You made the offer. The candidate signed. Everyone is happy. Then the clock starts, and nobody knows how long it runs.

The candidate is waiting on a security clearance. Maybe it is a brand new investigation. Maybe a clearance that lapsed and needs to be reinstated. Either way, your funded seat sits empty while the government does its part. And the longer it sits, the more nervous your candidate gets.

Here is the problem most hiring teams run into. They treat the wait as dead time. They go quiet. The candidate hears nothing for weeks. Then a recruiter from another shop calls with an offer that starts next Monday, and your candidate is gone.

I spent almost two years job hunting after I left the Navy. I have also reviewed plenty of applications from the hiring side for federal roles. I have watched good candidates slip away from both seats. This guide is for the employer trying to hold a cleared candidate through the adjudication gap without losing them and without breaking any rules.

How long does security clearance adjudication actually take?

Start with honest expectations. The law sets a goal that is faster than reality.

The Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 set timeliness goals for the government. The long term goal is to finish 90 percent of cases in an average of 60 days. That breaks down to 40 days for the investigation and 20 days for the adjudication.

That is the goal. It is not what you should plan around. Real timelines run longer, and they swing based on the level, the case, and the current backlog.

Here is the practical version. A Secret level case can move fast, in a few weeks. The typical case runs longer, often three to five months or more. Current DCSA data shows the fastest 90 percent of Secret cases completing within about 156 days. A Top Secret case takes longer, often several months, and sometimes close to a year for a complex file. The cleaner the candidate's background and the faster they answer follow up questions, the better your odds.

The single biggest thing you can do is stop guessing. Ask your facility security officer for a real status check. Your FSO can pull the case status and give you a grounded read on where it sits. That beats telling your candidate "soon" for the fifth week in a row.

What is an interim clearance and why does it matter to you?

This is the lever most hiring teams forget about. An interim clearance can get your candidate working far sooner than the final decision.

An interim clearance is a temporary eligibility. It can be granted while the full investigation is still running. If the early checks come back clean and there are no red flags, the government can grant interim eligibility at the Secret or sometimes the Top Secret level. That lets the person start on classified work before the case fully closes.

For your funded seat, this changes everything. Instead of waiting six months for a final decision, your candidate might be billable in a few weeks on an interim. The final adjudication keeps running in the background while real work gets done. The Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency handles this process for cleared industry.

Not every candidate qualifies for an interim. Foreign ties, financial issues, or anything that needs a closer look can hold it up. But you will never know unless you ask. Most teams that lose candidates never even raised the interim option. Want the candidate side of this? Our guide on the interim clearance timeline covers what the candidate is experiencing during this wait.

Why do cleared candidates walk during the wait?

Cleared veterans are in demand. A candidate with an active or reinstatable clearance can pick from several offers. So the wait is not a neutral pause for them. It is a window where competitors can swoop in.

From the candidate's seat, silence reads as bad news. They start to wonder if the offer is real. They start to wonder if you forgot about them. Bills do not wait for adjudication. A separating service member with a family cannot sit unpaid for six months on faith alone.

Four things drive candidates away during the gap:

Every one of these is fixable. None of them requires you to bend a rule or rush the government. They just require a plan and steady contact.

How do you keep a cleared candidate warm during the gap?

Treat the wait like a relationship, not a transaction. The candidate has not started yet, but they have already chosen you. Your job is to make sure they do not regret it.

Set a contact cadence and stick to it. A check in every two weeks is a good baseline. It does not need to be long. A short note that says "here is where your case stands, here is what is next, we are still excited to have you" does the work. The point is that they never wonder if you forgot.

Be honest about the timeline. Do not promise a date you cannot control. Say what you know and what you do not. "Top Secret cases often run several months, we have submitted everything, and we are watching for the interim" beats a fake "any day now."

If you can, give them something to do that does not need the clearance. Onboarding paperwork, unclassified training, team introductions, a laptop and a badge for the open areas. A candidate who has started something feels committed. A candidate sitting at home feels available.

