The QEP Gods Have Spoken

This blog has been pretty quiet for the past few weeks because there simply hasn't been any news to report. I mean, I took the FSOT in early October, received notification that I passed it in late October, and submitted my PNs in mid-November. After that, radio silence. I successfully blocked this process out of my mind for most of the time since then, but with the new year starting, the anxiety-laced anticipation began creeping back into my subconscious.

The Qualifications Evaluation Panel (QEP) stage of this process is the most opaque because nobody really knows how good is good enough to pass in any given year. I passed it last year and thought I had a good shot at passing it this year. But there have indeed been cases where people who passed one year did not make it the following year. Budgets are tight. Hiring registers are long. Word on the street is that State wants to reduce the number of candidates who expire from the register without getting a job offer. Candidates who never receive a job offer constitute a financial liability for State, which conducts medical exams and security investigations for all of these candidates regardless of whether they are hired. These exams and investigations aren't cheap. Knowing this, I'd surmise that State is trying to reduce the number of candidates who advance to the hiring register, and the best way to do this is by lowering the number of candidates invited to the Oral Assessment (OA).

I would estimate that out of an FSOT cohort of about 7000 candidates, fewer than 300 remain. State says that "only a few hundred" candidates advance to the OA each year. And with three testing cohorts per year, three OA groups of about 300 candidates each put you right under 1000, which is no longer "a few hundred." So if these figures are accurate, only about 5% of the candidates who took the FSOT in October are still in the game.

Fortunately, I am one of the survivors. The QEP gods have given me a second chance. I received the email with the good news yesterday. That still hasn't sunk in.

Anyway, knowing that there's no guarantee I will make it back to this stage in the future, I really really REALLY want to go all the way this time around. I accept that I failed the OA on my first attempt because I didn't know exactly what to expect (beyond what was mentioned in the official study guide). The snow day and OA cancellation and empty stomach and loss of heat in my hotel room and all that crap made for a toxic set of circumstances that was not conducive to optimal performance that fateful day in March of last year. I almost pulled it out though. But knowing that as an FSO, there will likely be many situations similar to this in which I would still need to perform, I need to keep my wits about me and focus on the task at hand. I know where I went wrong last time, so that's where I want to focus most of my energy regarding my OA preparations. But I'll save that for another post.

In the meantime, I have to decide when to take this thing. Fortune smiles!

The QEP Awaits

After maybe seven rounds of edits and a bit of starting from scratch, my PNs have finally been submitted to the QEP for review. I don't even want to look at those six narratives anymore. One part of me is sick of reading those things and combing over every word, every comma, and every other semantic option I came across. Another part of me is too scared to look back at those things because I fear I may catch an error that I had failed to catch in all of my previous rounds of proofreading. Maybe that's just a random streak of OCD wreaking havoc on my psyche. But it doesn't matter. Everything's out of my hands now.

There are six PNs that candidates have to write. The prompts for five of the PNs were the same as last year's. The sixth one was like the one that was given last year, but it had an addition. Instead of simply addressing why you chose your specific career track, you had to address "what you brought" to that track. So that PN required a substantial rewrite.

Unlike previous years, I had a few other candidates look over my PNs. And to tell the truth, I'm very glad I did. They picked up on little things to make my writing stronger and found ways for me to economize my speech. Even though my academic training may be in mass communications and my professional background is in TESOL, I was amazed by how much the other candidates were able to improve my writing. I am beyond grateful for their assistance and hope that I was able to help them strengthen their own PNs as well.

One of the more common complaints I hear from people who receive bad news regarding their QEP results is that "they had really high test scores" or "really good narratives." While that can indeed be frustrating (especially with a lack of feedback), I think a lot of candidates fail to remember that the QEP is not simply an FSOT score review or a PN review, but rather a "total candidate" review. So the BEX will look at your FSOT scores, your FSOT essay, your PNs, your self-declared foreign language abilities, your work history, your academic background, your special skills/awards/decorations, your affiliations/organizations, State's hiring projections and State's anticipated need for new FSOs in your particular career track.

