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TCD posted:Under 16 days... still scrambling. That sounds pretty sketchy. Stay safe, and get out of there in one piece.
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Jun 16, 2011 02:40
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Anyone at Embassy Baghdad currently?
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Jun 16, 2011 16:16
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Rrail posted:Anyone at Embassy Baghdad currently? I left Baghdad about a month ago. Don't think there currently is anyone there from this thread.
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Jun 16, 2011 16:59
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Business of Ferrets posted:I left Baghdad about a month ago. Don't think there currently is anyone there from this thread. I sent you a PM.
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Jun 16, 2011 17:13
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10 days left. 
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Jun 16, 2011 18:12
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Popping in late to say I took the June FSOT. It was my second attempt but I'm calling it my baseline because I didn't send away for my scores on the first one  The first round did provide me invaluable experience with the bio section. Outlining my resume was a fantastic idea. Excited to see my (and everyone else's) results in a few weeks. e: I'd also love to hear insight into the SO's life. Are there opportunities to work? The Mantis fucked around with this message at 06:48 on Jun 20, 2011 |
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Jun 17, 2011 05:08
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Just registered for the test. Any of the study guides worthwhile or should I just stick to following current events and rely on what history I've taken in the past?
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Jun 19, 2011 17:32
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I think most suggest the study guide
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Jun 19, 2011 20:24
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Pamchenko, I have a couple questions about USAID. One, how long does the hiring process take? I'm particularly interested in working as a Governance and Crisis Stabilization officer, but I'm beginning a Masters (Security Studies at Georgetown SFS, concentration in development in conflict) program this Fall. The thing I worry about is that the hiring periods for USAID JOs in any given technical area only come along so often and I'm afraid of being shut out of the opportunity for awhile. Second, is the hiring process more like normal federal jobs than the Foreign Service? In other words, is there a benefit to having an insider who can vouch for you and flag your application for HR to read followed by an interview, or is like the FS where there's at least seemingly an objective set of criteria including an oral assessment? I'll probably have more, but I only recently became interested in working for AID. Out of curiosity, what are some of the 'best posts' you can get? My specialty is the Balkans and Eastern Europe (currently a Fulbright Fellow in Bulgaria and worked with an NGO in Bosnia for a bit), and I speak professional Bulgarian, some Macedonian, Serbo-Croatian, and Russian, and a tiny bit of Czech and Bashkir. Next year I have the option of taking intensive language courses for free and I'm torn between learning Turkish or trying to improve my Russian proficiency. Would either be more helpful than the other in getting a job? Also, the USAID internship page is a little confusing. The SCEP program is one that a lot of federal agencies seem to have, but it seems like they only accept summer interns for it? I assume it starts in the summer (so I could apply this November for summer 2012), then you do a co-op basically until you graduate then transition to a full-time job? I don't really get it, but it seems like it would be a good option. HeroOfTheRevolution fucked around with this message at 17:14 on Jun 20, 2011 |
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Jun 20, 2011 10:50
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The Mantis posted:Popping in late to say I took the June FSOT. It was my second attempt but I'm calling it my baseline because I didn't send away for my scores on the first one Also, I talked with a gal who has gone through the QEP twice (and failed). I understand that they ask questions about interactions with people from different cultures. How does one "prepare" for these kinds of questions (join the Peace Corps?), and other QEP questions in general? (I'm sure this question has been asked before -- I just had difficulty finding it -- sorry.)
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Jun 20, 2011 15:26
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Want to be International Computer Monkey? Here's your chance: http://careers.state.gov/specialist/vacancy-announcements/ims
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Jun 20, 2011 23:31
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Ugh, coming down to the wire. Less than a week to go. Did we ever settle on a location for the goon meet and a time?
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Jun 21, 2011 01:58
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I graduated from college with a generic business management degree and I've constantly been looking for international jobs. I've been working in the US at a good, but not exciting job. Once I saw that Foreign Service Officers existed, something clicked inside of me once I realized that this was exactly what I wanted to do with my life. I researched all I could and read every page and post of this thread. However, I don't have any international experience other than college vacations to Europe, and it's a little depressing/daunting at how difficult it is to actually get in. And it sucks that I can't stake any realistic hope on getting in. Regardless, I'll be taking the test in October, and probably every year until I make it. I want this, more than anything I've ever wanted before.
