The Foreign Service Journal, June 2008

exams is seen as a badge of honor for those few who make it through. So when former Director General of the Foreign Service George Staples ordered a review and improvement of the entry process in 2006, those tasked with the work knew they must proceed with great caution. Their assignment was to make the hiring process faster and more candidate-friendly in order to attract and hire the best applicants. The DG also sought to increase minority hiring. By government standards, the changes to the Foreign Service generalist entry process have been made at warp speed. State started the review during the summer of 2006, and the first new Foreign Service Officer Test — formerly called the Foreign Service Written Exam— was given in the fall of 2007. The basic structure of the test remains intact. Candidates still have to pass the FSOT — what we’ll call “the written exam” — to be invited to take the Oral Assessment. But the written exam is now being offered online, more often and more widely than before. The most significant changes are the adoption of a substantially more demanding registration procedure and the introduction of a Qualifications Evaluation Panel. Following the written exam, the panel reviews the com- plete file of each applicant who passes, taking the mea- sure of what is now called the “Total Candidate” — including education, work and overseas experience, and foreign languages spoken. Both new elements are the subject of some controversy, especially the QEP, which many candidates believe lacks transparency. To gain a comprehensive picture of the changes being implemented, the Journal spoke with officials in the Bureau of Human Resources, the Office of Recruitment, Examination and Employment, and the Board of Examiners. We also followed online discussions among the two exam Yahoo Groups, corresponding directly with more than a dozen FSO candidates — nine of whom have taken both the old and the new tests. HR officials responsible for the hiring process offered invaluable assistance and extensive information to the Journal , and welcomed all feedback. They are the first to ac- knowledge that the new system is still a work in progress. While You Were Waiting For many years, State management has been con- cerned about the extremely long time it takes to hire a Foreign Service officer. In recent years, the average wait between the written exam and the job offer has been 14 months; and that was an improvement over the two-year wait many candidates had experienced. The written exam was usually given only once a year, in April. This meant that the perfect diplomat might have to wait up to 11 months just to take the first step. After the written exam, candidates waited three months for their results. Those who passed would be invited to take the Oral Assessment at some future date. Then, once that perfect future diplomat passed the orals, another potentially long wait was in store while the required medical and security clearances were processed. Only after those clearances were complete would a candidate be placed on the register. But even that achievement was (and still is) no guarantee of a job. It’s just a promise that if the needs of the Service reach as far as that candidate’s number on the register before 18 months elapse, an offer will be made to join an A-100 training class for new diplomats. (Note: Foreign Service specialists have different entry procedures, all outlined on the careers.state.gov Web site.) Over the past decade, State flirted with the possibility of overhauling the exam process and made marginal changes. Wanting to compete more effectively in the so- called “War for Talent,” the department participated in a study by the management consulting firm McKinsey & Company in 1997 that looked at recruiting and retaining the best employees. At that time, the dot.com boom had federal managers worried. More recently, it has been higher salaries and quicker intake for jobs in the private sector that have created a reasonable concern among State recruiters. During his tenure, Secretary of State Colin Powell did succeed in reducing the amount of time it took to process security clearances, but the total hiring process still averaged more than a year. F O C U S 16 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / J U N E 2 0 0 8 This created a level playing field for candidates, but maybe it was too level. Shawn Dorman is a former political officer who went through the Foreign Service exam process in 1992. She served in Bishkek, Jakarta and the State Department Operations Center. The Journal ’s associate editor, she is the editor of Inside a U.S. Embassy , AFSA’s best-selling book about the Foreign Service career.