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So I see they have an option for Doctors; does anyone know if they take Pharmacists as well? I'm looking to get out of the retail scene and stay out as much as possible. I've heard about pharmacists doing military base work and contract stuff overseas but I don't know where to even ask about all that.
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Aug 20, 2016 01:25
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I'm not really sure how or who to ask, but does the US Foreign Service take medical personnel? I'm a pharmacist desperately trying to escape from retail hell and have heard that there is a small sector for base pharmacists and such. It seems interesting, but I'm afraid that it's something you really need to know the inside baseball to avoid getting screwed.
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Jan 12, 2017 00:54
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zzonkmiles posted:Go to this link: https://careers.state.gov/work/foreign-service/specialist/career-tracks Welp, worth a shot. Thanks though. I'll keep watching the links.
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Jan 13, 2017 22:44
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If I'm trying to get into consular work, are there particular skill sets or certifications I should go for to help my application if I've only ever worked in the medical field? I'm a pharmD but the career field is imploding due to a variety of reasons and I'd rather get out sooner than later. I went digging around on the consular fellows program website after looking into a listing on USAjobs, but I'm not entirely sure what would help. I've been working on learning Japanese for fun for a while but it wasn't listed on the LTI information that I saw either.
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Aug 1, 2019 04:29
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Gobbeldygook posted:People have been predicting the imminent implosion of pharmacy for decades, has something changed recently or the same old "too many people for too few jobs that robots are 100% going to take"? Fred's and Rite Aid getting bought out with mass closures, Walmart had a mass firing in the pharmacy department and restructured to single pharmacist per business day wherever possible, starting salaries are down in retail from ~60/hr to 40 and dropping, further squeezes forecast because pharmacy schools can't slow down pumping people out or they collapse and PBM's aren't disappearing. It's miserable work and it's only going to get worse for the foreseeable future. Rumor mill has Walmart targeting $30-35/hr for new grads within a couple of years, which is unconscionably low for people getting out of 7-8 years of school with $200k in debt and will have to fight for 6 months or more for jobs. I've been stuck for nearly 2 years as a PRN only pharmacist because my big blue company would rather hire new grads they can skin alive than someone who graduated in 2015. So I average between 10-40 hours per month based on how many people need to take a vacation or have to retire because they had a stroke at work and scheduling wouldn't help them find coverage. I went into it with the advice that it was steady, well paying work that would allow me to do all the things I really cared about that couldn't pay a living. Well, I gave up 10 years of my life for it and it's not even providing that. So while I have this time I want to pursue things that I care about and am interested in for a change. Edit: An interesting data point is that, traditionally, Retail Rx jobs paid significantly more per hour, partly because of higher demand and partly because the work was considerably more stressful and antagonistic towards labor. When I graduated in 2015 the practice of sign on bonuses and contracts had ended but you could easily expect ~$63/hr or more for retail, and hospital would start ~$52-54/hr. In 2019, hospital pay is still hovering around $50/hr but retail is now at parity at best but the job responsibilities have ballooned and your staffing is going to be even worse. Dr. Red Ranger fucked around with this message at 20:11 on Aug 1, 2019 |
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Aug 1, 2019 20:02
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Dameius posted:My cousin just graduated from a school in one of the largest metros in the country and he was the only person to get a job within 150 miles of campus because the market is so saturated. Not surprised. My state, Louisiana, is one of the less congested states because we only have 2 pharmacy schools and it's just about impossible to find any real work that isn't just replacing a burned out PIC in Nowheretown 250 miles away, or Per Diem Clinical Pharmacist, PGY2 and 3 years experience required, one day a week 4 hours away. Texas is bleeding pharmacists to us because they have 9 schools too. Long in short I worked very hard for a long time to do what was supposed to be the right thing just for it all to collapse. I'm ready to work hard again to do something better for my own mental health and to hopefully continue helping people.
