re: "The Importance of Making a Good First Impression"

NoDoubleStandards at Calling a Spade a Spade ("Rants of a Foreign Service Officer on the things that matter to you -- and matter to you not at all") had some great suggestions for first-line consular managers.

Money quote(s):

"As the wave of anticipation which began with the first day of A-100 crests with the arrival of Flag Day, for those who did not choose consular as their cone, one of the greatest hopes among junior officers about to be assigned to their first posts is this: will I luck out and avoid a consular tour my first time out?"

If anything, not getting consular assignment the first time out puts an entry-level officer at a major disadvantage the first time they are the embassy's duty officer at their first post, having had minimal preparation for dealing with late night calls from distressed American travelers, &tc.

Consular experience will stand every FSO in good stead throughout their careers for just that reason.

".... the reputation consular work still has as salt mine labor, where only sadomasochists spend the bulk of their careers. For everyone else, it's a purgatory one must endure before entering the "promised land" of work in your chosen cone.Think about what a challenge a consular manager faces when she receives a first-tour officer at post full of disappointment that he didn't at least score a rotational job: unhappy, unmotivated, perhaps, and looking to make this a relatively painless two years that will fly by quickly."

The challenge these new FSO's bosses have is to turn the "fly by quickly" and "relatively painless" expectation into something closer to "how do I make the most of this experience."

"(P)eople choose cones based on their own personal interests, their motivations and their personalities. A consular manager can't be expected to convert all his FAST officers into clones of Maura Harty. That said, if a consular officer doesn't appreciate with appropriate gravity the formative role he fills in the careers of the State Department's future leaders, he does us all a great disservice."

"The political section won't want to hear this, but ACS is hands down the most important work done overseas. How many congressionals do you get over botched or insufficient political reporting? And visas? These officers are the first line of defense in protecting our borders. The work consular officers do directly impacts American lives and the security of our nation in tangible -- not theoretical -- ways."

&

"(T)he accolades I treasure most are those I've received doing work that was extremely challenging for me -- jobs where I really felt like a fish out of water.

As officers who recognize the importance if the work CA does, we need to appreciate that the stint of every FAST officer who does consular work matters. Not one should leave their obligatory consular tours vowing never to have a thing to do with consular again. We need to be forward-thinking, understanding that those first two tours often set the tone for an entire career and leave lasting impressions of consular managers and consular work."

I agree about the accolades. When an experienced PD officer (one of the old-timers who came over from USIA) whom I'd worked with as a control officer encouraged me to bid on Public Diplomacy jobs because he thought I handled PD well, that made my month.

Reader Mail: Career Tracks/Cones

A reader recently emailed me and asked:

"I'm having a tough time choosing a career track, although I've
read everything I can find on the subject. It's hard to know what it's
really like in one cone versus another, when you are at post. . . . I'm interested in both public diplomacy and the consular cones, and my skills seems like they'd be a decent fit for both. Choosing between them is difficult, however--particularly given that PD seems to have twice as many applicants as consular, further complicating things.

If you would indulge me by giving me your two cents on the choice
between the two, I would be enormously grateful. In particuarly, I am
wondering how the two career tracks compare in your opinion, in terms of daily work assignments, and also in terms of hours worked. I've heard one PD officer opine that she works far more hours than the consular officers, and that she considers this a drawback of her job. I also am curious as to how many years a consular officer spends on the visa line, before moving on to other assignments."

To which I replied:

Every post, every position, is going to be a little bit different. It's good that you've narrowed down your interest to just two cones. I remember pulling my hair out over this very question when I was an FS candidate, deciding between Consular and Administrative (now called Management). Looking back, I definitely made the right choice.

PD is a great field; I've enjoyed working with and supporting my PD colleagues. Even as a consular officer I've had to deal with media, done radio and TV appearances (including telephone call-ins). I've enjoyed it; it's fun in a hitting-yourself-in-the-head-with-a-hammer sort of way (it feels so good when you stop!).

Personally, I'm biased towards Consular cone, even though I've had the occasionally mixed pleasure of working in this field for three straight assignments now.

As for your questions:

Do NOT choose your cone based on a perception that one cone is less/more competetive than another one. At this level of competetion the differences between candidates' qualifications are miniscule and the scoring differentials are well within the margin of error. Pick the cone you think you'll be most happy working in for the next several decades. To do anything else is wasting your time, as well as everyone else's.

PLEASE do not pick one cone with the intent of changing cones later on.

Yes, it's possible to do so; no, it's not a very good plan with which to enter the Service. (I know you didn't mention doing this, it's just part of my standard lecture on the topic.)

One advantage of most consular work is that at the end of the day, you leave your work at the office and go home and don't have to worry about it until the next morning. For visa adjudicators that's essentially true. For American Citizen Services officers quite the opposite is often the case. That being said, the lion's share of consular positions are in the visa sections, at least at the entry level. Above entry level you still have to know how to do visa and other entry-level tasks (and changes to equipment, software, procedures, laws, and regulations are a constant), but more of your time will be taken up with management, training, reporting, &tc.

Every entry level officer will spend at least one year during one of their first two entry level tours doing consular work. Most of the time this means working in a visa section, most often working non-immigrant visas. One year is a minimum. Most assignments are not "split," that is one year doing Consular and another doing PD, Political, whathaveyou. So it's entirely likely you will do two years of Consular rather than only one.

The one year rule isn't actually a requirement for tenure or anything, it's a guideline that the entry level Career Development Officers apply when making assignments. Some rare officers may not actually do any Consular work, but I haven't met one yet.

Depending upon the post and the workload, the "visa line" can be a real drag, something of a grueling ordeal for many officers, particularly those possessing the bad attitude that Consular work is somehow beneath their lofty talents and that they're just marking time before they get to the real work of diplomacy. This is short-sighted and prevents them from getting the most out of their Consular tours.