Invitation Only

Best news! I received my offer letter yesterday. Oddly, they apparently don't want me to tell them that I plan to accept the position for another two days, but who cares! This time next month, I'll be in orientation... This time...Next.....Month... Oh man is there a ton to do. After months of waiting, who would have thought I'd feel so pressed for time now.

Anyway, my immediate next move is to update my resume and send it with some assorted other information to the Registrar. She'll then work on fitting me into their metric for years of related experience to determine my starting pay. (Herein lies the major bummer to being a Foreign Service Specialist, compared to a Generalist - Pay Matching. My position guarantees me an FS Grade 5, but being a specialist means I'll come in at step 5, 6, or 7, instead of step 14. To be fair, I knew that going in, and I'm honestly ok with it. I'm more interested in quality of life, than quantity of money.) Once the Registrar has worked her magic, they will overnight my offer letter to me, and it'll be (completely) official. That being said, there is no more "competition" at this point, I'm in for the Feb 10th class, as long as I want it. More to come!

Good News, Better News

This morning I performed the sacred rite of all Foreign Service applicants added to the register; I called the Registrar to ask what rank I was. Remember when I said my Oral Assessment score was meaningless to me, since I had no frame of reference? Well, it mostly still is, BUT I now know that it was good enough to land me the number one spot on the IMS register as of 10am on January 8th, 2013! Huzzah! But wait, the good news fairy (Registrar) didn't stop there. She told me that invitations to the February 10th orientation are going out, and... as first on the list, I should be receiving one later today!

Unfortunately as it's now well past work hours, it appears she may have been mistaken as to when I'd receive the offer, but I'm used to being at the end of people's alphabetically organized lists, so hopefully I'll have the 'best' news some time tomorrow. All in all this is a little sooner than I was expecting (I'd been hoping for a March or April start date at the earliest), but there's no time like the present to get this show on the road!

Happy News Year!

As I left work on January 2nd, I was pleasantly surprised to have an email in my inbox from the Foreign Service. I have to admit, I hadn't been expecting to hear anything from them so soon, but there it was, a letter informing me that I'd been added to the IMS register! I am aware, and the register letter clearly reminded me, that being on the register is no guarantee of getting the job... BUT not being on the register is a guarantee of not getting the job. So needless to say, I'll take all the good news I can get.

I have read on other blogs that, once on the register, you can request your 'ranking' and whether there is a start date currently planned for the next cohort. So I promptly emailed my point of contact asking for the details. Unfortunately (though not really surprisingly) I didn't get a response of the Friday after New Years. Here's hoping for a reply next week. Despite the uncertainty, the excitement at my house is boiling over. We obviously don't know the future, but we're already daydreaming about the possibility of being at my first post by August or September of this year. That sounds like such a long time, but I imagine things will move quite quickly once they (hopefully!) start.

Side note, I guess it's time to stop procrastinating and get my son's medical exam turned in... and... you know... apply for his passport.