There’s an old saying that goes, “It doesn’t matter what you know, it matters who you know.” We tend to think we know a lot of people, but do we really? Do we know where they have worked before? Do we know where they plan to go next? Do we know whether they would recommend people who know even more than we do? Sadly, we often don’t realize how much we rely on past managers, trusted partners, and old teammates until we’re scrambling for a Plan B and Plan C.
Most cleared professionals never think about this until it’s simply too late. A contract could end early. A funding stream could get pulled. A customer could decide to recompete everything overnight. Suddenly you’re left staring at your phone wondering who you can trust to call or digging through old inboxes hoping you saved a number you meant to write down years ago.
In cleared work especially, relationships are the real job security. Your memory will fail you and a spreadsheet in your head is useless when you need to get referred onto a new project quickly. Job titles do change, people jump to new companies, and even names get fuzzy with time. Do we truly know these people? Do they even know us well enough to pick up our call when we need help the most?
Good intentions and wishful thinking about “keeping in touch” usually vanish under the chaos of deadlines, deliverables, and daily life. Before you know it, your best contacts are out of reach and you’re left playing catch-up at the worst possible time (assuming you haven’t forgotten about them).
It doesn’t need to be this complicated. At a bare minimum, you just need to write this information down somewhere safe and reliable. A full name, past companies, current role, when and how you met, and one note about what makes them memorable. Your network is useless without this foundation.
Of course, you could say, “Isn’t this what LinkedIn is for?” But LinkedIn won’t remind you when you last spoke to a contact. It won’t tell you who introduced you, or whether that person just left their company yesterday. It won’t even organize which contacts you trust the most, and which ones always come through when you need them. LinkedIn is just a public address book. It’s not your private, personal network you can lean on when you need to land on your feet fast.
That’s exactly why I am building ClearOps. So cleared professionals can finally keep a real, living network that truly works for them. You won’t forget names, lose numbers, or panic when you suddenly need to find a Plan B. This software helps you build, organize, and actually maintain the kind of trusted relationships that quietly open doors behind the scenes long before you ever post your resume online.
In this industry, your relationships are your real security clearance. Treat them like they matter and never risk losing them again. ClearOps exists to make sure you don’t.
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