My Background: Part 5, Onward!

What happens next? I passed the Foreign Service Officer Test in December of last year, and the Foreign Service Oral Assessment in April with a score of 5.5 out of 7 (the passing mark is 5.25). But I haven't quite gotten my dream job yet.

In order to be hired as a diplomat, you need to be medically cleared for worldwide availability (that is, you must be free of any medical conditions that require access to first-world health care facilities). You also need to obtain Top Secret security clearance from the federal government. Candidates who complete both clearances are then reviewed by a panel of State Department officials for "Final Suitability"; this panel looks at the clearance investigations, resume and any other pertinent information, and has the final say on who is suitable to become a U.S. diplomat.

Once I pass the Final Suitability Review, I will be put on a register of candidates who selected the Political career track (the other tracks are Public Diplomacy, Economic, Consular, and Management).

They recruit FSOs in classes of between 50 and 100 people (around 10-20 from each of the five registers). There are typically four classes in a year. The registers are sorted first by score and then by the date of joining the registry. So I'll be recruited ahead of anyone already on the list with a 5.3 or 5.4, while anyone who reaches the list after me with a higher score than mine would be offered a place before me. If you haven't been recruited after 18 months on the register, or if you turn down two offers, you drop off and have to start all over again.

My plan is to start all over again anyway as soon as I'm eligible (one year after the first FSOT), trying to get a higher score in a different career track (Public Diplomacy). You are allowed to be on two registers at once, which makes it more likely that the recruiters will get down to your name on one of them. I also plan to try to improve my score by passing a foreign-language test, which would bump my current score up to a 5.67, which would be in a pretty good position on the Political list.

So that's how it came to pass that I'm hopeful for a new job, as much as I love where I am now. I'll be sorry to leave ASHA if I get onto the register and receive an offer, but the skills I've learned here in terms of managing bureaucratic processes and working toward a larger goal, not to mention what I've brought with me from my previous career in teaching English, will serve me well in the future, whatever that future may bring.

My Background: Part 4, Applying for the Foreign Service

I was signed up to take the FSOT in Raleigh on December 6. In the months before the exam, I studied compulsively, reading books and articles on management theory, American history, economics, public relations, current events and geography. At the same time, I did not neglect my job search, the result of which was that my first day at ASHA was scheduled for December 17. As much as I expected to like working there, I was not about to give up on the Foreign Service, so after Bongsu and I found an apartment in Rockville, we drove to Chapel Hill for the exam (I'd chosen the Raleigh location with the idea that there might be regional quotas, and that North Carolina might be less competitive than DC).

So I gave the test my best shot, again not really thinking that I would get to the next step, let alone all the way to a job as a diplomat. Most successful applicants end up having to go through the process multiple times before getting an offer. Right after the exam, I was full of beans - all that nervous tension let out (because even as I expected nothing, I couldn't deny to myself that I knew there was at least a chance, after all...), the memory of several questions that I thought were probably considered "hard" but that I was sure I'd gotten right, the memory of others that I didn't know the difficulty of but did know I had answered with a total shot in the dark, the feeling that I'd nailed the essay section....

As I started getting into the rhythm of being a bureaucrat in a professional association, furnishing our nice new apartment in Rockville, and living a normal life, I again let that enthusiasm fade away. I was still conscious of a slight chance that I'd passed and would be going on to the next step, but I didn't invest much time in thinking or planning for that. The fact is, I've never been happier in my work than I am right now at ASHA. Every day since I started, I have actually wanted to go to the office - the projects I work on keep my interest, and I feel like my work makes a valuable contribution to the association's mission of making effective communication accessible to everyone.

So for three months, I scarcely worried about the State Department until one day in March when, out of the relatively blue, I got a letter saying that I had passed the FSOT and the Qualifications Examination Panel (which reviews your test scores and resume, a step in the process over which the candidate has no control), and that I should now schedule my FS Oral Assessment, a full day of role plays, interviews, writing practice and other activities to gauge the candidates' aptitude for a diplomatic career.

