The US military has come to rely more and more on contractors to provide linguist services to function effectively in non-English speaking regions. The need for these services is particularly acute in the Middle East and Central Asia where US troops are actively engaged.
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Mar 22, 2010
Lend Me Your Ears: US Military Turns to Contractor Linguists
Source: Defense Industry Daily
Story flagged by:
Andrei Yefimov
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Interesting article, loaded with related hyperlinks.
There is a dark underside to this practice to hiring bilingual US Citizens: the preference by most employing firms which service US Government clients to consider ONLY applicants who ** already ** have active US Government personnel security clearances (and in many cases, additional eligibility for "special accesses").
That tendency, while understandable, become ultimately a self-defeating measure ... See more
Interesting article, loaded with related hyperlinks.
There is a dark underside to this practice to hiring bilingual US Citizens: the preference by most employing firms which service US Government clients to consider ONLY applicants who ** already ** have active US Government personnel security clearances (and in many cases, additional eligibility for "special accesses").
That tendency, while understandable, become ultimately a self-defeating measure because:
1. The existing earlier supply of already-cleared bilinguals is already employed, but most of them are in positions where their employers offer such intcentives for retention that those linguists tend to stay in place and not seek new or better employment.
2. Potential employers are reluctant to entail the considerable delay involved in nominating an applicant and waiting for the time-intensive processing (subject interview, single-scope background investigation, etc., a process which seems to require one year + for a normal course) of uncleared and otherwise-well-qualified bilingual applicants.
In that context, one well wonders how the OPM and DSS (DOD's arm chartered and funded for such conducting security investigations and adjudications on an applicant's "clearability") are allowed to skate along without being required to do their jobs with pending cases.
What a travesty, about which numerous astonishing examples abound!
Regards,
Stephen H. Franke ▲ Collapse
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