Foreign Service 101

      I didn't really understand at first what the Foreign Service was all about when we first applied.  So I thought for posterity's sake, I should write a little bit more about it, and the application process.  Right off, I will say that it is very competitive.  Briant and I read enough about it to know that it would take an absolute miracle to get in.  For example, the year that we first applied, in 2012, they had 22,000 applicants and only 425 of them were hired.  That's only 1.9% of the applicants!  Like I said, a miracle!  Crazy us, we still applied.  :)  It is easy to see after reading this, that we're here because of divine intervention!

      Instead of reinventing the wheel, I decided to post an entry from a blog called "Get out the Map," at http://chadhoughton.wordpress.com/foreign-service-101/, that explains a lot:    

What is the Foreign Service?

The Foreign Service is a branch of the U.S. Department of State that represents the United States’ interests abroad. A Foreign Service Officer (FSO) is a diplomat.  There are five career tracks that an applicant must choose from before becoming an FSO:

•    Consular: Consular Officers protect Americans abroad and strengthen U.S. border security
•    Economic: Economic Officers promote economic partnerships, development, and fair trade
•    Management: Management Officers run our embassies and make American diplomacy work
•    Political: Political Officers analyze political events
•    Public Diplomacy: Public Diplomacy Officers explain American values and policies

Do you know where you will be going?

Not yet.  All new diplomats must go through a training program called A-100.  The content of the program is classified from what I understand so I won’t be able to write much about it here for fear of losing my hard-earned security clearance.  A-100 is about six weeks long.  In the beginning of A-100, each new class receives a list of possible posts.  New officers work with a career officer and prepare a ranked list of their “bids.”  The State Department decides where to send you, and you find out your first post at the end of your training during a ceremony called Flag Day.

How do you become a Foreign Service Officer?

It is a very competitive and long process.  I started my candidacy in February of 2012 and received an offer about a year later.  From what I understand, that’s fairly fast.  Most candidacies can take up to a year and a half depending on many factors including how you scored on the oral assessment and how long your security and medical clearances take.

You start by registering to take the Foreign Service Written Exam, which covers just about everything you could imagine: marketing, management, IT, geography, world and American history, english expression, reading comprehension, writing, political science, international relations, economics, and a bit of pop culture history.  It takes about six to eight weeks to get your results.  The test is administered during certain test windows throughout the year and is taken at testing labs via a computer.

If you pass the written exam, you are invited to submit a series of essay questions and a resume to the QEP (qualifying panel).  This is perhaps the least understood and most frustrating stage of the process for candidates who do not make it through this part.  The QEP evaluate you as a “total candidate,” relying on the answers you provided to the essays as well as your overall application.  If you pass this part of the process, you are invited to schedule a testing date to take the Oral Assessment.

What is the “Oral Assessment?”

The Oral Assessment is an all-day “interview” in DC with a group of other aspiring FSO’s who were invited to participate (following passing the written exam and the QEP).  it consists of three components: Group Exercise, Case Management Exercise, Panel Interview.

The Group Exercise requires you to review a briefing book on a particular project or initiative.  You must then work with a group of three to five other FSO’s to decide whose project you will fund or pursue using a limited budget.  While this is going on, you are timed and observed by three to four assessors.

The Case Management Exercise is a 90-minute individual assessment.  You are presented with another briefing book (this one much larger than the one you had for the Group Exercise).  In that book is a set of instructions and A LOT of information.  The goal is to absorb all of the information, parse out what is useful and not useful, and use that information to prepare a memo to the ambassador, following whatever instructions you are given.  90 minutes seems like a long time.  It isn’t!

The Panel Interview is the most like a typical job interview.  You are interviewed individually by two to three assessors.  They will ask you a series of questions about you, your desire to join the Foreign Service, your career and academic history, and other biographical questions.  They will also present you with various scenarios and ask how you would manage through those scenarios.  This is one of the more challenging parts of the day as it requires you to think on your feet and articulate your thinking in a somewhat stressful environment.

Each exercise/segment is scored discretely and separately so if you do poorly on one exercise, you can make up for it in another.

What happens after the Oral Assessment?

Unlike the written exam, you don’t merely pass or fail the orals.  You receive a raw score that becomes very important to you as you continue to navigate the hiring process.  The scores are averaged among all three components of the oral assessment.  At the end of that very long day, you are ushered into a room with your fellow testees.  You are then called one by one to hear your results.  Scores are on a 7 point scale, and you need a 5.3 to pass.

I am not familiar with (nor am I sure if this is even publicly available) pass rates for the Oral Assessment, I can tell you that we had about 8 people pass from a group of about 20 when I took my assessment.

As soon as you find your score, you receive a “conditional offer” from State, and you are taken in immediately for a security clearance interview and fingerprinting.  You then begin the process of obtaining your Medical and Security clearances.

