My next job may require me to get a security clearance. I’m mundane enough that I can’t imagine anything that would prevent me from getting it, but I’m curious what kind of questions I’ll hit. For instance, I was told that if I were recently divorced, that might prevent it.
I don’t know what type of job you will be getting, and who will be conducting the investigation, but based upon my experience a divorce will not prevent you from being granted a secret clearance. I have a misdemenor on my record and was granted a secret, but probibly would have been denied a Top Secret had it been required.
The questions asked usually are where did you work, where did you live, and where have you traveled to. For each block of questions, you will need to provide references that can verify this information. You will also be asked about family members and previous marriages, but only to verify the information contained on the form. You will have to provide fingerprints which can be verified through the FBI.
Don’t worry too much about anything on the questionnare, however, because if they investigating agency has anything that may deny you a clearance, they will usually schedule a personal interview to give you the opportunity to explain the information.
Good luck 
The main thing is to not lie about ANYTHING. A divorce should not prevent you from getting a clearance. The main thing they look for in what they ask you is consistency and whether it can be verified. If, for example, you say that you have never been arrested for anything, and they find that when you were 15 you got hauled in at a party where there was underage drinking, that might cause you problems. But if you answer the question truthfully, an incident like that won’t stop you from getting cleared. You will probably have several interviews anyway, whether they find something or not, so don’t assume that an interview means there’s a problem. They usually do several during the period after you are fingerprinted and complete your questionnaire to verify and double check your answers. Again, they are looking for consistency.
You will be primarily asked questions about your criminal history, drug use, financial situation your feelings about the government (“Are you now or have you ever been a member of any organization whose goal was to overthrow the Government of the United States?” etc., etc.)
The whole process is time consuming and you will go for a long period wondering what happened. This is a good thing because it means they haven’t found any problems. How long the whole process takes depends on the level of clearance you are trying to get. I had Top Secret with SCI access and it took several months to get it all done, during which I went through boot camp and half of language training. It may well be that my clearance took so long because they knew they had the time to spare. Perhaps for a contractor situation or new government hire it doesn’t take as long.
One other word of advice - choose references who know you well. Make sure they are not the sort of people who will get defensive or suspicious because the FBI calls them asking questions about you. If you references act like they are reluctant to answer questions about you it may raise a flag.
Good luck. 
I was in the army, and plenty of divorced servicemen and women had top secret security clearances. There are an awful lot of whacked-out rumors about granting/denying a security clearance, so if you need to ask someone, make sure s/he knows something about a process. Don’t trust the information just because the person giving it to you happens to have a clearance.
The personal interviews can be rough. The interviewer will try to browbeat you, to trip you up, to intimidate you into confessing something. For instance, he might ask you if you’ve ever done drugs in your life. If you tell him “no,” he’ll jump down your throat, tell you he doesn’t believe you, and yell (Yes, they can yell.) about how someone’s going to ask all your friends and how one of them is eventually going to give you up. Another one is if he asks you if you’ve ever travelled to a foreign country. If you say no, he’ll ask you if you’ve ever been to Canada (or Mexico, depending on where you are). Oops, turns out you went 20 years ago as a kid. He’ll jump down your throat again. It’s a mind game.
Now here’s what I’ve seen and heard. Please note that while I’ll be as objective as possible and stick to personal experience, this is only what I’ve seen and heard, it was over ten years ago, and the reality may have changed, or I might have misunderstood from the get-go.
From what certain qualified people have told me, the number one thing that will fuck up your chances of getting a security clearance is lying about it on your application. I tended to hear these sorts of stories revolving around three things: the applicant’s criminal record, drunk driving, and drug use (even if the drug use didn’t show up on the criminal record. In all cases of denial of clearance due to lying about drug use that I heard, the applicant was caught because his friends ratted him out when they were interviewed by the security guys.). I don’t know if CID singles these out or if military folks just tend to fuck up in these ways more than they do others, but those are the main lies I hear. I’m not saying that you can have a criminal record or history of drug use and have everything forgiven as long as you tell the truth, but if you lie and you’re caught, you’re screwed.
The application process is not the most pleasant thing out there; it’s nerve-wracking to be sure, but it’s most likely worth it. Remember not to believe everything you hear and get your advice from people who actually know the process. Good luck.
Or, on preview, what GWVet said.
Always a day late and a dollar short, I am.
I was told that being divorced in and of itself would not prevent getting clearance, but might contribute. The reasoning is that recently divorced people are often strapped for cash and therefore might be more easily bribed.
I did not mean to imply that being divorced would definitely prevent it, only that I was surprised it was a consideration. After it was explained, it made sense.
I am not divorced so I have no worries in that regard anyway. Other than the fact that I had roommates that smoked pot and indulged in other things in college (Beer was always my drug of choice, so I can honestly claim I never even smoked pot) I can’t think of anything that that might make even a small difference.
I was just curious what would come up.
As soon as you mentioned recent divorce in the OP, I was fairly certain that the bribe issue was exactly why that could be a problem.
It was stressed to me during my interview process (TS/SCI) that ANYTHING that might make you susceptible to bribes, no matter how silly it might sound to the average person, is something of concern. I had an outstanding $200 collection sitting on my credit report that I hadn’t done anything about because I was planning to fight the collection agency, but I was told that I wasn’t getting my clearance until I got that off my record. Needless to say, $200 wasn’t worth the fight to keep me from doing my job.
