State Department Targets For Hiring, Filling Vacancies Overseas Being Met, But Gaps Remain In Hard-to-learn Languages

During the 1990s, the State Dept. (SD) lost more people than it hired. The resultant shortfalls in the number & skills of Foreign Serv. (FS) officers have endangered U.S. diplomatic readiness. Furthermore, recent studies have questioned whether SD's recruitment system identifies people with the appropriate skills & whether SD is assigning officers with specialized skills, such as the ability to speak a difficult language. This report reviews the SD's processes for determining the number & skills of junior officers the dep't. needs & to determine whether it is hiring & assigning officers with the general skills to carry out foreign policy overseas. Also examines the challenges the SD still needs to address, especially regarding officers' foreign language skills.Ford, Jess T. is the author of 'State Department Targets For Hiring, Filling Vacancies Overseas Being Met, But Gaps Remain In Hard-to-learn Languages', published 2004 under ISBN 9780756739706 and ISBN 0756739705.