What does this mean? Well, for one thing, it can mean that all sorts of purportedly well qualified candidates don't make the cut. You might have gotten a 185/10 on the FSOT, but your PNs were substandard. Or maybe you rocked the PNs, but don't have a lot of professional experience and barely scraped by the FSOT with a 155/6. But really, if a low FSOT score is what it takes to fail the QEP, then why would State even establish the 154/6 cutoff to begin with? Similarly, if a high FSOT score is what it takes to pass the QEP, then why bother asking those candidates to send PNs? See how irrational these excuses are?

Anyway, for me, I think I have a better-than-even shot at passing the QEP. The FSOT application materials asked me to list all my jobs that I've held for the past 10 years. I've been gainfully employed for that entire time in jobs that have skills that are easily transferable to FSOs, so that should be worth something. I have a master's degree and a doctorate--the highest degrees you can get. That should be worth something too. I can speak a hard Asian language--likely an asset found in only a few candidates. And most importantly, my PNs were good enough to advance me past this stage last year. So why wouldn't I make it this year too, especially considering how I've further improved those very same PNs? Unless the budgetary situation is really screwed up or State's need for Consular officers has waned, I think I am in the clear.

Next up is two months of radio silence. Around the third or fourth week of January, I will either be setting up an OA study group or counting down the long and lonely months to Candidacy #5. Let's hope the latter never comes to fruition.

Staring Into the Void

The Personal Narratives (PNs) for the October 2014 Foreign Service candidate cohort are due in a little over a week, but I still have yet to submit them. A part of me is terrified of sending them off because I fear that my PNs just aren't good enough. Another part of me is reluctant to submit them because I worry that I could further improve what was good enough to get me to the next round last year. And another part of me wants to hold onto these PNs as long as I can because at least the control over my candidacy lies solely with me; once those six narratives are submitted, everything is out of my hands for good.

So yeah, the PNs and the subsequent QEP are not very pleasant steps to deal with at all. For what it's worth, I did take a look at my PNs and found a way to actually strengthen some of them. While five of my six PNs are mostly unchanged, the final PN (which is actually the first one) required a bit of restructuring. Unlike last year, this time around the PN prompt asks me to identify "what I bring to my career track" or something like that. Previously I was merely prompted to identify why I choose my career track. Looks like I got a nice softball to hit as I sell myself as tactfully and as feverishly as I can.

Anyway, after a bit of rewriting, which included scrapping significant amounts of text, I think my PNs are even stronger now than they were last year. Of course, because I have no idea how many people I'm competing against or how many people State will actually invite to the OA, these perceptions of things being "better" are not particularly helpful. It's just frustrating to know that so many candidates who were beaming and brimming with joy just two weeks ago (when the FSOT scores came out) will be frustrated beyond belief in late January. I might even be one of these unfortunate people. I'd estimate that fewer than 5% of all candidates are invited to the OA based on the fact that more than 20,000 candidates take the FSOT each year and "only a few hundred" are invited to the OA.

I try not to read too many blogs from people who made it to an A-100 class. The work and the lifestyle just sound so exciting and like such a good fit for me. I know I had one chance already, which I did not take full advantage of. But if I can get a second chance, I know I will rock the OA and be well on my way to the hiring register. Really, I view the QEP as the biggest remaining roadblock, even moreso than the OA. Yeah, the OA is filled with tension and stress, but at least I am the one in control there, and I know how well I need to do in order to pass. With the QEP, I just have to hope that my "best" is good enough.

There's not really much to say in this particular blog post. I'm just checking in to unload my psychobabble so that I can hopefully look back on this time with relief that my anxiety was only temporary.

I hope.

Later this week I will be attending a formal State information session. If I'm lucky, maybe some FSOs there will give me some pointers on the PNs. Any little nugget regarding hiring rates or timelines or PN tips will be supremely useful. So I'd like to incorporate this information into my PNs before they are due in about 10 days. Plus, it will give me an excuse to get out of the house and drive.

Man, what a stressful process this is.