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Foreign Service Officer Career Paths
The Foreign Service offers promotion opportunities up to the Career Minister level. Information about career progression is presented below.
Career Stages
The Foreign Service career consists of three broad career stages: junior officer, mid-level officer, and senior officer. Advancement within the Foreign Service is competitive, and is based on performance.
Before accepting employment in the Foreign Service, candidates must agree to be available for worldwide assignment. All candidates enter the Service as Foreign Service Officer Career Candidates, but are usually referred to as junior officer career candidates or mid-level career candidates. All new entrants into the Foreign Service are in probationary status. Junior Officers enter without a specific functional designation or cone. Junior Officers generally spend their first two tours overseas and State Department officers must serve at least one year as consular officers before they can receive an appointment as Career Officers. On entering the Foreign Service, all career candidates receive several weeks of basic orientation at the National Foreign Affairs Training Center. An officer can expect up to 7 months of subsequent training prior to the first overseas assignment. Since most of this training involves language instruction, entering officers who already have professional competence in a foreign language may have a significantly shorter period in Washington, D.C. USIA candidates receive basic professional instruction at the agency's training facility. Career Officers are often referred to as mid-level officers. As tenured employees of the Foreign Service, Career Officers cannot be separated from the service without written cause.
Experienced Career Officers can compete to become members of the Senior Foreign Service, a small group of officers who fill the most demanding and sensitive positions in the Foreign Service. Members of the Senior Foreign Service formulate, organize, direct, coordinate, and implement U.S. foreign policy. Entry into the Senior Foreign Service is highly competitive.
Commissioning and Tenure
Foreign Service Junior and Mid-Level Officers are appointed for a probationary period not to exceed five years. They must receive their career status within this period.
All Junior Officer career candidates must serve in consular work abroad, normally for a minimum of one year, but no less than ten months.
All junior and mid-level career candidates must satisfy the language requirements within their limited appointments. Those who enter the Service without the required proficiency will be provided with ample training in a foreign language.
The Commissioning and Tenure Board (CTB) reviews the performance file of each junior and mid-level candidate after 36 months of appointment to determine whether teh candidate should be tenured. Junior and mid-level candidates not tenured on first review, will receive a second review 12 months later on the anniversary of their first review. Mid-Level candidates may receive a third review six months prior to expiration of their limited appointment.
The sole criterion for a positive tenure decision will be the candidate's demonstrated potential, assuming normal growth and career development, to serve effectively as a Foreign Service officer over a normal career span, extending to and including class FS-01. Officers are reviewed based on individual merit, not in competition with one another. There is no numerical limit to the number of positive decisions the Board may make.
The Commissioning and Tenure Board evaluates candidates in the following areas:
- Leadership
- Managerial Skills
- Interpersonal Skills
- Communication and Foreign Language Skills
- Intellectual Skills
- Substantive knowledge
Promotions
Promotions for tenured officers within the Foreign Service are competitive.
Recommendations for promotions are determined by a six-person Selection Board. The Selection Board reviews the personnel files and annual performance evaluations of all officers in each grade who are eligible for promotion. After reviewing the records of all eligible officers, the Selection Board compiles a list of those officers that the Board recommends for promotion, based on merit.
Within each grade, there is a time limit before which candidates must be promoted to the next grade.
Assignments Process
The Department of State operates an open assignments system designed to provide members of the Foreign Service with information on all positions within the Foreign Service that will be vacant during a specific timeframe. The purpose of this system is to assure that all officers have the chance to compete openly with their peers for vacancies.
Officers who are eligible to be transferred from their current assignment receive a list of upcoming vacancies for which they may compete. Officers then must submit a "bid list," a list of those positions for which they would like to be considered. Bid lists must be completed in accordance with guidelines set by the Department. These guidelines often require officers to bid on positions in hardship posts and on positions in more than one geographic region.
Officers also are invited to submit comments regarding the choices on their bid list. Officers may wish to be assigned to certain posts for health, family, professional or other reasons. The Department of State attempts to provide career-enhancing opportunities to its Foreign Service Officers and to consider individual assignment needs. Should a mutually agreeable position for the employee not be available, however, the Department ultimately will decide where the employee's skills and qualifications are most needed. All vacancies must be filled, and all Foreign Service Officers must be assigned.
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