Joining the Foreign Service is a game of hurry up and wait. I began to gather the required information
for the application several weeks ago and was on the right track when the
position became open. I edited and
re-edited my essays and resume numerous times and had several eyes on them with
a bright red pen in hand. To my surprise
I had to hurry up and make last minute edits so that all of the information I’d
prepared could fit in the character limited fields. 5,000 words and 5,000 characters are very
different things!!! T
hey use 2 portals,
and at least one of them times out when the page hasn’t been refreshed after a
while, kicking you out without saving changes made to that page. It was frustrating but I got through it and
had everything to my liking by the time the position closed at midnight on
Tuesday.
Now I wait approximately 1-4 months to get an invitation to
the Oral Assessment (interviews) or not.
The orals are in DC, take about 5 hours, and are an out of pocket
expense. Applicants have to wait a year
before they can reapply for the position so fingers crossed I hit a home run on
the first try.
I am using my time wisely and will work on purging all my
unnecessary belongings, fix up my house and hopefully have it on the market or
sold by August. I know how crazy it
seems to do things in this order but that’s just how determined I am to do
this. I found my dream job and after 35
years, I finally know what I want to do with the rest of my life. Let’s wait to see what happen!
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