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Jun 21, 2011 03:38
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My only international experience was as a junior enlisted in the army and a couple vacations while I was in grade school. It's the underlying skills, cultural compatibility, and ability to operate in an environment that is unfamiliar from the US standard that really matter more than the "international experience". Also I'm in Commercial Tradecraft right now and it is awesome. It's basically Business Development for the USG. If that floats your boat, you might want to go Econ cone (or FCS, but I don't think they're hiring and it's hella hard to get in there anyway).
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Jun 21, 2011 03:48
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Diplomaticus posted:My only international experience was as a junior enlisted in the army and a couple vacations while I was in grade school. It's the underlying skills, cultural compatibility, and ability to operate in an environment that is unfamiliar from the US standard that really matter more than the "international experience". Is there anything you'd recommend doing between now and the October FSOT? Should I try in earnest to learn a foreign language?
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Jun 21, 2011 04:33
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Leverage the poo poo out of your business experience on your bio and QEP. Start thinking now of concrete examples of things that you've done (team leadership, meetings, rush projects, client management, cold calling, employee management etc.) that you peg to the 13 D's in as many ways as possible. With six years experience you should be able to have great examples. Work on phrasing them in a concise, organized structure, i.e., "This is the problem I faced. I did this analysis/assessment of it, and took action. As a result, some good thing happened. That experience is valuable to me as an FSO, because it taught me this other thing." Try to make that example cover several of the 13 D's and in an obvious fashion. If it comes to it, look for non-obvious situations to draw the conclusions from - family, religion, and other social experiences are surprisingly helpful, and can show that you can think outside the box. I have no idea what you would study for the FSOT. I got the study guide and the cliff's notes book. I didn't do too much of them. But apparently more people are failing on the test lately, or at least more are reporting it, so it might be worth studying for it now. I just think it's kind of a hard test to study for since the potential topic list is so broad. So other than hitting the high points in the major social/political sciences, economics, civics, and history categories, I'd consider working on your language now if you're starting from nothing. It won't matter for October, but if you end up with a December or January oral assessment, you might be in a better position for language points. -e- Oh. And essay writing. You probably can write fairly well as a business management type. Now learn how to condense everything you write by 40% or more without losing important information. Leif. fucked around with this message at 04:57 on Jun 21, 2011 |
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Jun 21, 2011 04:49
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Aaaand twenty-six hours later, we're finally done with our travel and settled into our DC hotel room. . . .
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Jun 21, 2011 05:08
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Business of Ferrets posted:Aaaand twenty-six hours later, we're finally done with our travel and settled into our DC hotel room. . . . Helloooooooo comp time!
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Jun 21, 2011 05:12
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Homie S posted:Helloooooooo comp time! Nah, I don't start work until after Labor Day, so I'm good. Also, don't think you get comp time if you officially are in travel status.
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Jun 21, 2011 05:20
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Maybe I missed it, but it doesn't look like there's really any programming FSS areas, just the typical computer janitor stuff. Is that correct?
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Jun 21, 2011 11:38
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I don't think we decided for a time/place for this friday. How does 6 or 7 sound? Also, voting someplace in DuPont or Chinatown (matchbox?) as it's pretty much in the middle. Comedy option: fuddruckers (hahahaha)
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Jun 21, 2011 17:31
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hayden. posted:Maybe I missed it, but it doesn't look like there's really any programming FSS areas, just the typical computer janitor stuff. Is that correct? Yeah, you're not going to be eye-ball deep in the latest technology. And there's no programming unless you manage to fit your own project in there somehow. They had some FS people working domestically on a development project recently, but I don't think they did any coding. That sort of thing is the exception though.
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Jun 21, 2011 18:28
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DasNeonLicht posted:Please tell me what you mean by "outlining your resume." Someone on the FSWE yahoo group mentioned it and I think it really helped me attack the bio section. If you've taken the test before, you know that it asks you if you've ever done such and such, and then asks you for concise, concrete examples. I was thrown off by this when I first took the exam and bumbled through it. This time I intentionally sat down and thought about the last five years of my life. When have I shown leadership/problem-solving/cooperation/etc and how can I frame these examples in a tweet? Anyone feel like taking this question on? The Mantis posted:e: I'd also love to hear insight into the life of a husband/wife of a FSO. I'm sure it's heavily context-dependant, but are there opportunities to work?
