The Foreign Service Journal, October 2012

22 OCTOBER 2012 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL TODAY’S NEWHIRES: WHAT THEY SEE, WHAT THEY SAY F ollowing a Foreign Service hiring wave beginning in 2008, designed to replenish depleted ranks, the Foreign Service today once again resembles the boa constrictor that swallowed an elephant. And as Saint Exupéry describes the boa in The Little Prince : “You have great truths inside you if only anyone would bother to look.” The Department of State and the U.S. Agency for Interna- tional Development have welcomed a major influx of new talent under State’s Diplomacy 3.0 hiring program and USAID’s Development Leadership Initiative, increasing their ranks by 17 and 54 percent, respectively. The boa’s last big meal came in the early 2000s with the hir- ing surge brought on by State’s Diplomatic Readiness Initiative Shawn Dorman, a former FSO, is associate editor of The Foreign Service Journal and editor/publisher of AFSA’s book publishing division, FSBooks. Here’s a look at what the new hires of State and USAID expect from a Foreign Service career. BY SHAWN DORMAN