Eh. It’s tedious, but I filled it out on company time, so no biggie.
this post was submitted on 22 Oct 2025
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If filling out the sf86 is the hardest part of your job then you probably deserve to be working at Starbucks.
Its more about the invasive investigations after it.
You gotta go around asking all your relatives about their citizenship status. Amongst like a lot of other things.
Edit: I mean, I understand why, but still. Tedious. Given that government shutdown happen all the time, I'm not sure this is even worth it.
There are a lot of positions that don't work directly for the government that still require an sf86. Many of them are considered critical workers or in many of the cases contractors have the funds sitting in the Treasury or with their company and continue to get paid even if there is a shutdown.
Even funnier is now many contractors factor in government shutdowns into the total cost of the contract so the work can continue while the government is shutdown.
I'm private sector and filled this out. It is very much worth it. If you have a clearance and can fog a mirror, you can get a decent job. If you have a clearance and you're smart, the sky is the limit.
Yeah, it's a pain in the dick to fill out but most of the pages are actually repeats. There are so many because you are going to have a fuckload of contacts that the investigators will want to talk to.
When I filled mine out I was just out of high school so I filled out way fewer pages. Just family, neighbors, and teachers if I remember right.
IDK if this is the same form someone in a private industry engineering job would fill out, but I assume it's at least similar. Having clearance is highly desirable to some; it opens access to projects that others can't work, meaning more leverage to get better pay.
And an inability to fill out a couple hundred pages of paperwork means a person probably isn't suited for the slow, documentation filled slog that is engineering on those sorts of projects anyways.
Personally, I don't want to work on those sorts of projects so I don't pursue clearance and accept it will narrow my job opportunities some.
it looks a lot more involved than any background check I've done for industry. depending on clearance level your friends and family will be interviewed by FBI agents, and they'll ask your friends for more friends to interview, etc. I think it goes back 10 years. they will also require you to do a polygraph, for higher clearance.
also lying on the form lands you in prison, which is definitely more intense than lying on an industry background check. oh, and you have to report any foreign contact, too, as long as your clearance is active.
and they're really strict about drugs, debt, cheating (or being cheated on!), mental illness, having parents or spouses from other countries...
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I've filled this form out, multiple times. All contractors who work with a government agency that requires even the lowest Public Trust clearance will go through this form.
It asks for all kinds of information. Your legal name, your aliases you've used (nicknames, or shortened names), immediate family member names (including parents and siblings) and addresses, past addresses you've lived at in X years and who can verify that address, whether you're divorced and how to contact that divorcee, all the countries you have traveled to in the past 5 or 6 years and when, and previous employers, timeframes and why you left them.
It is a lot, typically can take all day. And if they lose that paperwork, you have to fill it out again. After filling it out, they do a preliminary background check to make sure no apparent red flags and you can start whatever project you were told to fill out this form for, which can take months.
Then they assign case workers to do a deeper investigation, depending on the clearance level. That ex-partner you lived with? They may get a phone call or a packet in the mail asking about you. That employer that fired you? Same thing. You might have to do an interview to address inconsistencies (because there always will be in this ridiculous form you have to fill out).
But once you get that clearance... You are coveted by any private company that needs clearanced contractors. Sure, you'll have to go through the process all over again with another government agency, but a company knowing you were clearable makes it easier for them to hire you.
All of this to say that yeah, the form is as horrible as it sounds.
What's the reason why that form isn't digital?
Over the last 15 years they've made it a web based interface with the most recent version being halfway decent. It also saves all your info so if you have to get a reinvestigation (every 5-10 years) then it is just updating your info.
It is digital.
OP is a moron: jobs that require clearances and speaking fluent Chinese pay six figures. Go ahead and don't apply for those so people who are more willing to swim in the infinite dollars from the US defense budget can earn it instead of you.
Yup... old buddy of mine went through this and lives a comfortable life with no college degree ever since. Very worth it if you can tolerate the ethical dilemma.