For roles where the work is split, look at a non-classified ramp. Some contracts have unclassified tasks the person can do on day one. That gets them on payroll and bought in while the clearance finishes. It will not fit every billet, but when it fits, it is a strong retention move.

When should you reinstate instead of starting from scratch?

Not every cleared candidate needs a fresh investigation. Many veterans already hold a clearance or held one recently. That changes your whole timeline.

Two facts matter here. First, reciprocity. Agencies generally accept another agency's clearance decision. So a veteran who held an active clearance can often cross it over to your work instead of starting a new investigation. Second, the break in service window. If the person has been out of a cleared role for a short time, the clearance is often reinstatable. If the break runs long, usually past about two years, they will likely need a new investigation.

This is why your first question to a candidate should be about their clearance history. When did you last hold it, at what level, and is it still active. A candidate with a current or recently lapsed clearance can sometimes start far faster than a fresh investigation allows. We break down the rules in our piece on clearance reciprocity between agencies.

One more thing worth knowing. Under Trusted Workforce 2.0, the government moved many cleared people into continuous vetting. That replaced the old periodic reinvestigations for a lot of cases. It does not speed up a brand new investigation, but it does shape how active clearances stay current. Your FSO can tell you whether a candidate is enrolled in continuous vetting. Our guide on the cost savings of a cleared veteran hire shows how to put real numbers on this.

How do you read a cleared veteran's resume during the wait?

While the clearance runs, do not lose sight of why you wanted this person. A cleared veteran resume is dense and often hard to read if you do not speak military. The clearance is the gate, but the experience is the value.

Veterans tend to undersell. They write in acronyms and unit names. They say "we" when they mean "I led." A screener who does not translate this misses how good the candidate is. Here is what that looks like.

The military roles that produce cleared talent are easy to spot once you know the codes. Army 35F intelligence analysts and 35N signals intelligence analysts hold clearances as a basic part of the job. So do Air Force all source intelligence analysts and Army 25B IT specialists who run classified networks. These candidates already passed a federal background check. That vetting is value you do not have to pay for.

Remember that most resume screening tools rack and stack applicants by keyword match. They do not reject. They sort. A cleared veteran with a dense military resume can sink to the bottom of the stack simply because the words do not match your posting. Read past the acronyms during the wait so a strong cleared candidate does not slip down the list. For a deeper look at sourcing this talent, see our guide on how to find cleared veteran talent for defense roles.

When should you rescind a contingent offer?

Sometimes the answer is yes, pull it. But rescinding should be the last move, not the first reaction to a slow week.

Rescind when the situation is real, not when you are just impatient. Real reasons include an adjudication that comes back denied, a candidate who stops responding entirely, or a candidate who accepts another job and tells you. Those are clean reasons to release the seat and move on.

Do not rescind because the wait is taking longer than you hoped. That is the government's pace, not the candidate's fault. If you pull the offer over normal delay, you lose a vetted candidate and you teach your recruiting network that your offers are not solid.

Before you ever get to rescind, set the offer up right. Your offer letter should state plainly that employment is contingent on the candidate obtaining and maintaining the required clearance. It should set a realistic outer window. And it should keep the relationship open with a path to start sooner if an interim comes through. A clear offer protects both sides.

How does BMR help you keep cleared candidates in the pipeline?

Holding one candidate through a clearance gap is hard. The fix is a deeper bench, so one slow case does not sink your fill rate.

Best Military Resume runs a large and growing pool of veteran candidates. We add over 1,000 new veteran profiles every month, and veterans have built more than 60,000 resumes on the platform. Many of them are cleared or recently cleared, in fields like intelligence, cyber, and IT. When you have several qualified candidates in motion, the clearance wait stops being a single point of failure.

The play is simple. Keep your top candidate warm with steady contact and an interim push. At the same time, keep a couple of backups moving through your funnel. If you want to tap a steady stream of cleared and career ready veteran talent, you can reach out to access BMR's veteran talent pool.

The clearance gap is not the candidate's fault and it is not yours. It is the system's pace. Your edge is how you manage it. Stay in touch, chase the interim, ask about reinstatement, and keep your pipeline full. Do that and you will keep the cleared veterans you worked so hard to land.