Oral Assessment

Please Note: A new Oral Assessment procedure is in place for the 2001 assessment cycle.

The Department of State employs a day-long series of exercises to assess Junior Officer candidates. Candidates who pass the Foreign Service Written Examination are invited to a Foreign Service Assessment Center to take the Oral Assessment. This year, candidates who passed the November 2000 Foreign Service Written Exam will be taking the Oral Assessment in four cities across the United States: Washington, D.C., New Orleans, Chicago, and San Francisco.

The Assessment Center staff will telephone candidates two weeks prior to their scheduled examination to confirm that they will attend the oral assessment. Candidates are responsible for notifying the Assessment Center of address and telephone number changes, preferably in writing. Candidates who wish to withdraw their candidacy should inform the Assessment Center as early as possible. If you decide not to proceed, please be courteous and let us know in advance [so that we can offer the opportunity to another candidate].

The Washington, DC Assessment Center is open as of 7:00 a.m. EST. Telephone: 202-261-8858; FAX: 202-261-8844. The mailing address is:

Foreign Service Assessment Center
Board of Examiners for the Foreign Service
2401 E Street N.W. - 5^th Floor Highrise
Washington, DC 20522

Candidates with disabilities should notify the Assessment Center of any special needs in writing with supporting documentation when they return the confirmation form. They should also confirm the arrangements by contacting the Assessment Center well in advance of their scheduled assessment date.

Click on the appropriate city for a map of and/or directions to the location of the testing center:

The Washington, DC Assessment Center is located on the fifth floor of the Columbia Plaza High Rise Building (SA-1) at 2401 E Street NW The building is located very near the U.S. Department of State Main Building and is close to the intersection of E Street and 23^rd Street. The closest metro stop is the Foggy Bottom-GWU station.

Candidates must report to their assigned Assessment Center at 7:00 a.m. on their scheduled day. The assessment may end as late as 6:00 p.m. for successful candidates. The Oral Assessment is an examination; it is not a job interview.

Candidates who are invited to the Oral Assessment must complete and bring to the Oral Assessment the DS-1950 application form and their Statement of Interest. Those who do not bring these documents with them will not be assessed. There are no other documents required at this time. Candidates who ultimately receive a conditional offer of employment will be given additional required documents during the employment phase of their candidacy.

Reminder: It is important that you bring the completed DS-1950 and the Statement of Interest to the oral assessment. They will be used during a new segment where your experience and motivation for joining the Foreign Service will be discussed. Those who do not bring these documents with them will not be assessed. Assessors will have the stated conal preference of each candidate as selected in the [registration] for the Written Examination.

The Oral Assessment exercises are based on a job analysis of the work of the Foreign Service, and the skills, abilities and personal characteristics deemed important or essential to the performance of that work. The assessment measures the following twelve dimensions:

Written Communication: To write concise, well-organized, grammatically correct, effective and persuasive English in a limited amount of time.

Oral Communication: To speak fluently in a concise, grammatically correct, organized, precise and persuasive manner; to convey nuances of meaning accurately; to use appropriate styles of communication to fit the audience and purpose.

Information Integration and Analysis: To absorb and retain complex information drawn from a variety of sources; to draw reasoned conclusions from analysis and synthesis of available information; to evaluate the importance, reliability and usefulness of information; to remember details of a meeting or event without benefit of notes.

Planning and Organizing: To prioritize and order tasks effectively; to employ a systematic approach to achieving objectives; to make appropriate use of limited resources.

Judgment: To discern what is appropriate, practical and realistic in a given situation; to weigh relative merits of competing demands.

Resourcefulness: To formulate creative alternatives or solutions to resolve problems; to show flexibility in response to unanticipated circumstances.

Initiative and Leadership: To recognize and assume responsibility for work that needs to be done; to persist in completion of a task; to influence significantly a group's activity, direction or opinion; to motivate others to participate in the activity one is leading.