I threw myself into preparation for the assessment, which I signed up for on the second-earliest possible day (Tuesday, April 15) - the less time to wait, the less nervous I would be able to get before I got there. In the intervening month, I read State Department Web sites during down time at work, attended practice sessions with other local candidates, started exercising for 30 minutes every morning to work off some excess adrenaline, read everything I could on various online forums related to the FSOA, attended an information session with a mid-level FSO, and made Bongsu read me more interview questions than she had for all my actual job interviews put together. I took both Monday and Tuesday off work, so I would have a three-day weekend to prepare.

One of the best things about the FSOA is that you learn the results before you leave the assessment center. At the end of the day, I was able to call Bongsu with the wonderful news that I had passed the assessment.

To be concluded!

My Background: Part 3, Return to America

Well, almost as soon as I arrived in Japan, everything did change. I met Bongsu at the guest house for foreigners where I stayed while looking for an apartment in Tokyo. We connected by talking about her native Korea, and I quickly decided on a second year in Japan to stay around her. During that second year, we got engaged and decided to come back to America together, where I might find some career prospects that would provide more fulfillment, more long-term prospects and more opportunities for advancement beyond a tiny fixed annual salary increase. That decision was not easy, since it meant she would be leaving the doctoral program in Visual Communication Design that she'd started at Tokyo National University of Fine Arts, but we figured we'd give America one chance to prove to us whether she really was the Land of Opportunity.

So began a long six months of staying with my parents again (now in Duck, North Carolina) and looking for any job that had anything to do with teaching, international experience, training programs or the like. A lot of the jobs I applied to were extreme long shots - things I knew I didn't meet the written qualifications for, but that I thought I would be able to do well if they randomly decided to interview me anyway, and that looked like a lot of fun. The other half, on which I spent much more time customizing my resume and polishing the cover letters, I regarded as serious possibilities.

It was during this time, on September 8, 2007, that Bongsu and I were married in Duck.

In trying to see what my connections could do for me, I spoke on the phone with a distant relative whose career as a diplomat has been very successful. That conversation, along with intense discussions with my wife, convinced me that I might have a chance at my dream job after all, and so the longest of the long-shot application was when I submitted the online registration for the Foreign Service Officer Test. At the time, despite Bongsu's overwhelming confidence in me, I didn't really expect anything to come of it; I was actually surprised they even let me register for the written test (considering how my "slacker" phase had affected my college GPA).

When the time came to take that exam, I had just reached the crest of my job-hunting - I'd been to several interviews in the past few weeks, one of which looked like they would be making me an offer soon, and another of which had even already done so. Partly because the salary was better but mostly because I knew I would enjoy working there, I had already accepted that offer, as a Continuing Education Provider Services Manager at the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association.

To be continued!

My Background: Part 2, Berlitz

During most of the time I was studying as an undergrad, my plan for the next phase of my life was to study as a grad student. It seemed like it would be a smooth transition with a lot of continuity. When it got closer, however, I started feeling like I should be doing something more active, working to make a contribution to society. Plus, none of my top choices among graduate programs accepted me. Without any special connections or qualifications that I thought would lead me to cool jobs, I considered various ideas, and ended up living temporarily with my parents (then headquartered in New Hampshire) and focusing on looking for a job in Boston, where I had some good friends and which I regarded as a great town. I was mostly looking at jobs in journalism (even after earlier doubts about being able to find a career there) and at customer-service positions.

Since my father was also looking for a new job at that time, he happened to be looking at a position at the Princeton, NJ corporate headquarters of the Berlitz language schools, and he noticed a posting for overseas English teachers. That sounded fun and adventurous to him, so he shared it with me, and I also thought it looked adventurous and fun, plus it was easy to make a connection to my International Studies major, so I applied. For some reason the particular Web site he'd found only mentioned jobs in Korea, so I only thought of applying there; as I would later tell my students, I knew that I didn't know much about Korea and that I would be interested in learning more, and I also knew I liked Korean food, so there was enough attraction there that I didn't even think of researching teaching possibilities in other countries.

