Cleared roles are the slowest seats you will ever try to fill. A normal opening takes weeks. A role that needs a Secret or Top Secret clearance can sit open for months. The work piles up. The contract suffers. And every week that seat stays empty costs you money.

The problem is rarely the talent market. It is the timeline. If you start with an uncleared candidate, you wait on a federal background investigation. That investigation runs on its own clock, not yours.

There is a faster path. Hire a veteran who already holds the clearance. The clearance transfers. The wait shrinks. The seat fills in a fraction of the time.

This guide breaks down why cleared roles stall, how an already-cleared veteran collapses the timeline, and the exact steps a midsize company can use to fill these seats fast.

Why Do Cleared Roles Sit Open So Long?

Two forces keep cleared seats empty. The first is the investigation backlog. The second is a thin pool of cleared talent.

When you hire someone without a clearance, the government has to investigate them. That means an interview, record checks, and references. It takes time. Even after recent improvements, Secret and Top Secret cases still run longer than the targets. According to GAO reporting on Trusted Workforce 2.0, Top Secret cases have taken over a third longer than the timeliness goal in recent years.

So a fresh investigation can mean a candidate who cannot touch classified work for many months. You pay them. You wait. The contract clock keeps running.

The second force is supply. Cleared talent is scarce. Every defense contractor and GovCon firm is fishing in the same small pond. You are not just competing on salary. You are competing on who can start sooner.

Now add up what that empty seat costs. On a cleared contract, an unstaffed role can mean unbilled hours. It can mean a delivery date you miss. It can even put a contract option at risk. The longer the seat sits, the bigger the bill. A faster fill is not a nice-to-have. It protects the contract and the margin.

This is why so many midsize firms struggle here. They do not run a dedicated cleared-sourcing motion like the big primes do. They post the job and hope a cleared candidate finds it. That approach is slow by design. The fix is to flip the order and source for the clearance first.

How Does an Already-Cleared Veteran Collapse the Timeline?

A veteran who left service with an active clearance brings it with them. The clearance does not vanish the day they take off the uniform. It stays valid for a window of time. And it can move with them to your company.

This is the whole game. You are not starting a new investigation. You are picking up one that is already done. The federal government already vetted this person. You inherit that work.

The difference in speed is huge. A new investigation can run many months. Picking up an existing clearance can take days. That gap is the time-to-fill you are trying to cut.

Veterans are also a deep source of cleared talent. Many separate every year holding a Secret or Top Secret clearance from active duty. They were cleared to do their jobs. Now they are looking for the next one. That pool is exactly where you want to fish.

What Is Clearance Reciprocity and How Does It Help You?

Reciprocity is the rule that makes the whole thing work. It means one agency's clearance is honored by another. A legitimate clearance is meant to transfer between government agencies and the contractors who serve them.

So a veteran cleared by the Army can move that clearance to your defense contract. You do not redo the investigation. You accept the one that already exists. The DNI reciprocity policy sets this expectation across the government.

The speed gains here are real and recent. DCSA brought reciprocity timelines down from an average of 65 days to five days or less. That is the difference between a quarter lost and a week.

There are limits worth knowing. Reciprocity can stall if the last investigation is very old. The general guide is seven years for Top Secret, ten years for Secret, and fifteen years for Confidential. If the investigation is older than that, the clearance may not transfer cleanly. But for a recently separated veteran, the dates are usually well inside the window.

Can a New Hire Start Before the Full Clearance Clears?

Yes, in many cases. This is what an interim clearance does. An interim lets a candidate begin work on a conditional basis while the full process finishes.

Your Facility Security Officer requests it after a conditional offer. If granted, the new hire can start on certain classified work right away. The full adjudication continues in the background. You are not stuck waiting for every box to be checked before anyone shows up.

Interim clearances are not automatic. They depend on the role, the level of access, and what the early checks show. But used well, an interim shaves weeks off the start date. Pair an interim with a veteran who already holds a clearance and the math gets even better.

For a deeper breakdown on timing, see our guide on when a new hire can begin on an interim clearance. It walks through the start-date question step by step.

What About a Veteran Whose Clearance Lapsed?

