Preparing for the Foreign Service Oral Assessment: Part II

In the first half of this loooooong tutorial-like string of advice, I wrote about studying as a group. The value of practicing with your group is priceless, so please make sure you do it. However, there’s plenty of preparation you can do as an individual. This post is going to focus on the Case Management Exercise, Structured Interview, and finally, some general advice that Terry Pratchett fans may recognize as ‘headology.’


Case Management
Practice, practice, then practice some more. And since we perform what we practice, set yourself up as you will be on exam day. You will need: 90 minutes of silence with no interruptions, a desktop computer, a print out of your exercise and some scrap paper. For some added realism, put on your suit. For those who will be testing at Annex 1 in Foggy Bottom, let the temperature in the windowless room go up to about 90 F. I am not at all kidding about that last part – the room was WARM.

There are several practice exercises in the files section of the FSOA Yahoo! Groups, I recommend going through them all, extra never hurts. The most realistic exercise is the Ndungane exercise. It’s also the most complex, and will probably take the longest to complete. The basic structure of the CM is as follows: You get a big binder that may include some country information, embassy (or consulate) correspondence, and letter from someone high up in the embassy roster with instructions on what they want in the memo you will write. Here’s my bulleted list of general advice:

• There are different schools of thought on the best way to construct the memo, figure out which one works best for you. Personally, I work best by outlining and writing as I read, and it’s easier for me to make sure I finish on time.
• You are writing a MEMO. Take a quick look at how a memo should be composed and mimic that (google is your friend and word has decent templates).
• A nice touch may be to have the memo be From the name of the person the instructions were addressed to (but if you forget and sign your own name, that’s okay too).
• Don’t forget the pleasantries. One of the first things I wrote was my closing couple of sentences, complete with signature. That way, if I ran out of time, I still ended nicely.
• Follow Directions if the instructions want recommendations, don’t forget to make them, if they want a summary, just give a summary.
• Read Between the Lines The instructions may ask you to recommend how to solve a personnel issue, and you absolutely should make that your priority, but if you read the emails in the packet and everyone’s worried about how your department is going to make it’s numbers or meet the budget, by all means, point it out and make recommendations. You might find that the course of action you suggest may solve two problems at once.
• Make your recommendations up front (if you’re asked to provide them). Many times, the first paragraph or two of a memo is the only thing that will be read. While this isn’t necessarily the case for the CM, remember your audience should be a high ranking member of the embassy staff who may have 20 other memos to read before lunch besides yours. So make your recommendations in the first paragraph, then spend the rest of your memo backing them up.
• Keep it short – there will probably be a two page limit. Don’t push those boundaries and stay succinct.
• Pay attention to the numbers, especially if there are dollar signs in front of them. The CM is all about the Information Integration and Analysis and Quantitative Analysis dimensions (among others…), so analyze those numbers!
• Don’t forget to keep an eye on the clock.
• If your computer suddenly decides to use a different keyboard setting and you find yourself unable to type your memo and you can’t find anyone to help you, then by all means, use that scratch paper and keep going! Oh yes, .

The Structured Interview (SI)
As has been noted before in many places on the Internet, the SI is divided into three parts: Motivation, Hypotheticals, and Past Behavior. Really though, the structured interview is where you’ll really be assessed on the The Thirteen Dimensions. When it comes to motivation, your Statement of Interest (I’ll post mine at a later date) is good practice to get you ready for this section. However, you absolutely must be able to articulate your motivation for becoming a Foreign Service Officer. Practice out loud: in the car, over dinner, while taking a shower, or sweeping the floor. Practice to your cat, dog, fish, iguana, spouse, beau, swain, best friend, waitress, or the guy next you on the Metro. The only place I would caution against is on a plane – don’t be that guy.

For the Hypothetical Situations, practice with your study group. This will not only give you some much needed practice (there’s never enough!), but also introduce you to how many different people would address the situation.

For Past Behavior, you will need to be able to give an example in your life that corresponds to one of the thirteen dimensions. The examiners may not say as much, but you’ll understand what they’re looking for. When I started studying, I took some advice from the FSOA Yahoo! Group and started to write down examples from my past when I exhibited one of the dimensions. From there I created something of a monster. It’s a mapping worksheet that helped me figure out some good example experiences from my life, and which dimensions applied. Then, because I’m just a little crazy, I called it The Thirteen Dimensions Worksheet of Fun (MS Word Doc). Give it a try if you like, it definitely helped me sort out my experiences so I was ready to share them on the day of my assessment.

And now for some more general advice:

• If they offer you water, accept.
• Smile, sit up straight, and be polite.
• Make eye contact with both instructions, even if one is staring down at a clip board and is not (seemingly) paying any attention to you (this is pretty common).
• Be honest, don’t just say what you think they want to hear. The examiners are all FSO’s, and diplomats are trained to recognize when someone is being fake.
• At the end, they will ask if you have anything else you would like to add. Don’t over think this (unless there’s something you really want to say), a simple “I’m really happy to have had the opportunity to come here today” will suffice. If your exam happened to fall on the only day of real snow of the entire season, remember to thank them for coming in to run the assessment when the rest of the Federal Government is taking advantage of the liberal leave policy (that’s how I closed…).

Personal Preperation
I’ll end this overly long post with a few of the things I did to mentally prepare for the Oral Assessment.

• Keep to your routine. If you have coffee every morning, don’t skip it. If you’re like me and get overactive on with the merest hint of caffeine, this is not the day to have double americano.
• Try and get a full night of sleep. Hopefully someone won’t be shoveling the sidewalk under your window at 4am. Ugh.
• Wear a suit, preferably one that fits you well and you feel good in. Ladies, break out the pants suit to avoid unfortunate free shows – they will not help you pass the assessment.
• Bring something to do while you’re waiting. I brought cards – it’s too bad no one knew any good card games. *sigh*

AIM HIGH and Do Your Best My final bit of advice should be simple, but I’m going to elaborate anyway. Just because a 5.3 is a passing score does not mean that you should try and get a 5.3. You should be shooting for a 7 – I have it on good authority that this has actually happened before. I did my best to perform at a 7 level and I definitely came up short. However, if I hadn’t been aiming for that 7, I never would have gotten my 5.3.

In Japan people don’t generally say ‘good luck,’ they say a word that more or less means ‘do your best’ or ‘give it your all,’ so that’s how I’m going to close: Ganbare!

Tags: Foreign Service Exam, FSOA