GOVERNMENT CONTRACTS Companies struggle to find workers with security clearance

Employees with a security clearance are in demand at federal contractors.
WASHINGTON POST
As the technology downturn accelerated in October 2000, WamNet Government Services Inc. in Herndon, Va., received some great news: It won a seven-year, $7 billion subcontract from Electronic Data Systems Corp. to help design, build and operate the Navy and Marine Corps intranet.
The only problem was that the 20-person company would have to hire more than 700 new employees, all with security clearances.
That job is proving to be as much of a challenge as creating a secure intranet for the military.
"It's a daunting task for a small firm," said Michael Barbee, WamNet's president, who will be constantly searching for more qualified employees until the seven-year contract is complete.
Competition
With the demands created by the federal effort to improve homeland security, the worldwide war on terrorism, and the need to lock down even the most ordinary government offices, more employers than ever are looking for recruits who already have federal clearances. But just as during the dot-com recruiting boom of the late 1990s, government, technical and defense firms now are aggressively seeking and competing against each other for qualified candidates.
"There's a huge shortage, and there's a backlog of people waiting to get their clearances," said Palmer Suk, president of Snelling Personnel Services, a recruiting firm in Vienna, Va. "I'd say we have a need every moment for those types of people."
But there's a Catch-22 quality to the hot job market. To get hired, you have to have clearance. To get clearance, you have to be hired. The conundrum is as tricky for employers as employees. Here's how it works:
An applicant for a federal security clearance, whether confidential, secret, top secret or sensitive, must already be employed at a government agency or contractor.
How it works
The employer files paperwork that states the background check will be performed, and then sends it on to be processed and adjudicated. The procedure can take several months to a year, depending on the level of clearance and the length of the backlog. Currently, there are 237,816 security clearance applications pending at the Defense Security Service, the agency that handles clearances.
Some employees at WamNet are hired as clearable, but do not yet have clearance. Those employees work on assignments that do not need security clearances, until their paperwork goes through.
The number of clearances has gone up substantially since Sept. 11, 2001. Many clearances are held by the military. But there were 107,513 requests for clearances from industry from October 2000 through September 2001. That increased by about 40,000 the next year. The number of requests from October 2002 to April 2003 was 86,727.
Search firms
Companies are hiring search firms to seek out the right employees, and offering bonuses to those employees who refer a friend with the right clearance. Some, like Northrop Grumman Corp., are starting a practice of acquiring smaller companies that are filled with cleared employees.
WamNet, founded in 1994 as a wholly owned subsidiary of WamNet Inc. in Eagan, Minn., was formed to handle networks for federal agencies. WamNet's job now is to network the infrastructure for about 310,000 computers on 300 Navy and Marine bases.
WamNet doubled in size last year. The company needs to have about 420 people in place for the contract at the end of this year, and it is about halfway there. But the hiring is done in small numbers: January brought 35 new employees, 50 came on board in February, 79 arrived in March, 72 in April, and 22 thus far in May.
Barbee said the company was and still is on a constant search for Cisco-certified network engineers. Which, said Barbee, is a "pretty small community. And put security clearance on top of that, it's even smaller."
Ten percent of WamNet's new hires are military, who already have clearances. The company is recruiting as much as possible in and around military organizations, job fairs and in military publications.