A lapsed clearance is not always a dead end. The key number is 24 months.

If a veteran has been out of a cleared position for less than 24 months, their prior clearance can often be reinstated or picked up. The vetting work still counts. You may still skip a full new investigation.

Once the break passes 24 months, the rule changes. The government requires a new initial investigation, no matter how recent the old one was. At that point the speed advantage is gone, and you are back to waiting.

So timing matters. A veteran who separated 14 months ago with an active Secret is a far faster hire than one who has been out of cleared work for three years. We cover this in detail in our guide on hiring a veteran whose clearance lapsed and the 24-month rule.

Where Do Cleared Veterans Actually Separate From?

To hire cleared veterans fast, you have to know where they come from. Cleared talent does not pool randomly. It clusters around certain jobs and certain career fields.

Intelligence roles are a strong source. Analysts, signals specialists, and human intelligence collectors all hold high-level clearances. So do many cyber and IT roles, where access to classified networks is part of the job. Communications, special operations support, and certain logistics roles also carry clearances.

If you are sourcing for these seats, look at the military jobs that map to them. For example, an Army intelligence analyst often separates with a Top Secret. You can see how that role translates to civilian work on our 35F Intelligence Analyst career page. Cyber operations specialists are another deep source. Their path is laid out on the 17C Cyber Operations Specialist page.

Knowing the source jobs sharpens your search. Instead of posting and praying, you target the people most likely to already hold what you need. For a broader view on where this talent lives, read our guide on how to find cleared veteran talent for defense roles.

What Is a Fast Cleared-Hire Workflow?

Speed comes from a tight process. The companies that fill cleared seats fast all run a version of the same playbook. Here is the workflow, step by step.

The key is order. Sourcing cleared people first changes everything downstream. The whole point is to avoid the new investigation that eats your timeline.

This workflow is cleared-specific. If your role does not require a clearance, the general principles still apply but the steps differ. Our guide on how to reduce time-to-hire for veteran candidates covers the broader playbook for any veteran hire.

How Do You Verify a Clearance Without Slowing Down?

You cannot verify a clearance from a resume alone. The resume line is a claim. The real check happens through official systems your FSO can access.

That said, the resume tells you where to start. A clear, well-written clearance line speeds your screening. You want the level, the type of investigation, and the dates laid out plainly. Our guide on how to read a security clearance on a resume shows you what each part means.

When you make a conditional offer, your FSO confirms the clearance through the proper channels. They check the level and whether it can transfer. The DCSA investigation and clearance process page lays out how this vetting works on the government side.

Do not treat verification as a reason to slow down. Run it in parallel with your offer and onboarding. The faster your FSO starts, the faster the seat fills.

Where Do You Find These Cleared Veterans?

The hard part is supply. You can know all of this and still struggle to find cleared veterans who fit your roles. They are in high demand and short supply.

That is where a veteran talent pool changes the math. BMR has over 1,000 new veteran profiles added every month. Many separate from intelligence, cyber, and other cleared career fields. The pool keeps growing, so the supply of cleared and clearance-eligible candidates stays fresh.

That volume matters for cleared roles more than almost any other kind of hire. A fresh, growing pool means you are not stuck recycling the same handful of names every other contractor is also chasing. With 60,000 resumes built on the platform, the depth in defense-adjacent fields runs deep.

The government side also wants you hiring veterans. The Department of Labor VETS program backs employers who build a veteran-hiring motion. Cleared veterans are the highest-value slice of that pool.

Fill Your Cleared Seats Faster

Cleared roles do not have to sit open for months. The slow timeline comes from the investigation, not the talent. Skip the investigation and you skip the wait.

The path is straightforward. Source veterans who already hold the clearance. Confirm the level and the dates. Move fast on the offer. Let reciprocity or an interim do the heavy lifting. A seat that used to take a quarter to fill can fill in weeks.

The one thing you cannot fake is supply. You need a steady stream of cleared and clearance-eligible veterans to choose from. That is exactly what BMR's talent pool gives you.

If you want access to cleared veteran talent for your defense and GovCon roles, reach out through our hire page. We will connect you with veterans who can fill those hard seats fast.