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Aug 1, 2019 22:26
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Bruxism posted:Man, that sounds totally depressing. Courier would definitely be a change of pace, but I just want to echo what people have said about the challenges of being a courier. You are on the road constantly and work ridiculous hours (Saturday from 2 am until 8 am) because of having to orient your life around international flight times. I've seen some couriers burn out pretty hard - but then a lot of them love it! It all depends on your tolerance for travel and your family's tolerance for separation. With the amount of education you have, I would also encourage you to look at other jobs in the Foreign Service - everything from GSO Specialist to FSO Generalist. I'm not a courier btw, but a DS Agent. I work with couriers a lot. Thanks, I appreciate the advice! To be honest, I know it's a little selfish of me but I've always wanted to work overseas and see what was out there, but my education didn't allow a semester abroad. I never really wanted to just go vacation somewhere either; it doesn't feel right to me to go enjoy someone else's beaches or libraries or whatever as a tourist without giving something back. I like learning languages, mythology, food culture and so on anyway. I'll definitely look into that GSO/FSO work as well.
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Aug 2, 2019 05:34
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So I've done some reading and took the FSO career track quiz, and I think the Political Track looks the most appealing, considering my interest in language, politics and being involved the the communities I visit instead of a passive observer. I don't mind the idea of being overseas for long periods of time, and I don't have any IT skills or proficiencies anyway beyond the basic stuff like word processors so IMS is out. It looks like your host nation assignment isn't determined until after training based on need, so having language skills beforehand don't necessarily help you if you have a particular nation in mind, right? If I've been focusing on Japanese, the fact that we don't seem to have much to worry about with them right now would make that assignment pretty unlikely and I should try and learn something else? I suppose they have to worry about the downstream effects of Chinese trade policy in the region, how our trade war is affecting that, and their apparent need to increase immigration to deal with their labor issues, but that's likely for the economic track folks. Unfortunately, it looks like medical Foreign Service specialists are either physicians, nurses or physician assistants, so my pharmacy degree wouldn't help. Now, to somehow make a resume out of pharmacy and music experience into something they would care about at all and try my hand at the FSO test.
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Aug 7, 2019 18:27
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Well that's interesting. I doubt I'd score that high but it' good to have goals.
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Aug 8, 2019 18:44
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Bruxism posted:I'm not a generalist but I'll weigh in. Once you pass the test and get a orientation course date (called A-100) you head off to Northern Virginia for a few months of training. Towards the end of your A-100 they have "Flag Day" where everyone finds out where they are going. Prior to that you are given a list of every country currently waiting for a new hire to come out to them. You put them all in order of preference and then they direct you to one of the assignments. Your first two tours are directed and at least one of them will be a consular tour - generalists often work in areas outside their cone of "specialty." Your Japanese could have an impact on your assignment, but it could just as likely not. If they send you to another post with another language you will go through intensive language training before heading to that post. Language training can take anywhere from 6 months to 2 years before heading to post. Huh, neat. I didn't realize they were willing to put that much time into someone before sending them off at all after the long hiring process. Do you have any opinions on the FSO test itself? It looks like the next date is ~Sep. 28, which isn't too far off.
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Aug 9, 2019 19:01
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Thanks. I need to shake off the old mindset for applying to pharmacy work with prerequisites, acronyms and hoop jumping with... well more hoop jumping but this time I get to think about my experiences in a meaningful way instead of maintaining subsistence. Because by god, I have stories. The time I had to help a man who only spoke an obscure Honduran dialect my phone translator didn't know with a complicated steroid dosing scheme, the time I helped a "slow" charter bus driving son of a patient get to a Walmart in Dallas 6 hours away over the phone to pick up a medication I had transferred for him because he forgot, the time my Korean friend's parents had left their blood pressure and diabetes medication back home on their trip to visit their son and even though their doctor had foreseen such an event and gave them a new prescription with a nice note it was illegal to fill in the US, the time the DEA visited because somehow a local doctor who was already in trouble had an ambulance's DEA number attached to all his controlled prescriptions, the time a crazy person tried to hop the counter at my cashier because he crammed into line 5 minutes before closing and we weren't able or even authorized to break $100's for change, the time my favorite middle eastern professor couple brought a set of what appeared to be duplicate prescriptions when in fact the doctor had written them with, eh, the culturally relevant assumption that it all had to be under the husband's name,.... Dr. Red Ranger fucked around with this message at 19:07 on Aug 15, 2019 |
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Aug 15, 2019 18:57
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Hey guys, I have a small clarification I'd like to ask for. I'm looking at the Available Jobs page under Foreign Service, registering for the FSOT and all, but I don't see any links to any particular job openings or places to put a resume. Will there be a corresponding opening listed on the USA Jobs website or is this an entirely different process?
