Security Clearance Sponsorship -- Entry Level Roles in Government Consulting

Custom Analysis (CA) is looking for seniors and recent grads who would like to move to the Washington, DC area to work on projects for the Defense and Intelligence Community.

These positions require security clearances at the TS/SCI (Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmentalized Information) level and can take up to a year to attain.

For the right candidates, CA is willing to sponsor security clearances in the hopes that when they get it, there will be an open position and we can hire you.

Why would CA do this?

• Recruiting from the pool of people with existing clearances is very competitive
• We believe we can get an edge by sponsoring entry level talent if we think longer term (most companies won’t do this)
• We also believe the type of skills and attributes we’re looking for will come from entry level talent which can help us grow the company

Why would you do this?

• The job market at the moment is tough for new grads
• If you have a security clearance, getting a job in the Federal Defense and Intelligence industry is much easier
• If you’re a senior, you could have a clearance by the time you graduate and set yourself up with a good job in the industry and not have to endure a period of under or unemployment
• If you’re a recent grad, you won’t have a job right away, but in a year’s time you could be in a much better position to get a better job. Pretty much no downside
• The federal cleared space has a lot of opportunities in different domains (management consulting, tech stuff, comms, etc.). Even if you never thought you’d be working in defense or intelligence, you could be doing something you always wanted to do from a skills perspective
• The salaries are pretty good for cleared work compared to their private sector counterparts, at least at the junior level. Think a minimum of $75k/year + benefits
• There is no obligation to work for CA. We hope you strongly consider us if there is a position open, but if you go elsewhere, no hard feelings

Clearance Qualifications

The clearance process can be somewhat intimidating, but basically it’s an extensive background check. The idea is they’re assessing whether you are a security risk.

Assuming you’ve stayed out of trouble, you’ll just need to be a US citizen and avoid illegal drug use (and marijuana, if legal at the state level). There are other factors that go into whether or not you’ll get one (clean financial history, extensive foreign contacts not reasonably explained, etc) but for the most part, it’s pretty straightforward.

What CA is looking for

My partner and I (Dale) started this company because we didn’t enjoy a lot of the nonsense that came from working for a larger organization.

That has translated into a company culture where if you do a good job, we’ll leave you alone to keep doing your work. In professional services, doing a good job means making the client happy, in whatever capacity you’re in.

Generally speaking, CA looks for people who can figure things out. When we started the company, that means Googling things like Excel formulas or obscure policy documents and then applying to your work.

Today, that may mean using AI to do more advanced stuff like building tools that automate workflows or taking a creative idea you had and finding practical ways to implement it in a government context.

If you ever had a side project or learned to tinker with new tools even if no one asked you to, there’s a good chance you’d fit in.

More about our company culture can be found here:

https://www.custom-analysis.com/careers

Specific Roles

The roles we hire for can change, but right now I’m looking for a couple categories of folks:

• AI Savvy Analytics/Business Intelligence Developers: If you can use AI to build a custom dashboard and actually deploy it in the customer environment, you’d be a good fit
• Facilities Management folks (all types): We’re staffing a project that helps an intelligence agency manage their facility projects. Say they’re putting up a new building and hired a bunch of contractors to build it. They need people who can help them make sure the contractors are building the right thing, their work is up to bar, the financials are managed correctly, customer requests are handled, and the paperwork is up to snuff. If you’re an engineering major, designer, architect, or financial whiz, you’d be good on this project.

If you don’t think you’d fit either of the above but fit the “can figure things out” role, I’d still like to talk to you.

What does the day-to-day look like?

It’s different per project but generally you’ll spend 40 hours per week sitting with a team composed of government employees and consultants/contractors, performing your main job. The nature of jobs in this world is that you have to be onsite at a “SCIF,” or Sensitive Compartmentalized Information Facility, because you’ll need access to classified systems/information.

How to apply

Send an email to dale@custom-analysis.com and CC coby@custom-analysis.com with the subject line: Clearance Pipeline -- [Your Name]

Please include:

• Your resume
• A short paragraph about yourself -- who you are, what you studied, what you're interested in
• One example of something you built or figured out (a few sentences is fine)
• A reference we can contact

We’ll only consider applicants that follow the instructions. You can use AI for the application but I’d like to get a sense of how you personally communicate so I’d prefer you didn’t.