Updating Personnel Vetting and Security Clearance Guidelines for Future Generations

The United States could face challenges in the near future with recruiting and retaining younger generations into both public trust positions and, specifically, sensitive positions that require more in-depth personnel vetting for the purposes of receiving a security clearance. For one, there is some evidence that millennial expectations for these positionsparticularly in the government sectormay differ from those of older age groups (Weinbaum, Girven, and Oberholtzer, 2016). Furthermore, several factors that traditionally and historically have been used to gauge an individuals eligibility for a security clearance (e.g., lifestyle choices and behaviors, personal and professional associations, financial circumstances) no longer may be feasible or applicable to younger age cohorts in the same manner they were applied to earlier generations. For example, single-sex relationships are legal today. So, too, is marijuana use in many states. Also, high levels of student debt are commonplace today.