The Foreign Service Journal, April 2004

• Expanding programs for Volunteer Recruiters, Recruiters Emeritus, the Pickering Program, and launch- ing the Rangel Program. • Focusing the Diplomats-in-Residence Program on recruitment and outreach. • Offering “oral prep sessions” and writing workshops nationwide to candidates. • Piloting an online application process for specialists. • “Unblindfolding” the generalist oral assessment to take into account candidates’ academic and professional backgrounds (retaining the unbiased nature of the “group exercise”), and focusing more on interpersonal and man- agement skills. • Offering the generalist written exam twice in 2002, once in other years. • Reducing the average hiring delay from written exam to A-100 from 27 months in 2001 to 10 months today. • Increasing the hiring priority given to candidates who speak critical-needs languages like Arabic, Urdu and Chinese. • Expanding the size and increasing the frequency of specialist and generalist orientation classes. • Raising the ceilings on language training — especial- ly in hard languages. • Providing leadership and management training to our new hires, as well as their supervisors. • Expanding the availability of all “tradecraft” courses and ensuring that all new employees receive all necessary training. • Instituting a biennial “Employee Commitment and Satisfaction Survey” to obtain feedback from all American employees of the State Department. The assignment and training process has been reformed as well. For the first time in years, new generalists are given the option of bidding on initial one-year tours in a range of understaffed Washington offices in both functional and regional bureaus. Roughly 10 percent of each entering class is assigned domestically under this new policy. Deputy assistant secretaries in each receiving bureau are asked to assume the mentoring role for these new employ- F O C U S 22 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / A P R I L 2 0 0 4