That just means you have to go through the whole clearance process again...but with some confidence that you've already passed one, just the new organization wants to make sure all t's are crossed and all i's are dotted.

[Touchstone57]

I did managed to get clearance after being married at the lowest level after being married, but I was told by my security manager that it is not possible to get a higher level of clearance.

 

From what I was told you will lose your security clearance 12 months after you leave your job , unless you can get a job with a suitable company to maintain your clearance. It is pretty expensive for companies to get you clearance, I was told 10k pounds sterling. This is all in the UK of course.

 

Once you have clearance and can keep it your salary will go up significantly, but I am not sure there is much in the way of Chinese related work...

[kdavid]

I may have missed this elsewhere, but how is clearance obtained? Will the private contractors help you obtain it?

 

I understand it can take some time, especially if you've lived abroad. What do you do in the meantime?

[Nathan Mao]

 

how is clearance obtained? Will the private contractors help you obtain it?

 

If the govt hires you, they will conduct a background check to give you a clearance.  As for private contractors, my impression is most won't.  But I've seen at least one job listing where they said a clearance just needed to be obtainable, implying they would pay to get you a clearance.

 

 

What do you do in the meantime?

 

If you have a job, don't quit until your clearance comes through.  If you don't have a job, find one to survive until your clearance comes through.