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Jun 21, 2011 19:43
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There are seemingly more blogs from EFMs or spouses than from actual FSOs, so you may be able to get some really good insight from them. For the most part from all the blogs I've seen, the spouses/EFMs simply don't work. My guess would be that your best bet is doing something online, like those write-articles-for-SEO sites. It won't be great money, maybe like $10,000 a year if you're good at it (from what I can tell in limited research on it), but in many countries that's quite a bit of spending money.
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Jun 21, 2011 20:02
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HeroOfTheRevolution posted:Pamchenko, I have a couple questions about USAID. quote:One, how long does the hiring process take? I'm particularly interested in working as a Governance and Crisis Stabilization officer, but I'm beginning a Masters (Security Studies at Georgetown SFS, concentration in development in conflict) program this Fall. The thing I worry about is that the hiring periods for USAID JOs in any given technical area only come along so often and I'm afraid of being shut out of the opportunity for awhile. You can defer a couple of training classes-- I'm not sure exactly how that works, but I had friends who did it. In the end I think it bought them about four months. I definitely hear your concern about getting shut out of the hiring process if you don't jump on it when it comes up, but in all honesty the odds that you'd get hired without a Masters anyway are very, very, very almost infinitesimally low. So if you're just starting this fall, the truth is applying may not be worth your time at this point, anyway. quote:Second, is the hiring process more like normal federal jobs than the Foreign Service? In other words, is there a benefit to having an insider who can vouch for you and flag your application for HR to read followed by an interview, or is like the FS where there's at least seemingly an objective set of criteria including an oral assessment? There is an oral assessment (consisting of about 2 hours of group work and an hour individual interview), and the criteria there are, as far as I could tell, very objective. quote:I'll probably have more, but I only recently became interested in working for AID. Out of curiosity, what are some of the 'best posts' you can get? My specialty is the Balkans and Eastern Europe (currently a Fulbright Fellow in Bulgaria and worked with an NGO in Bosnia for a bit), and I speak professional Bulgarian, some Macedonian, Serbo-Croatian, and Russian, and a tiny bit of Czech and Bashkir. Next year I have the option of taking intensive language courses for free and I'm torn between learning Turkish or trying to improve my Russian proficiency. Would either be more helpful than the other in getting a job? Between Russian and Turkish, Russian is probably more useful, but you can still only really use it in Russia, Ukraine and the Central Asian Regional post in Kazakhstan. There are a few (as in, one per country) USAID American hires (either direct hires or contractors) scattered throughout the Central Asian former Soviet republics, but as of yet no real true Mission presence. About a year back there were rumours that that might change, but now that money is so tight, I haven't heard talk about that in awhile. quote:Also, the USAID internship page is a little confusing. The SCEP program is one that a lot of federal agencies seem to have, but it seems like they only accept summer interns for it? I assume it starts in the summer (so I could apply this November for summer 2012), then you do a co-op basically until you graduate then transition to a full-time job? I don't really get it, but it seems like it would be a good option. This all sounds like I'm being pretty discouraging about USAID, and I don't want to be, it's a great job. If you're interested, I think you should apply and go for it. But the truth is that the federal budget is very very tight right now, and USAID is everyone's favourite whipping boy, so money is extremely short and I think getting (and even keeping) a USAID position is about to get exponentially harder.
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Jun 21, 2011 21:43
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Diplomaticus posted:Leverage the poo poo out of your business experience on your bio and QEP. Start thinking now of concrete examples of things that you've done (team leadership, meetings, rush projects, client management, cold calling, employee management etc.) that you peg to the 13 D's in as many ways as possible. With six years experience you should be able to have great examples. Work on phrasing them in a concise, organized structure, i.e., "This is the problem I faced. I did this analysis/assessment of it, and took action. As a result, some good thing happened. That experience is valuable to me as an FSO, because it taught me this other thing." Try to make that example cover several of the 13 D's and in an obvious fashion. If it comes to it, look for non-obvious situations to draw the conclusions from - family, religion, and other social experiences are surprisingly helpful, and can show that you can think outside the box. Been doing some drafts of "critical incident" experiences, and it's a little weird writing about my work experience like it's a dramatic novel. Makes me want to finally start actually talking about my job to women, though. Brevity in essay writing has always been a strong suit for me, so I'm happy to hear there's a limit. I'm a "get to the main points, gently caress the bullshit" type of writer. Maybe I can add this to my international experience, but in dealing with people from other countries, you can't sugarcoat or make metaphors with language. I consciously have to think about the English I'm using and whether it'll be understood by the Indians/Chinese/etc that will be reading it.