I have a friend who used to work for a big time tech company with lots of defense department contacts, one of the sorts of companies where if he talked about his company helping the government read peoples emails and track you online and such, you couldn't really be sure if he was joking or not.
He no longer works for that company, and I'm pretty sure he wasn't joking by the way.
I've been fortunate to know a lot of really smart people in my life, and I like to think I'm not an idiot myself, but this guy is hands down the smartest person I've ever met and it's not even close, he is scary smart.
And he made insanely good money while he worked for them, and the kind of shit they did on the company (and by extension, the taxpayers' dime,) was insane, they were regularly flying out to Vegas and putting it all on the company credit card.
So yeah for a talented person, there is really damn good money to be made if you can get security clearance.
if you're a contractor, yeah. actual government employees get paid peanuts compared to industry.
And you get to sleep soundly with the fact that if you did your job right more people died today than yesterday. Progress!
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I'm torn between upvoting the TIL part of this because it's something I know a ton about, and downvoting OP for such a wildly stupid take of "LOL go work somewhere else, hurr durr."
A) You only have to fill it out once every 5 or 10 years, depending on what level of clearance you are going for. And when you go back to fill it out again, nearly all of the stuff you filled out is unchanged.
B) It takes a few hours to do in order to be eligible for very high paying jobs.
C) You do realize, don't you, that tons of private sector jobs ALSO require you to fill this out? Working at Lockheed or Boeing or Booze Allen Hamilton or Microsoft or Google or... you get the picture. Any company that does business with the federal gov will have jobs with the possibility of needing this.
D) Private sector jobs can also be impacted by the gov shutdown, since many of them are on contracts with the gov that don't get paid when the contracting officer is furloughed.
EDIT: E) Private sector companies will pay a HUGE bonus to people who already have a TS clearance. Back in 2018-ish, Raytheon was paying a $50,000 sign-on bonus to new employees if they already had TS.
My brother does acid once a year to make himself ineligible for security clearance.
His company wants him to get security clearance so he can work on government contracts.
I strongly suspect that is not the determining factor in the yearly acid trip.
Yeah, it's not like LSD shows up on ANY drug test. He could just as easy not do it and say he did. Unless of course, he really likes that yearly trip. Which I highly recommend BTW.
I suspect they have a question along the lines of "have you done drugs in the past year", and this allows him to honestly answer yes.
Why commit pergury when you can have fun with a low level crime that won't be followed up on cause they want people to be honest on security clearance questions?
I don't understand. Is he telling his company that like, "sorry, I can't get clearance because I do LSD yearly"?
That's my understanding, yes. Probably the easiest way to get out of the work without outright saying he doesn't want to do it.
Your brother's name must be Chad
I think this would also be required of people working in the private sector at companies that have been contracted to do certain things.
Not ICE though. Anyone can do that.
They uhhh... just click and sign in my experience. I'm 90% sure this is one of like 5 forms I had to fill out to get my clearance.
You can't just click and sign this. You have to give full history of employment and living arrangements for the last 10 years. Along with references for all of it. It takes a while to fill this thing out. You rarely ever have to do it though.
I was 18 with no previous jobs lol. Yeah I remember filling this one out had to call my recruiter and went "half these questions don't apply to me what do I do".
Pretty sure it also has some debt questions or that might be a different one.
The reason I'm curious about stuff like these is because I wonder if my big bold "China" in the "Country of Birth" field is gonna be a red flag (pun intended). I mean like... yes I'm a US Citizen and I'm obviously siding with the US Constitution and Democracy rather than my birth country PRC (not a fun place to live, btw), but I wonder how prejudiced the government is. I also have a father that's still a PRC Citizen. I have relatives still in China (that I don't talk to and have zero emotional attachment to, tho). I wonder if this is gonna be like a bunch of red flags that get me rejected.
You'll have to renounce your Chinese citizenship if you have it as well as a few other things. Your father would be the biggest issue but it's worth a shot IMO. Seriously be honest you can get into shitloads of trouble for lying on it. I'm not trying to scare you but I personally know someone who lied on it and it fucked their life up for a bit later down the line when it was found out. If you're going for TS they go into way more depth too.
