Pondering possible post-retirement jobs in Japan, last summer I wondered about working in the US embassy there. Turns out if you want to be a Foreign Service Officer, you’ll need to take the FSO test before they can hire you. Was pleased to discover that you can actually take a practice exam online, no charge:
All multiple choice, I think it took me about 45 minutes. Included sections on US history, English language proficiency, ethics, and other stuff. Quite challenging, but I scored well and they assessed a high probability of passing an actual exam. I doubt I’d get hired since among other things there’s a max age requirement (<= 59), but was pleased to know I could at least pass their test.
Anyway, if you’re bored and looking for an interesting challenge, try taking the test.
I can’t believe I blew 25 minutes or so of my life taking the test. I did pass although not by that much, thanks to my apparent grievous lack of situational judgment* when it comes to placating staff and sucking up to bosses.
I did ace the part about writing/editing memos using passable English. I’m hell on semicolons.
*my brother actually had a successful career as a foreign service officer, though I’ve never been overly impressed with his situational judgment.
59? I’d do a better job in my 60s than I ever would’ve in my 50s. I was so immature back then…
Damn, I just want to vent that I’m really sick of being too old for, well, so many things. Like my fallback plan: if I ever need a couple hundred bucks quick my plan was always “Walk into local Pharmaceutical Testing Lab and get $500 for taking Pronepenthine™ or a placebo for 48 hours”.
After seeing this thread, I checked and… I’m even too old to be a lab rat!
As someone who once considered taking the Foreign Service Exam, I don’t think the issue is ageism so much as it is making an investment in people and expecting a reasonable return. Becoming a foreign service officer is seen as a lifelong career path. It involves a lot of training and the US Government spends a lot to provide you housing, help your spouse find a job where you are posted, educate your children in a foreign country, pay for you to go home and see family periodically, etc. During your first few years you are going to be in a fairly low level position but the idea is that you learn the ropes and if you perform well you will gradually be given positions of higher responsibility in countries whose diplomatic relations with the US are seen as especially important.
If you sign on at 59, you’ll still incur the up-front costs but the long-term pay-off to the US diplomatic machinery won’t be there.
Shortly into the Trump administration, I heard an interview on NPR with a former senior State Department official. He said that Trump administration policies were destroying the foreign service - good people were leaving in droves and the damage being done would take years to recover from. It was very sad.
ETA: If I have some free time I may just take that practice exam for fun, but I’m guessing I will do poorly on parts of it. I’ve stopped trying to be well-rounded and pretty much only read about things I care about these days. So if good general knowledge of current events around the world is required, I may do embarrassingly badly.
Is that “return on investment” reasoning a form of ageism? Is it markedly different from the sexism of “we don’t hire women because they are likely to get married and quit or get pregnant and go on maternity leave shortly”?
Yes, it is different. It’s discriminatory to assume a woman will get pregnant and leave her job, for many reasons - it may never happen, if she does have a kid it may have zero affect on her work, a man should get just as much paternity leave, etc. etc.
There’s nothing discriminatory about assessing the likelihood that a 60 year old person will be on the job in 15 years vs the likelihood that a 30 year old will be. Also, everyone ages: today’s 30 year old is tomorrow’s 60 year old, and once upon a time that 60 year old did reap the benefits of being 30. Gender isn’t like that at all.
Ouch. I meant “effect” of course. Or I could have written that having a kid might not affect her work. I know it’s just a small mistake, but for someone who prides herself on her editing skills, it’s pretty mortifying.
Took the test many times and managed to always pass (That’s not bragging. That’s saying that if I passed, most of you could pass). If you pass, they ask you to submit personal narratives, a series of essays about yourself. If they like what you wrote, you get invited to an all day interview in DC (on your dime). The interview is some solo stuff and some group projects. They let you know at the end of the day if you passed.
My first time through, I made it all the way to the end and passed. This put me on a list, and they called people up based on their score. I stayed on the list for 2 years and was never called up. Retook the test multiple times to try for a higher score, but was never invited again for an interview (even though I submitted the same material a couple times). Once on the list, they start a very thorough background check (top secret clearance I believe). We also had to get very detailed medical exams (blood work, x-rays, the works) to make sure we were fit for international assignments.
It was rather depressing, when after all this, I started to realize I wasn’t going to get called up.
TLDR - Took the test - Passed - Never got the job.
I remember taking the exam in the previous century. Don’t remember my score. All I remember when they called, I said I wasn’t going further with them. I kick myself for not going further.
At the time, they had a unique “final exam.” Everyone who made the final cut after training attended a congratulatory dinner with real FSOs. The next day assignments were to be handed out. What everyone found out the next day is any future FSO who consumed alcohol the night before at the dinner was not selected as a FSO.
That’s totally insane. Most of the FSOs I’ve known have been pretty heavy imbibers. I recall one guy at the Navy’s Christmas Ball in Jakarta - a casual friend - passing out on the floor of the ballroom and having to be physically removed by a few Navy officers to sleep it off in the hotel lounge. That was extreme, but far from unheard of.
Come to think of it, I guess it is kind of a stereotype that diplomatic types drink a lot. Not being a diplomat myself, I didn’t usually interact with them at official functions - one assumes/hopes they limited their consumption in such cases. But I tended to socialize with them at other parties we all went to, like various Christmas balls, Chamber of Commerce events, etc. And in those situations, I saw a LOT of drinking.
What a stupid, stupid policy, if true. No one wants to hire a boozehound, especially for a sensitive diplomatic post, but many reasonable people who aren’t teetotalers and are offered a drink at a “congratulatory dinner” are going to say “Yes, please.” In the presence of future bosses and coworkers, I’m sure, they’d then drink in moderation. And for that they should be crossed off the list? Jeez.
Yeah that sounds so stupid that I can’t actually believe it’s true. I have two close friends who are FSOs (well, one was until a few years ago when she finally left government for Google. The other one is still in government, currently in DC.) While neither were boozehounds, I can’t imagine either not drinking a glass of wine or two at an FSO dinner. And it would be crazy to pass up on them as they both are brilliant at their jobs. Nevertheless, there was no such test for them, thankfully.
Also, while living in Budapest, I met a number of American FSOs at various parties around town. Those folks could drink more than the journalists (which is the crowd I ran with.) I find it extremely hard to believe the foreign service would select out based merely on a candidate drinking alcohol at a party, considering that drinking alcohol at a party is a culturally appropriate way to behave in much of the world when out at a party socializing. Now, sure, if a few candidates got piss-ass drunk, maybe don’t select for those, but rejecting anyone who had an alcoholic beverage? I simply don’t believe or, perhaps more accurately, don’t want to believe it.
Also – they really want to hire only the people who would presumably refuse to share even a ceremonial drink with foreign dignitaries? Many other cultures are repelled by American-style prudery around alcohol – it’s hard to believe this is a value the State Department actively selects for and wants to export.
I worked for a company whose hiring process included a typical round of interviews and a cocktail party. Attending the party wasn’t required, but I got the vibe that a prospective hire should be there. I was hired, and found out later that one goal of the party was to observe how the potential hires conducted themselves in a social setting. They were looking for certain bad signs: Being rude to servers, being rude to their spouse, and problem drinking behaviors.
I knew of at least a couple of people who were not hired because they were observed to have alcohol issues. I was not troubled by this because it was an aviation company hiring pilots.
Yeah, that’s what I was getting at with “culturally appropriate.” There are many places where sharing the local firewater and other libations are part of successfully networking and making cultural inroads.
I took the Foreign Service Officer Practice Test and scored 90% on two categories, but only 5% on English proficiency. I AM PROFICIENT IN ENGLISH! What the hell?