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My name is Tony, and I am with the Foreign Service as an Information Management Specialist.
Well, first found out about the Foreign Service when I was studying overseas in China doing
my master’s program and we had a field trip to the consulate in Guangzhou.
I saw what kind of work they did, and I was like, "Wow, that's really cool." And then
another trip I went to in Guatemala, I met another Foreign Service officer. And coming
back from those trips, I decided to apply with the Foreign Service.
I decided to go with Information Management Specialist route because I have an undergraduate
degree in computer engineering and then I got a master’s in international studies.
So put the two together, that was the perfect match for a kind of career I was looking for.
Not only do I get to travel to all parts of the world with the Foreign Service, I also
get to apply my technical expertise at the embassy. To find out more about the Foreign
Service, I went to the careers.state.gov website, and I looked at the different positions that
were available. And then I looked through the selection process. I found out that I
could apply online, and from there, what the steps were to get, to start a career in the
Foreign Service. The biggest challenge with joining the Foreign
Service would have to be the oral assessment for me. It was a six-hour oral -- a six-hour
process, and usually job interviews that I have gone through would just take a few hours.
But with the Foreign Service, they want to make sure they cover all of your dimensions
and your different qualities. I just started my core Information Management Specialist
training in June, and the training is a four-five month course. And it covers everything from
handling classified material, unclassified material to radio, evacuation and a lot of
different courses. And I really like the diversity of the courses and I have learned a lot from
them. My next step is going overseas to post. So
with that process, we -- I have to figure out the kind of housing that I want to have
once I arrive at post, contacting the embassy and talking with the other Information Management
Specialists overseas and seeing what kind of tips and advice they have for me before
going overseas, what kind of things that might be hard to get at post that I should purchase
here in the U.S. and bring overseas. My advice for someone applying for the Information Management
Specialist position is go ahead and go on the website and look at the position and all
the details and the different processes that you need to go through. And I guess the number
one advice is just, if you have an interest, start early and just submit your application
and see what happens because I think it’s an exciting field to be in.