Idk how PRC laws work, but I think it's supposed to be automatically revoked the moment I received US Citizenship, not sure if I'm need to do anything.
could also make you an asset for the right job. worth a try.
not a fun place to live
Why? I'm having a pretty fun time right now
Political issues, censorship of entertainment (VPN is unreliable)... I'm just too used to western media, food safety issues, air pollution (I noticed the air is less polluted when I arrived in the US I noticed more trees too),
Kinda still have PTSD from when I had a fight with my older brother and he kinda chased me around in the apartment unit, so I ran away, I was scared, it was one of my first Adverse Childhood Experiences, nobody intevened.
I also said too much pro-HK and pro-Taiwan stuff, I don't feel comfortable entering their jurisdiction (even if they might not do anything, its still uncomfortable).
This is a country that have denied giving legal documentation to me, because my parents gave birth to me without government permission (One Child Policy, I'm the 2nd Child). They forced my family to pay a large amount of money, a "fine" they call it, so I can legally exist in the system. Remember, without ID, you can't travel long distance or get a job. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heihaizi ; they've now changed the policy) They rejected my existence because it contradicts their policy. I resent the PRC government for doing that shit. That's what PRC does, hide "problems" they don't like, problems like my existence.
And I think the discrepancy between the my level of excitement (the lack of excitement, that is) compared to a White Westerner, when it come to China, is because to a White Westerner, everything seems like a new experience, for me, its just reviving old, tramatic memories, an entire society that revolves around Filial Piety and this Filial Piety is used to justify child abuse. A parent can hit their child on the street and cops will let it happen, nobody will ever intervene. (Not saying that my parent ever did that in public, but they could've) That's what the society is. ultra-conservative, patriarchal, misogynistic (I'm a dude, but still, I don't like seeing that stuff), toxic masculinity. If you live a life without getting married and have children, you're seen as a failure.
To be fair, ultra-conservatism and filial piety is not unique to Mainland China, but that combined with politics, censorship, and pollution, safety (remember, censorship can hide those problems), and childhood traumas, makes it a unattrative place to live.
It might be fun for you, but wouldn't be fun for me.
That’s quite a journey! Glad you found your place here. I hope one day PRC and US can teach each other the parts they get right.
teach each other the parts they get right.
Oh yea, as much I love the US overall, it's still crazy how the US have zero platform safety barriers... 😖 I remember being afraid of falling in the tracks when I was a kid lol
Hopefully the best part gets kept, and the worst parts are gotten rid of.
I hope there is a future where these stupid national borders are gone and we have a massive Worldwide version of the Schengen area, and everyone is tolerant of each other, no more scarcity, no more conflict, that'd be awesome!
Platform safety barriers
True! The subway here is just hobbling along compared to the nice trains over there lol
massive Worldwide version of the Schengen area
I don’t think that’s terribly far-fetched! In our lifetime I think we’ll see more superfederal international governments coalesce, a world with clear borders, fewer weapons, and a collective focus on common goals.
where everyone is tolerant of each other, no more scarcity, no more conflict
Hell yeah. Honestly I think the global rise of fascism predicts that coming together. That society is just too organized and united to be bought and divided by the wealthiest. It would explain why they’ve done their best to increase conflict and fear everywhere, to stop the clock of progress and carve out their little kingdoms. Either way, it’s only delaying the inevitable, because deep down everyone knows that this period of housekeeping is well worth the world on the other side.
See you there :)
r/SecutiryClearance is full of interesting stories about this form.
Oh look, these people are filling it out while on the clock. They start off without clearance, typically.
Any clearance requires an SF-86, even contractors
Some use a slightly smaller SF-85
Filling it out digitally on the OPM website takes like 2-3 hours, max. Maybe across 2 sessions, if there's some info that you gotta go get from others and come back with later.
If somebody would ask me to fill out such a form, ever, I would tear the paper into pieces right there and then, and have a lot fun.
I despise bureaucracy, and if somebody wants me to do a job, they can fill out their own forms.
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