There is a Difference Between Being Fired vs Discharged vs Laid Off

One of the more straightforward questions on the SF-86 asks how you left an employer within the past seven years. Specifically, it asks whether you were fired, quit after being told you would be fired, or left by mutual agreement following allegations of misconduct or unsatisfactory performance.

In my opinion, this isn’t a gray area. Most people know whether they were fired. Yet time and time again, applicants try to soften the circumstances of an employment termination, hoping a more favorable explanation will somehow make the issue disappear. It won’t. In fact, attempting to hide or misrepresent the reason you left a job often becomes a bigger problem than the termination itself.

A recent Defense Office of Hearings and Appeals (DOHA) case illustrates exactly why honesty matters.

On her SF-86, the applicant reported that she left Company A because the company “no longer needed her services.” For Company B, she indicated that she had been laid off.

During her background investigation, the investigator asked her to explain why she left each employer. Regarding Company A, she initially claimed she voluntarily resigned because she was exhausted from working two jobs. The investigator already had information from the employer that contradicted her account, so he asked the question again. This time, she admitted she had frequently called in sick, was asked to provide a doctor’s note, confessed she had lied about being ill, and was ultimately terminated.

When discussing Company B, the applicant acknowledged she had been fired for violating company policy after making an inappropriate social media post. She explained that she selected “laid off” on the SF-86 because she believed it was the closest option to being discharged. Eventually, she admitted she should have disclosed that she had been fired from both employers.

Unfortunately, the employment issues weren’t the only problems.

The applicant also answered “no” to the SF-86 question asking whether she had been arrested within the previous seven years. In reality, she had been arrested for assault following an alcohol-fueled argument with her husband during which she attempted to stab him. The record also reflected diagnoses of alcohol use disorder and persistent depressive disorder.

While those underlying issues would have required careful review under the national security adjudicative guidelines, the repeated pattern of dishonesty made the case far more difficult to overcome. Rather than simply evaluating concerns related to conduct, alcohol, and mental health, the DOHA judge was also faced with multiple instances of deliberate falsification on the SF-86 and during the background investigation.

The lesson is an important one for anyone completing a security clearance application: investigators expect applicants to have made mistakes. What they have far less tolerance for is attempting to hide those mistakes. A termination, an arrest, or other adverse event does not automatically end your chances of obtaining a clearance. But being dishonest about those events can.. You can read the entire case summary here.