FSJ Wins Silver Trendy Award The Foreign Service Journal has been honored with a 2025 Silver TRENDY Award for Best Monthly Professional Society Magazine for its May 2024 centennial edition. This special issue marked the 100th anniversary of both the Foreign Service and AFSA, celebrating a century of service and storytelling in the U.S. Foreign Service community. Presented at the 2025 Salute to Association Excellence on March 13 at the Grand Hyatt in Washington, D.C., the TRENDY Awards recognize outstanding marketing and communications work across the association and nonprofit world. Sponsored by Association TRENDS, the awards celebrate creativity and substance in association publications, websites, social media, and more. n THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | JUNE 2025 57 AFSA NEWS Tools for Navigating Career Transitions AFSA recently hosted a webinar for Foreign Service professionals navigating career transitions, especially those facing unexpected departures from government service. AFSA Retiree Counselor Dolores Brown opened the session by highlighting AFSA’s Retirement Resources and Workforce hubs, which provide more than 100 curated documents on topics ranging from voluntary retirement to RIF-related benefits. This session is part of a broader AFSA initiative that emerged in response to recent disruptions affecting USAID personnel. Brown thanked members of the community for supporting the effort and introduced retired department employee, Diane Castiglione, who, in turn, welcomed the featured speaker, Jo Weech. Weech, CEO of Exemplary Consultants and an experienced recruitment strategist, acknowledged the various emotions that participants may have been experiencing, due to unexpected changes in their career paths. Thanking them for serving our country, she reminded them that seasoned experience would be valued in a variety of roles. She walked participants through the fundamentals of a modern job search, from building a credible, keywordoptimized LinkedIn profile to crafting résumés tailored to specific roles. She highlighted the importance of storytelling, encouraging attendees to reframe their professional experience in terms of challenges solved and value added. Weech demystified the use of AI tools to help edit application materials and provided actionable advice on how to network effectively, identify hidden opportunities, and approach informational interviews with confidence. The presentation concluded with a Q&A session addressing concerns about ageism, résumé gaps, remote 2024 AFSA-PAC Report During the period from 2023 to 2025, AFSA contributed a total of $10,000, divided equally between Republican and Democratic members of Congress. Because of limited funds, we cap contributions to sitting members on committees critical to AFSA interests. Since March, we have seen a significant increase in contributions to AFSA-PAC, which has allowed us greater access to a broader array of members of Congress. We have also used your donations to attend smaller fundraisers where AFSA President Tom Yazdgerdi engaged in face-to-face conversations with important lawmakers. This type of work has contributed to our notable legislative successes over the past two years. As far as our initiatives with Congress are concerned, the coming year is the most important in recent memory. Your continuing support will allow us to work with committee staff, representatives, and senators on legislation to protect our members’ interests, health benefits, and pensions. n work preferences, and strategies for switching industries. Attendees were reminded that LinkedIn profiles can— and should—be updated regularly to reflect different “career lanes.” A recording of the webinar is available at https://afsa.org/ videos. Weech received more than 150 thank-you notes, as participants expressed gratitude for compassion, tools, and “next steps” in their job searches. Additional sessions on career transitioningare coming soon. Keep an eye out for AFSAnets announcing the details of these future programs. n
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