Linty, your experience is fascinating, and 180 degrees away from my personal experience. However, my clearance was not through the military, and I wonder how much difference that may make in terms of how your application process and interviews are handled.
Joined US NAVY at age of 20, almost 21. Had been a Cardio Vascular Tech previous to enlistment…my job was supposed to be as a corpseman (medic w/ no security clearance)…flunked the piss test at boot camp cause of Pot…they (US Navy) changed me to FTG (fire control tech guns) with a top secret clearance. So I was not worthy enough to do my prefered job of medic but I COULD do what they wanted me to do all along…hmmm My enlistment tests were in the 98% range and they wanted what they wanted. With the Government ANYTHING is possible.
ymmv
Oooh, do tell! If you don’t mind, of course.
I can laugh about it now. At the time, I was imagining the investigators talking to some of my ex-girlfriends, asking some of the questions they had already asked me (“So Jane, during his first interview, Linty happened to mention that he’s never been into bestiality in his whole entire life. Care to elaborate on that? Why yes, in fact, I do have a few spare hours.”). I don’t mind telling you, those were some interesting thoughts. 
Not much to tell. My interviewer was a retired FBI agent. Nicest guy in the world, friendly, somewhat talkative (although that may have been his "technique). I don’t recall any of my responses ever being challenged or needing a great deal of clarification, and the idea of this guy yelling at me is laughable.
He did manage to freak out some former roomates of mine, though. I used to rent a room in a house owned by a couple of very sweet modern-day hippies. During the time my application was being processed, I got a frantic voicemail message one day from them, explaining how some man had knocked on their door claiming to be from the FBI wanting info from me, and how they’d refused to answer the door. Apparently he just slipped his card under the door eventually, and they were afraid I’d done something Really Bad and were worried about me.
To this day, I’m not quite sure they believed me when I explained what was going on.
Off-topic, but you’re way nicer than I am. I would have messed with the roommates.
(Scribbling down a random 10-digit number and handing it to them) “Quick, call this number! Tell Ginsburg he’s gotta break into the cryochamber and grab Timothy Leary’s head again! Say I’ll meet him in Kuala Lampur, and make sure he uses a frickin’ bowling bag this time!” (Pause. Snatch the number from their hands and swallow it.) “On second thought, you heard nothing.” (Run out of the room, crash on a friend’s couch for two days, and come back to the house. Act like nothing’s happened.)
At the least, it would have been good clean wholesome fun. At the most, I might have made the security clearance investigator’s hall of fame.
I had an interim top secret clearance for over a year when I replaced a crypto guy who left unexpectedly. Before my final clearance came I had transferred to a job that didn’t require a TS, so I never did find out how far the investigation went.
During the process of the interviews, make sure that you mention this specifically and truthfully. You want to make sure that when they talk to people that they get no surprises.
My security clearance was issued by Australia so may be different but I think the general idea is the same.
They wanted a ten year history of addresses. That is, the address of every residence I’d had over the last ten years along with the dates I was there. A friend of mine had trouble with that one because he had spent a lot of time living out of a hotel and had no receipts or any other evidence to back it up.
They wanted to know all of the details of my overseas travel, places and dates. They also wanted the same overseas travel details for the people I was currently living with.
They wanted the criminal history of everyone I had ever known (that’s right.) I think the question was something like this:
*Have you or has anyone you have known ever (please provide details),
[ul]
[li]Taken illegal drugs[/li][li]…[/li][li]…[/li][li]Been convicted of a criminal offense[/li][li]…[/li][/ul] *
Now, there is a tendancy for people to go through those questions and just go, no, no, no, no etc. But it is important to answer truthfully. Any skeletons you may have in your background is of absolutely zero blackmail value if the government or your employer already knows about it.
Linty, my experience was also 180 degrees from what you describe. The interviewers have always been so polite that they sometimes seem a little creepy.
I’d like to echo a common theme: tell them everything. Having attended college in California in the late 1970’s, I sure did experiment with drugs, and I said as much in my applications (adding, of course, that I didn’t plan on indulging ever again). Once something is out there, you can’t be blackmailed for it, so they generally give you a “pass”. What they’re looking for is people who might tend to get swamped in debt or have a wildly unbalanced lifestyle or, as I said, have something they can be blackmailed for.
If you’re seeing a psychologist or psychiatrist (or both), tell them. Again, they just want the truth. My problems – depression, depression and some depression, are treated with antidepressants, and they seem okay with that.
Everything I get cleared for lately requires that I authorize them to be able to give me a polygraph, but I’ve never had one. I have had a surprise drug test, though (that makes once in 21 years).
Another recent development: they have your credit reports, so be prepared to walk through every (negative) thing in them and talk about it. (I had a condo foreclosed, and I got called in to explain it – I assume they’re okay with it because I still have my clearance.) This would be a good time to make sure there are no errors in your credit report.
You spent FAR too much time thinking about that one. :eek: Hehe…unfortunately, I was no longer living with them at the time (the investigation was just checking on former housemates and neighbors), so I couldn’t quite have pulled that off. And anything I’d said to them on the phone wouldn’t have been as much fun because I wouldn’t have seen their reaction.
Exactly.