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Sep 4, 2019 01:01
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Thanks
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Sep 4, 2019 17:21
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All the FSOT practice material I'm looking at tells me this test is very, very focused on trivia from a wide variety of subject matter including world geography, governments, laws, and all sorts of esoteric things. Do people reasonably expect to make a >50% score on this? I get the feeling I should just wait later in the year for another test date because only prepping for this since August is obviously not enough with the FSOT later this month.
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Sep 17, 2019 19:53
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Well guys, I'm taking the FSOT on Saturday. Wish me luck.
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Sep 26, 2019 04:53
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Well I didn't expect results back within a couple of hours, and especially a passing grade with next to no prep, so there you go. Nice.
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Sep 29, 2019 00:03
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Edit: Whatever, I'll think of something.
Dr. Red Ranger fucked around with this message at 22:37 on Oct 16, 2019 |
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Oct 16, 2019 20:38
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Well my $5 processing fee for the FSOT refunded so I guess I'm at the point where they call random people that may have seen me for 3 minutes at an Arby's 15 years ago until they're satisfied I'm not entirely a murder-arson risk or something.
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Nov 7, 2019 05:10
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So this process takes as long as the government needs it to, yes? We've passed the 6-8 weeks time period since submission of narratives and I haven't received any contact. I'm sure the holidays prolong that whole process too. EDIT: Ha, just checked my application with Pearson and it just reverted to "Schedule an FSOT Appointment". For another test, meaning that I must have been rejected without so much as a rejection email. Merry Christmas. Dr. Red Ranger fucked around with this message at 20:40 on Dec 26, 2019 |
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Dec 26, 2019 19:36
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Nah, I passed it in September, had my personal narratives in by the Oct. deadline, and waited. Seems weird for it to roll over like without a notification like passing the test though.
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Dec 31, 2019 04:18
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Ok, I received the official rejection email this morning. The general thrust of the rejection was that there was an unusually high number of people applying to the Foreign Service and it is extremely competitive. Well, I tried.
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Jan 3, 2020 16:12
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Out of curiosity, what's the longest time anyone has had an open application on USA Jobs before it went anywhere? I've had one referred to the hiring specialist back in December, and while I'm not fussed about it because, obviously, the government has problems on its hands and things move at the speed they're allowed, it did make me curious. I've had private sector jobs take 6+ months to respond back.
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May 6, 2020 02:28
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| # ¿ May 21, 2024 21:51 |
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Does anyone have any experience with bugs on the USAJOBS website while logged in? I can find postings just fine while browsing, but if I log in it tries to apply tons of filters at once and grabs nothing. If I deactivate all the filters it will then reactivate a filter or two anyway and refuse to find anything. If I open a posting in another window while logged out, it logs me in, but hangs whenever I try to save and continue through the resume section. It's pretty frustrating to not be able to apply to anything now. Update: I've only gotten an automated response from the help desk but the problem only happens when using my macbook. My Android phone, using the same browsers and profiles settings, is able to proceed as normal. How strange. Dr. Red Ranger fucked around with this message at 17:00 on Mar 4, 2021 |
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Mar 2, 2021 23:38
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