The Complex Road to Becoming an Ambassador

Run a risk, service and international cooperation drew me to the Strange Service. Don't lose your own ideals on your way to the top.

Ambassador Tom Armbruster's interest in the environment and climate change led him underwater during his tour in the Marsall Islands. Photo by Raycrew Marshall Islands.

There are two ways to become an American ambassador. For the first one, you accept to exist handsomely rich, very well connected politically or capable of raising hundreds of thousands of dollars for a successful presidential candidate. The second route is more circuitous and demanding, but as well more than fun. Information technology winds through the trails and passageways of the U.S. Foreign Service.

To bring together the Strange Service, you must be a U.S. denizen, 21 or older, and willing to serve at any of the more 270 American diplomatic missions around the globe. The application process has several steps, including written and oral tests, essays, security and medical clearance, as well as a suitability review. The process can accept more a year. If you laissez passer every round, y'all will exist given a score, which will make up one's mind your place on a "register." As slots become available, candidates at the top of the list receive employment offers. If you don't get hired inside xviii months, you drib off the register and have to begin the unabridged process afresh.

Once you become an offering, you lot can begin planning your career. Conventional wisdom dictates that you must take sure steps on your Foreign Service journey to secure an ambassadorship. Many officers believe decision-makers favor certain Land Department bureaus, assignments or career tracks, known as "cones," over others. Those beliefs take some validity, although not everyone who follows them makes an ambassador, and a few who deviate wildly end upward running an embassy. My career didn't follow all the prescribed steps, but information technology was rewarding, assuasive me to follow my interests and to receive the responsibility and award of condign an ambassador.

Risk, service and international ecology cooperation drew me to the Strange Service. You lot will bring together with your ain ideals and expectations. Don't lose them in your journey to the summit. With that in mind, I offering my personal tips for getting into and enjoying the Foreign Service, no thing which rank you terminate upwardly achieving.

Go a passport and get fix

You volition receive a black passport with gold letters when you join the Land Department, your home bureau as a Strange Service officeholder. Until then, get your blue passport and become somewhere. Anywhere. There is no required past travel, language or degree to join the service, but the testers desire to know that yous will be successful overseas in a stressful, fast-paced, ever-changing foreign environment. Traveling and learning to adapt to new cultures and crude roads lay a foundation. If international travel is out of achieve, virtually feel countries and seek out differing regional cultures in the United states of america.

Get that sheepskin and get uncomfortable

A degree is not a requirement for the Foreign Service, but a higher experience helps you gain the skills and worldview ofttimes needed to succeed. It offers a hazard to join clubs and organizations to gain or raise skills or outlooks, and exposes you to differing opinions and new ideas. You acquire how to convey your thoughts and analyze situations ― skills needed in the exams and in the career. College is also a great delivery system for internships, which allow y'all to try a career on for size and see if it fits ― even through virtual internships . College is a risk to stretch your comfort zone. If you want to be a Foreign Service officeholder and an ambassador, you must expand your sweet spot, so you become comfortable trying new things, hearing different views, learning foreign languages and leading teams.

If you partner up, be flexible

Fifty-fifty with my positive outlook and the progress the State Department has made in all-around "tandem couples," I know that having both spouses in the Strange Service and navigating two careers is not easy. Life can be even more difficult for "trailing spouses," who have to forge or sustain a career exterior the section, while moving every iii years or less. Flexibility and creativity are needed. My married woman and I were not a tandem, and she developed a cracking international career. I'm thankful for that, because I wanted both the Foreign Service life and somebody with me who shared and understood all my crazy references from effectually the world.

Life every bit a family unit member in the Foreign Service can be tough, but contempo cultural shifts in the section brand it easier to bring an aging parent to an overseas mail and brand family situations piece of work when dependents are allowed at mail — and when they are not. Despite the changes, your career still may mean temporary family unit separations and missed weddings, birthdays and school concerts. Some posts are "unaccompanied," and you lot can expect to serve at such a post at least once in your career. The lifestyle is not for everyone, whether that someone is you or a member of your family.

Get experience after college and be persistent

The average age of new Strange Service officers is over 30. Some diplomats bring together right out of college, just nowadays that is rare. Many officers have advanced degrees and professional experience, including war machine service. I was 30. I took the written exam more than once before passing. It became a hobby. I failed the first fourth dimension, then passed all the steps but didn't get chosen up in the 18-month timeframe. I passed the written exam three times earlier I landed the chore. If you lot don't go in the first fourth dimension, go along trying.

Learn constantly and be the salt

The State Section offers opportunities to learn languages in depth, to work at other U.Southward. government agencies, every bit well as on Capitol Hill. I went to the Naval War College for a twelvemonth. Sailors, soldiers and airmen comprised most of the pupil body there. Foreign Service officers and a few Civil Service personnel were the exceptions. I said at one bespeak, "We non-armed forces students in the War College are like footling grains of salt in a loaf of breadstuff." My professor responded, "Yeah, but accept y'all ever tasted bread without the salt? You need a little compression!"

You can also learn from your many colleagues. Bigger posts take representatives from two or three dozen agencies in the diplomatic mission. Get to know both the agencies and the people. Serving together in war zones in Iraq and Afghanistan helped service members and diplomats understand each other better — we demand each other in foreign policy. No evolution is possible without security, and no military victory is truly secured without diplomacy and development. Without diplomats, there would be many more than conflicts, and the military might have to fight in many more places. If you get to be an ambassador, this knowledge will assist you run the embassy well.

Stay idealistic amid the challenges

As a Foreign Service officeholder, you will work on matters of war and peace, women's empowerment, sports diplomacy, counternarcotics, intelligence-sharing, countering fierce extremism, trade, real estate, applied science, business, security, even promoting English as a second language and helping Americans in trouble. If you want to change the globe, the Foreign Service tin can help yous do that. Information technology tin can also betrayal you to the negative and even evil sides of humankind. The experiences I had changed me, just at center I still think people working together can solve whatever problem.

Your country needs yous to showcase all of it

In today's uncertain globe, I know i thing: Nosotros need you lot. The State Section needs people from diverse backgrounds, especially first- and 2d-generation Americans. We need a Strange Service that represents all of the United States — from farming communities in Nebraska to urban families in Harlem, from the Ivy Leaguers to the community higher graduates. No matter in which category you lot fit, you represent segments of the land that must exist part of our foreign policy. Former and current Foreign Service members have worked hard to brand the department a more equitable employer. Accept reward of their efforts and contribute your own to ensure U.S. diplomats reflect the varied backgrounds of Americans.

If you are nominated to be an ambassador, it's all about Senate confirmation, briefing papers and security clearances. But diplomacy represents something bigger than yourself. Y'all are your home-state's face and embodiment in your host-country — its history, ethics, failings and victories. I believe it'due south a privilege to work on the nation's challenges, even when faced with difficulties. You will encounter red tape, hostility, abuse and other hurdles. Through it all, stay idealistic.