So I sat the FSOT a few weeks ago. On Tuesday (my birthday!) I received the results.
“Congratulations!” the letter started.
So, I’ve passed the first step. Next, I need to submit six short-answer “personal narrative” responses. Does anyone have personal experience with this process? Anyone have any sage advice?
I’m looking for general advice as to how to answer the questions within the scope of my own experience. What should I focus on, how should I structure my response, etc.
Oh, and general advice about the process would not be unwelcome.
Hell, I’m impressed that you passed the written portion. I was a specialist, so didn’t have to do all that, but I know that the competition is extremely tough, and that the orals can be a real bitch. One thing they used to love to ask at the orals were civics questions like “How does a bill become a law?” The also do an “in-box” drill at the orals to see how you prioritize. That’s about all I can help you with, as I don’t know what the personal narrative questions consist of.
By the way, even if you make it through all of the BS, you still have to get a background check and a TS clearance, which can take as along as two years.
I took the test around 2000, and they didn’t have a personal narrative part at that time. I just went straight in to the oral exams. There were about ten or so others grouped together in one test session, which basically lasted all day. There were all sorts of group exercises. The one I remember the best is that you are given 10 minutes to study a packet prepared on some issue facing Bongabongaland: it might be about the local labor laws, or security problems, or whatever. There’s also a proposal that you should advocate for to spend some amount of money to address that problem: I got a proposal to spend $300,000 for training the national police to fight drug trafficking. Then you meet as a group and decide how the Embassy will prioritize its $1.5 million in funds for the next year: is security more important than education? What about labor movement or promoting a free press? As a group, you make these decisions.
The other part I remember well is that you take the place of a FSO called in to handle a demarche from some government, like they want a swimming pool built at the Ambassador’s residence. You’re given a background paper on the issue and then you have to basically take a meeting with the “foreign Ambassador.” My guy was great: he was buddy buddy one minute, threatening the next, very technocratic another moment, and then went on a diatribe (not aimed at me) about American imperialism. Like that old saying, the point was clearly to tell the “foreign Ambassador” to go fuck himself in language that would make him look forward to the journey.
There were a few other drills that I don’t really remember, but there was a simple personal interview.
Going in, I heard two philosophies: be yourself, or don’t be yourself and treat the whole thing like a game. I went the “be myself” route and I was satisfied with my score, but decided that I’d rather do other things.