Experience and Motivation: To demonstrate knowledge, skills or other attributes gained from previous experience of relevance to the Foreign Service.

Working With Others: To interact in a constructive, cooperative and harmonious manner; to work effectively as a team player; to establish positive relationships and gain the confidence of others; to use humor as appropriate.

Composure: To remain calm, poised and effective in stressful or difficult situations; to think on one's feet, adjusting quickly to changing situations; to maintain self-control.

Objectivity and Integrity: To be fair and honest; to avoid deceit, favoritism and discrimination; to present issues frankly and fully, without injecting subjective bias; to work without letting personal bias prejudice actions.

Cultural Adaptability: To work and communicate effectively and harmoniously with persons of other cultures, value systems, political beliefs and economic circumstances; to recognize and respect differences in new and different cultural environments.

The Oral Assessment exercises involve groups of three to six candidates in a series of job-related activities. All candidates must participate in all of the exercises. The assessors who conduct the exam are all experienced Foreign Service Officers. They are drawn from all the Foreign Service cones - political, economic, consular, administrative and public diplomacy. Their experience, combined with intensive training in testing, makes them uniquely qualified to assess the performance of candidates in the twelve dimensions listed above.

For the first exercise of the day, candidates are brought together in a group of four to six to comprise an embassy task force charged with allocating discretionary funds to competing projects in their host country. Each candidate is given a package of common background materials consisting of the following:

- memorandum from a senior U.S. Embassy official in one of several mythical countries appointing the candidate to a task force to consider proposals for expenditure of discretionary funds

Candidates are given 30 minutes to read and absorb these materials; they may take notes.

After 30 minutes the four examiners join the group and take seats in the corners of the room. At this point in the assessment, the examiners will be observing individual performance without reference to the DS-1950 and Statement of Interest. The examiners do not participate; they only observe the group exercise. Candidates are briefed on the ground rules and invited to begin their individual project presentations in any order they choose; however, they are cautioned that projects are not to be compared or evaluated in the presentation phase. Each candidate has six minutes to present his or her project to the others, making the best case possible, but covering all relevant facets of the project, including both negative and positive points, U.S. interests, and project costs. A few minutes may be left at the end of the presentation for questions from colleagues.

After the last presentation has been made, the lead examiner informs the group that it is now entering the discussion phase of the exercise, the stage in which the candidates must reach a consensus on project selection and funding. Available funds, announced by the lead examiner, are insufficient to fund all projects.

In this phase, candidates discuss and debate the merits and/or drawbacks of the various projects in order to make recommendations to the Ambassador. Toward that end, the group negotiates and debates pros and cons with the goal of reaching, within the time allotted (20-25 minutes), a consensus on which projects should be funded, and at what level.

The group exercise measures oral communication, objectivity and integrity, ability to work with others, information integration and analysis, planning and organizing, judgment, initiative, leadership, and composure. Strong candidates are those who keep in mind the objective of the exercise: to help the Ambassador decide how best to allocate limited U.S. Government funds among a number of worthy projects. They have the ability to integrate information not just about their own projects but also about projects presented by their colleagues. They may suggest original ideas and solutions. A good leader can draw out others and help move the group to consensus.

Participation is essential to successful performance. Examiners cannot judge qualities they cannot see. Even if a candidate presents a clear project, lack of involvement in the discussion phase can make the difference when the scores are assessed.

After the group exercise, the following individual exercises will be conducted with reference to the applicant's DS-1950, Statement of Interest and stated conal preference. Candidates may and are encouraged to respond based on background, experience and motivation.

This portion of the assessment consists of three testing modules lasting a total of approximately one hour.

The first part of the Individual Examination will involve a detailed discussion of the applicant's experience and motivation. In this portion of the assessment, it is the responsibility of the applicant to convey to the assessors a clear and precise picture of the applicant as an individual, including personality traits, and understanding of the Foreign Service.

