If You’re Out of Luck or Out of Work, We Could Send You To Johannesburg
It seems the Foreign Service Exam is changing.
Unfortunate, because as someone who has not yet picked a career, I was actually looking forward to trying to take the Foreign Service exam as soon as this higher education thing is over and done with. My feeling is that the test was probably a very merit-based way of picking well-rounded and smart individuals. References, resumes and “team building” seem the way to reduce the merit-based elements of applying to the Foreign Service, and would seem to reward people who didn’t have to spend their summers flipping burgers, and who could afford to take high-sounding, resume-building, yet-frivolous internships on their parents’ dime. But that’s just my take.
The redeeming piece of news in that article is that 60% of the Federal Bureaucracy is retiring within the next decade, meaning a good many job prospects for younger folks.
In a proposed overhaul of its hiring process slated for next year and to be announced to employees in coming days, the State Department would weigh resumes, references and intangibles such as "team-building skills" in choosing who represents the United States abroad, according to three people involved in the process. The written test would survive, but in a shortened form that would not be treated as the key first hurdle it has been for more than 70 years.
Unfortunate, because as someone who has not yet picked a career, I was actually looking forward to trying to take the Foreign Service exam as soon as this higher education thing is over and done with. My feeling is that the test was probably a very merit-based way of picking well-rounded and smart individuals. References, resumes and “team building” seem the way to reduce the merit-based elements of applying to the Foreign Service, and would seem to reward people who didn’t have to spend their summers flipping burgers, and who could afford to take high-sounding, resume-building, yet-frivolous internships on their parents’ dime. But that’s just my take.
The redeeming piece of news in that article is that 60% of the Federal Bureaucracy is retiring within the next decade, meaning a good many job prospects for younger folks.