I got the job, and although the visa process took a lot longer than I expected, eventually arrived there and had a fantastic and highly educational year in Seoul with frequent travel to various other parts of Korea. By my third month there, I had decided a few things: that I enjoyed teaching English, that I was good at it, that I loved not only seeing a new part of the world but living there and getting to know it well, and that I could envision myself combining these things by hopping from one country to another and working at Berlitz in each one. That world-wide aspect of the Foreign Service dream career seemed to be within reach as reality, so the thought of actually becoming a diplomat was pushed to the farthest corner in the back in my mind. By my sixth month in Seoul, I had decided that my next country would be Japan, and I had applied for and gotten a job in Tokyo (although I would later find out that I didn't have a specific position, just a general kind of job offer) and started Japanese lessons (alongside my continuing Korean lessons - there was a great employee discount).

When my stopover in the U.S. grew from the two months I'd planned to four months because of that tenuous nature of my employment in Tokyo, I decided to fill the time by making myself even more marketable in my chosen field by copleting a one-month intensive TESOL certification course. Even though I already had my next job, I was looking ahead to the future - I wanted to make sure I'd find a place easily in my third country of choice, and my fourth, and so on, perhaps eventually getting enough experience to come back to the States permanently and work at Berlitz headquarters developing textbooks or something. I was completely satisfied with what looked like the rest of my life would be, and it would have taken something pretty big to change that plan.

To be continued!

My Background: Part 1, University

Although I love my job, I am currently in the process of trying to become something else. How did I get to this point in my life?

When I started college at UNC, I still had no idea what I wanted to do in life. Freshman year I chose my classes by picking whatever looked interesting, and figured I would have time later to settle on a major, let alone a career path. I had enjoyed working on my high school newspaper and was enjoying the DTH, but although I considered it, journalism was not high on my list of potential career interests, as I tended to view it as an extremely tough environment in which to succeed.

In taking whatever classes seemed interesting at the time, I ended up with a lot of great courses in the Philosophy department, so I did identify that fairly early on as a major I'd likely be able to earn without much trouble. I never wanted to go to law school, though, so I wasn't sure what I'd do with a philosophy degree. My parents strongly encouraged me, if that was the case, to double major. The summer after my freshman year, a study-abroad opportunity in Vienna pointed me on the path to that second major by giving me nine hours toward an International Studies major - I would only need four more classes to complete it, and there was even a good chance that I'd be able to get one or two courses to count towards both majors.

During those two months studying abroad, I became hugely interested in the study of intergovernmental organizations and multilateral diplomacy. In my "slacker" period as a junior and senior in college, I guess I kind of let go of that passion, although I remained interested in the subject and even continued taking fascinating courses on related topics ("European Democracies", "Language and Nationalism") - but I was not focusing on creating a viable career path in that field, and instead kind of going with the flow rather than trying to steer my destiny at all, thinking I might happily end up in academia - going to grad school in philosophy, becoming a professor, that kind of thing. Inertia was definitely a factor.

I had indeed identified the Foreign Service early on as a dream career, but the main reason I did not particularly work toward making it my career was precisely that: it seemed such an amazing thing that I knew there was no way I would ever be qualified, let alone get a position. It looked like it was just out of reach; I wasn't about to break my heart by trying to become an FSO any more than I would by setting myself the goal of becoming editor-in-chief of the New York Times, for example.

If I had known more about the process at the time, it might have seemed viable, but I somehow had the idea that those jobs were so far above the range of ordinary mortals that I didn't bother to research it. That is one of my reasons for starting this Web site: in the hopes that someone else will read about me going through that process, and learn that it is possible after all - and more than that, a valuable experience in itself, regardless of whether it ends up becoming a career.

To be continued!