Professor Anthony Glees Dr Julian Richards University of ... - PCG

The main points are:• More than three quarters of PCG members in the sample will regularlyapply for jobs requiring a security clearance: in only 24% of cases hadmembers not applied for any such jobs over the last 2 years• The majority of members in the sample (65% or broadly two-thirds) didnot have a security clearance in place when they applied for such jobs.The norm is not to have one in place• In 46% of cases where people applied for jobs requiring a securityclearance, they received a straight rejection. Of course, we cannot knowwhy. Rejections can have many causes and only a deeper survey wouldpermit us to draw conclusions as to whether those rejected wererepeatedly rejected, indicating that the lack of an in-place securityclearance was to blame, or whether the fit between the candidate and thejob was not strong enough. On the face of it, a straight rejection of almost50% of applicants is a cause for concern, given the special nature of theactivity at which we are here looking.• In a quarter of cases (24%) this rejection was received almostimmediately, i.e within 24 hours. This could suggest that somerecruitment agencies do employ an „automatic‟ filter system but thatothers do not, or that the speed with which applicants without securityclearances are filtered out may vary from company to company. Again afurther investigation would be appropriate but the stark fact that half ofthose who receive a straight rejection are rejected within 24 hours isplainly noteworthy.• Turning to the perceptions of contractors, it is striking that 74% of thesample (three-quarters) perceive it to be either „likely‟ or „very likely‟ thatagencies will automatically filter out non-SC holding applicants for jobsrequiring an SC.23