This experience and motivation dimension will be evaluated with reference to the applicant's education and work experience, cross-cultural skills and motivation. Assessors will seek to evaluate a candidate's potential to serve successfully as a Foreign Service Officer, including in the selected cone, by discussing what the applicant has done with the opportunities presented to this point in their lives. Applicants must be succinct and persuasive in responding to the assessors' questions. Applicants should have previously informed themselves not just about the Foreign Service in general, but also about the work done related to the cone they have selected.

The second assessment module in this portion of the exam consists of a series of hypothetical questions designed to test the candidate's situational judgment. Candidates may respond to these questions by drawing on their own background, experience and stated conal preference.

The Examiners' questions test the candidate's interpersonal skills, problem-solving abilities, initiative, objectivity, judgment, planning and organizing skills, composure, and cultural adaptability..

Although the problems presented are hypothetical, they are in fact closely related to real-life situations regularly encountered by Foreign Service Officers overseas. Candidates are advised, however, that while the problems occur in a Foreign Service setting, they are not expected to know how an embassy operates or to be familiar with government rules and regulations. They are asked to fashion a solution that employs good judgment and common sense.

The situational judgment questions challenge a candidate to think on his or her feet. The examiners look for a candidate who can organize for action, take responsibility, and respond to new situations creatively and effectively. While there are no right answers, the strong candidate must demonstrate mature thinking, recognize alternative approaches, and consider both long and short-term consequences of responses. The examiners will also continue to challenge the candidate with follow up questions that may complicate the issue or take the candidate in a different direction.

In the third and final exercise the assessors will ask the applicant a series of questions, which the applicant should respond to with examples from his/her own experience. The questions are designed to assess a range of dimensions determined through a documented job analysis to be key to successful performance as a Foreign Service Officer.

The ability to write concise, correct, effective and persuasive English is of paramount importance in the written exercise. This exercise primarily tests written communication skills, but it is also indicative of the candidate's ability to integrate and analyze information. The written examination question will be related to the individual project presentations from the group exercise.

Candidates have one hour to write a report on their project. Writing will be done via computer word processing. Candidates will have the option to hand-write their reports. Because Foreign Service work demands tightly focused reporting, a premium is placed on succinctness; the candidate's score is lowered if the report exceeds 350 words.

After all of the exercises have been completed, the four assessors meet as a group for the first time that day to integrate their scores. The Group and the Writing Exercises together and the Individual Exercise have equal weight in determining the overall score. The passing "cut-off" score is set to meet hiring needs and has varied over the years.

Scoring is on a scale from 1 to 7, with 1 representing a very poor performance and 7 representing an outstanding performance.

Immediately after the integration session, candidates are notified whether they have been successful in meeting the cut-off score. Candidates will receive their numerical scores on each of the exercises along with their overall score and the "cutoff" score by mail approximately 5 to 6 weeks after the Oral Assessment.

At the end of the Oral Assessment process, successful candidates are given a briefing on next steps in the Foreign Service hiring process, including information on the security background investigation, medical examination, language bonus point system, veteran's preference points, and final suitability review. Candidates are also given the opportunity to ask questions about Foreign Service life.

Unsuccessful candidates are informed of their results in a private interview with two assessors. At this point, the candidate is given an opportunity to ask questions about the assessment process and future exams. Because many candidates take the Oral Assessment more than once, the assessors are not permitted to provide specific feedback or critiques of the candidate's performance. This prevents second-time exam takers from having an unfair advantage over first-time takers.

For more information on the Foreign Service Written Examination and the Oral Assessment, please order the 2000 FSWE Study Guide on-line. The 2001 FSWE Study Guide will be available in summer 2001.

The Department of State is committed to equal opportunity and fair and equitable treatment for all without regard to race, color, national origin, sex, religion, age, sexual orientation, disabling condition, political affiliation, marital status, or prior statutory, constitutionally protected activity.