What are the Medical and Security Clearances?

As an FSO, you will require top secret clearance to conduct much of your work so you need to get cleared before the State department can hire you.  You are also required to serve anywhere that the US government and the State department needs you to serve.  That may mean serving in remote areas without access to things we take for granted in the US like easy access to hospitals or clinics.  It may also mean serving in geographically challenging places (e.g. high altitudes, inadequate water supplies, etc.).  To be sure that you are truly “worldwide available” as the State department calls it, you must also pass a fairly rigorous medical clearance process.

The medical clearance requires an extensive physical.  If you are lucky enough to live in DC, you can get this done fairly easily. Otherwise, you will need to have your family physician mail a LOT of information to the State department.

The security clearance process is fairly intensive.  They look at a variety of factors, but you can be sure that they do a very good job of checking you out and ensuring that you are suitable for clearance and employment as a representative of the US government.  The medical and security processes can take as little as three months or up to a year if you have issues that cause delays in your evaluation (e.g. extensive foreign contacts).

What happens after you get your clearances?  Does the process ever end?

So you finally get your medical and security clearances!  You are probably about nine months into the process at this point.  Once you are cleared for medical and security, you go to something called Final Suitability Review.  Much like the QEP, there is very little known about this process.  The FSR involves a final look at you as a total candidate including your security and background information, scores, and overall profile.  If they believe you are suitable for employment, they will send you a letter in the mail telling you that you are officially on the hiring register.  Some folks go through FSR fairly quickly, but I have heard of others being in adjudication at the FSR stage for months.  As in all things with the State department: it depends.

What is “the register?”

You’ve climbed the mountain known as the Foreign Service recruitment process and made it to the other side.  You are now read to be hired, right?  Sort of… A friend of mine said that he thought the hardest part of the recruitment process was the waiting.  I think he was right.

The register is a list of candidates who have passed their oral assessments, passed their medical and security clearances, and passed the Final Suitability Review.  Candidates are listed in rank order on the register based on their scores from the Oral Assessment.  If two candidates have the same score, the person who made it on the register first is placed higher.  The register is a living and breathing document because new candidates are being added every month as new recruits clear the medical and security hurdles so your rank fluctuates.

The register is important because it is what the State Department uses to decide who they will invite to officially join the ranks of the diplomatic corps.  A few times a year, the State Department will hire a new “class” of FSO’s, and they will do so by starting at the top of the register and moving their way down.  Class sizes have fluctuated over the years but have gotten much smaller recently due to budget cuts.  They can be anywhere from 20 to 90 people and are composed of people from all five cones.

Each cone (e.g. political, consular, etc.) maintains its own register so you are only competing against those in your cone.  You can “move up” the register by adding extra points for language proficiency, but that requires passing a rather rigorous oral exam.  Veterans will also get additional bonus points.

You stay on the register for up to 18 months.  If you have not received an offer by then, you expire from the register and start the whole process over (beginning with the written exam).  You can be on more than one register at a time or you can improve your score by starting all over again.  Many candidates will pass orals, go onto the register, and then start testing again just to try and improve their score.

So you are finally in! Now what?

After waiting for months on the register and obsessing about your rank and whether or not you are annoying your HR adviser with too many requests for your latest ranking… you get the much anticipated formal offer of employment.  Your new journey as a diplomat begins with something called A-100, a six week training program for new FSOs.  Think of it as diplomat boot camp.
Early in that training program, you will receive a “bid list” of potential posts that your class may be assigned.  You’ll work with a Career Development Officer to help rank the list High, Medium, and Low.  During the last week of training, you will attend a ceremony called Flag Day where you find out where you will be spending the next two to three years of your life.

What happens after A-100? 

Essentially, you have more training.  Depending on your post, you may be in DC for anywhere from two weeks to a year for additional training.  That training can be job specific (consular training for those going on to a consular post) or language training.  The State department will send you to school for anywhere from six to nine months to learn a language if your new post requires it.

Where do you live when you go to post?

The State department will provide housing for you while abroad.  Most of the time, it is furnished, and you will be allowed to ship a portion of your household items to post (including pets and cars).  If it is unfurnished, you can ship up a lot of your furniture to post.

Will you be moving every two to three years?

You will indeed.  Every couple of years, you will bid on new posts or apply for new posts depending on where you are in your career.  Sometimes, you’ll come back to DC for a post at Main State, and there are opportunities to participate in exchange programs with congress or even the diplomatic corps of other countries.

What else?

Well… I think I covered the basics, but check out the State Department site for more information.  I consider it a privilege and honor to be able to serve my country in this way, and I am very much looking forward to this new life adventure.

http://chadhoughton.wordpress.com/foreign-service-101/