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Jun 22, 2011 02:05
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It seems this thread is mostly focused on officers. I'm going to apple for the computer janitor specialist position shortly does anyone have tips for getting hired. Are the specialist positions easier/harder to get in to compared to officer?
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Jun 22, 2011 21:11
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FlyWhiteBoy posted:It seems this thread is mostly focused on officers. I'm going to apple for the computer janitor specialist position shortly does anyone have tips for getting hired. Are the specialist positions easier/harder to get in to compared to officer? If they accept your application they'll call you out to take a quick written exam and an interview. The written exam is just a quick essay about some vaguely tech related topic, I haven't seen any evidence that this is graded rigorously. The interview will cover tech questions, regular interview questions, a little bit about how you'd behave overseas, and maybe a few basic civics questions. If you meet the qualifications the tech questions should be pretty easy, study with a focus on networking and data backup if you want to feel a little more confident. The rest shouldn't be too hard for anybody who's socially functional and has read a newspaper.
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Jun 22, 2011 21:35
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So......where we going Friday?
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Jun 23, 2011 05:14
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Packing out, 8 days left. Still need to sell a broken down motorcycle and make it through the official 4th of July. And wrap up IPC projects.
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Jun 23, 2011 12:00
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Diplomaticus posted:So......where we going Friday? I already mentioned it, but say Matchbox? say 7pm? Or do we prefer less crowded? How many people are going oh god the logistics 
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Jun 23, 2011 14:37
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If it's all the same I'd rather not try to drive into DC during rush hour on a Friday. Matchbox is great but it is going to be hella crowded. Let's think of somewhere with a) parking, but also metro accessible (I can also give rides to anyone at FSI) b) is in virginia, and c) has plenty of room. Anyone got a problem with Joe Theismann's in Alexandria? It's literally across the street from the King St. metro (Yellow and Blue lines), I wouldn't have to worry about parking my fiancee's SUV since I can walk there from my apt., and it's usually got a good amount of space (and we ca try and make a reservation).
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Jun 23, 2011 15:16
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TCD posted:Packing out, 8 days left. Everything about packing out sucks, at least right up to the point where the movers actually come. Then it's not too bad.
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Jun 23, 2011 15:16
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TCD posted:Packing out, 8 days left. Who here loves the 4th of July? I DO I DO! 
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Jun 23, 2011 15:21
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I'm guessing there are huge parties on the 4th at every Embassy, that are required attendance?
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Jun 23, 2011 17:02
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Diplomaticus posted:If it's all the same I'd rather not try to drive into DC during rush hour on a Friday. Matchbox is great but it is going to be hella crowded. Let's think of somewhere with a) parking, but also metro accessible (I can also give rides to anyone at FSI) b) is in virginia, and c) has plenty of room. Thiesmann's sounds good, and very metro accessible. I'm good at any time. Just let me know when we're starting!
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Jun 23, 2011 18:00
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Slaan posted:I'm guessing there are huge parties on the 4th at every Embassy, that are required attendance? There are huge parties. I don't know what it's like for Embassy staff (I think it's closer to required for you suckerrrrrs), but at USAID it's not absolutely required. Personally, I took a week of annual leave and am booking off to the beach. Sayonara, grill duty.
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Jun 23, 2011 21:22
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pamchenko posted:There are huge parties. I don't know what it's like for Embassy staff (I think it's closer to required for you suckerrrrrs), but at USAID it's not absolutely required. Personally, I took a week of annual leave and am booking off to the beach. Sayonara, grill duty. NEC compound, any first or second tour officer of state or aid has a mandatory attendance with assigned roles and responsibilities. In fact person organizing this is a DLI and it's happening in June so my goal of leaving on the first was foiled. People are still on leave, but if you were in country, plan on attending or feel free to have a 1 on 1 with the Front Office. I am hoping I get saved by some server outage.
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Jun 23, 2011 21:57
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Diplomaticus, let me know the time & I'll try & make it.
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Jun 23, 2011 23:42
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5pm until ??? At least through 7:00 or so when my fiancee gets there after work. She and I may just order dinner there anyway (since I've packed all my poo poo). So yeah, Joe Theismanns, 5pm until whenever. Also if people want a ride from FSI, I can oblige as my car is apparently not getting packed out until after I'm gone.
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Jun 23, 2011 23:47
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