• Foreign Service Officer
  • Becoming a Foreign Service Officer
    •   Choose a Career Track
    •   Register for the Test: Application
    •   Take the FSO Test (FSOT)
    •   Submit Personal Narrative
    •   Take the Oral Assessment
    •   Clearance: Medical and Security
    •   Final Review Panel
    •   The Register
    •   Assignments and Training
    •   Key Considerations
  • Compensation and Benefits
  • Diplomacy Fellows Program
  • Meet Our People
  • FAQs
• Foreign Service Specialist
• Civil Service
• Jobs in Iraq
• Jobs in Afghanistan
• Local Employment in U.S. Embassies and Consulates

Step 4: Personal Narrative and Qualifications Evaluation Panel (QEP)

If you pass the FSOT multiple choice and essay sections, you will receive an email asking you to submit a Personal Narrative (PN) in which you answer questions describing the knowledge, skills, and abilities you would bring to the Foreign Service. The firm deadline for submission will be three weeks after the request is sent to you.*

The PN offers you the opportunity to highlight not just what you have done, but how you did it and what you learned. You should provide examples from your previous experiences that show you have the skills to be a successful FSO. This is an important part of the application and is read carefully by each member of a Qualifications Evaluation Panel (QEP) made of up trained Foreign Service Officers.

The panel assesses the PN based on six precepts that are predictors of success in the Foreign Service. These precepts include:

1. Leadership: innovation, decision making, teamwork, openness to dissent, community service and institution building
2. Interpersonal Skills: professional standards, persuasion and negotiation, workplace perceptiveness, adaptability, representational skills
3. Communication Skills: written communication, oral communication, active listening, public outreach, foreign language skill
4. Management Skills: operational effectiveness, performance management and evaluation, management resources, customer service
5. Intellectual Skills: information gathering and analysis, critical thinking, active learning, leadership and management training
6. Substantive Knowledge: Understanding of U.S. history/ government/culture and application in dealing with other cultures. Knowledge and application of career track relevant information.

To help write your PN, focus on your own experience in answering the questions. Use these precepts as a guide to (1) give positive examples that demonstrate your abilities; (2) identify learning experiences; (3) indicate how your learning experience will contribute to success in your chosen Foreign Service career track.

• The test administrator will forward your FSOT scores, along with your Registration Package minus any proscribed data (age, ethnicity, etc.) to the QEP.
• The QEP uses a Total Candidate approach to review your:
       1. educational and work background;
       2. responses to the Personal Narrative questions;
       3. self-evaluated and Foreign Service Institute-tested language scores; and
       4. FSOT scores.
• There is no pre-set cut-off score. The QEP evaluates your file within your chosen career track, looking at how well you demonstrate the precepts outlined above.
• The best qualified candidates are invited to oral assessments based on the QEP evaluations and State's anticipated hiring needs in each career track.

Although the QEP is a total file review, with no one element dominating all the factors considered, you have the most control over your responses to the PN. Your responses can be influential in determining your standing in your chosen career track. This is your chance to tell your story to the Foreign Service assessors. Bear in mind that your responses are subject to verification by the Board of Examiners.

Once the QEP is completed, ACT will inform you of the results via an online letter that you can access using the personal login ID and password you chose when registering.

* Candidates who completed their registrations before October 31, 2008 (which included both an application and PN), but did not take the FSOT by November 8, 2008, will have to submit a new PN should they pass the FSOT and essay.