State Department/ Foreign Service

[wordsmith]

Anyone have any experience with/knowledge of jobs with the Department of State? I'm just starting to research it, but I'm going to have to take the required Foreign Service exam pretty quickly here, becuase it's only given once a year, and the registration is coming up really quickly.

[megrocks]

I applied for a basic administrative job with the foreign service and was rejected because they said that if you didn't have an associates degree you needed two years of managerial experience, even though I had a BA. Made no sense to me.

I also took the FSE. I didn't do well enough to get an interview though. A friend of mine did. I thought the test wasn't too difficult, but there was a whole experience section where I had absolutly nothing to put. One of the questions was to list the foreign films you have seen and write phrases in a foreign language.

[wordsmith]

Thanks for the info.

If all goes well, the Consular track is the one I declared. Do you know if the same version of the FSE is given to all applicants, regardless of what track they've preferenced, or if the it's set up to focus on different things for different tracks? I wondered why applicants are required to declare a track from point A onward, and wondered if that might not be why. Nothing in my literature really says, one way or another.

Also, in the section of the test dealing with previous experience, was it related previous work experience, previous experience in other cultures, or what?

How did you prepare for the exam? It's been quite a few years (six or seven) since I took a standardized test, and even longer since I took a government class. What would you recommend refamiliarizing myself with?

[megrocks]

Nope, it's the same. You fill out an info sheet before the test that says what track you want and your desired interview location.

They included everything in that experience sections. Some things I remember were: how often have you lead a group of people on a tour of your hometown, how often have you been responsible for training.

I downloaded the study guide that they have. I can't say if it was helpful or not. I got almost all of those questions right, but I didn't do too well on the actual test. You have to know your constitution. They ask about specific articles and phrases. Those were the hardest questions for me. I also think it would be helpful to famiarlize yourself with the UN, NATO and the treaties and actions of those groups. The question about what percentage of the US budget is spent on foreign aid was in both the practice and the real test. Also the US's largest trading partner. There is a fair amount of recent polictical history (1996 - present including the Balkans and events in the Middle East.) and I remember a lot of questions about Vietnam-era history and polictics. But, that was my major of study and I remember that stuff well. Oh. Managment. There were a lot of questions about organizational flow and employee motivation. There are also a lot of economic questions, but I couldn't begin to tell you how to study for that. A lot of the stuff, you either know it or you don't.

[wordsmith]

Again, thanks.

I'm not so hip on economic-realted things, but, like you said, you either know it or you don't. My two jobs for the past five years have been in the fields of human services and media/journalism, so I feel like I've got a decent base to draw from. My journalist background has kept me pretty well abrest of recent U.S. History, and though I'll have to brush up on my basic government/UN/NATO stuff, it won't be like I have to relearn it or anything...just a little refresher work.

Is it worth it to buy a test-prep sort of thing, in your opinion? I generally don't put much stock in that, as I'm sort of a "you know it or you don't" person myself, but wondered if it wouldn't be advisable in this instance? Since it seems from your experience that the practice questions weren't necessarily that great of an indicator.

Thanks for the advice. I'll probably have more questions as the exam date draws nearer.