The Foreign Service Journal, May 2010

and Foreign Service hiring cycles. As Hurst notes, “The difference be- tween this and DRI is those were one-time fills [which] disappeared once they moved up to the mid- level. We’ve asked the posts to look at these positions as more long- term.” One CDO tells the Journal , “The perception of 3.0 is that it’s about the entry level” —but it’s also about strengthening the mid-level. “We’ve asked the bureaus to look at their ex- isting positions to see if the language proficiency required for those positions could be higher. “The objective is to build the training float, so there are now going to be more opportunities for mid-level officers to get more language training.” Another HR officer says that “We’ve tried to look strategically about where the need will be over the next 10 years, and put officers in the right places.” Adds Margaret Dean, “We have been looking at deficit areas, which were essentially management and economic, and then secondarily consular recruitment. We have been very constrained on the management side; that’s the area we have focused on the most.” And a recruiting officer tells the Journal , “When it comes to specialists, there are lots of gaps in the ranks, es- pecially IT specialists, security and construction engineers, management specialists and librarians.” In order to implement 3.0, the State Department’s re- cruiting and examination methods have been shifted into a higher gear. The Foreign Service Officer Test (previ- ously called the written exam) is now given online. And while it used to be given once a year, it is now offered three times each year and in a greater number of physical loca- tions. In 2010, the number of available seats for each ses- sion of the exam (held over an eight-day period) has nearly doubled, from 5,000 to 9,000. In addition, the introduction of a new step in the ex- amination process, the Qualifications Evaluation Panel, has helped to make the process faster and more efficient. The QEP looks at aspects of the candidates’ backgrounds that were previously excluded from consideration until late in the process, such as education, career, overseas experi- ence and foreign-language proficiency. Special emphasis is given to in-demand languages such as Arabic and Mandarin Chinese. If candidates are given extra points toward hiring for their knowledge of an in-demand language, they also must agree to serve two tours using that language. The QEP was instituted in 2007, in time for the current hiring surge. Says HR officer Margaret Dean, “Because of the QEP part, you knock out a lot of people who would never have passed the oral anyway. You have a better batch of candidates going through the oral, so you have a better pass rate and you’re able to deal with them quicker. You get a higher yield and produce candidates for the register a lot faster.” The new process also produced more candi- dates who met the criteria the service was looking for. The oral exam is unchanged, and HR appears certain that the quality of incoming Foreign Service members re- mains intact despite the higher numbers of candidates being added to the register. Quality, Not Just Quantity As a consequence of the increased hiring, the Foreign Service Institute is extraordinarily busy. A few years ago, the A-100 orientation class for generalists was given five times a year, with about 60 people in each class. Now it’s held every six weeks, with 95 people in each class. And on the specialist side, FSI has increased both the frequency and size of entering classes. The accelerated recruiting, testing and training should yield a much larger State Department by 2013. The pro- jected size of the department’s total Foreign Service con- tingent (generalists and specialists) is 14,633, an increase of 2,861 (24 percent) over 2008. State’s Civil Service em- ployment is projected to rise 14 percent, from 10,274 to 11,743. That comes to a projected cumulative increase of 20 percent in State’s overall employment by three years from now. The Diplomacy 3.0 surge is having a big effect on USAID, as well. State expects that agency’s Foreign Serv- ice work force to double between 2008 and 2013, from ap- proximately 1,100 to 2,200. Along with increasing the numbers of federal employ- ees, HR is also taking a careful look at the department’s use of contractors. For many years, State, like many federal 26 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / M A Y 2 0 1 0 F O C U S HR appears certain that the quality of incoming Foreign Service members remains unchanged despite the higher numbers being added to the register.