Considering a Career with the State Department.

• Author: Sibley, George

American Diplomacy

February 1, 2022

www.americandiplomacy.org

Title: Considering a Career with the State Department

Author:George Sibley

Text:

The editors of the American Diplomacy Journal have asked me to answer two questions about careers with the U.S. Department of State that resulted from their October 2021 webinar entitled "How Does U.S. Diplomacy Benefit Americans?" Before doing so, let me introduce myself. My name is George Sibley, and I am a senior Foreign Service Officer currently serving as the Diplomat in Residence (DIR) for the Mid-Atlantic Region, covering North Carolina, South Carolina, and Virginia. In this position, I provide information and assistance to persons interested in student and career opportunities with the Department.

We offer a variety of student programs, including internships, fellowships, and study programs. For careers, we offer a plethora of options. You can choose to work in the Civil Service, which would have you based in the U.S.; or in the Foreign Service, which would have you working abroad, rotating among our more than 270 different U.S. embassies and consulates.

Within the Foreign Service, we have careers as "Generalists" and as "Specialists." Specialists focus within a specific field throughout their careers. These include information management specialists, who manage and operate our global information technology infrastructure; construction engineers, who monitor and report on our diplomatic construction projects to ensure they are completed properly; and medical providers, who provide primary, acute, and emergency care to U.S. government employees and their families abroad. There are actually 19 different specialist careers--check them out at: https://careers.state.gov/work/foreign-service/specialist/.

Generalists work across five career tracks: consular, economic, management, political, and public diplomacy. You can learn more here: https://careers.state.gov/work/foreign-service/officer/. If you are a U.S. citizen and have any interest in these opportunities, I have three suggestions:

First, explore our website: https://careers.state.gov. We have a wealth of information there, including this welcome video from Secretary of State Blinken: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhi5JK2CVuk.

Second, if you still have some questions, I recommend you reach out to a Diplomat in Residence, whom you can identify and contact at https://careers. state.gov/connect/dir/. If you are currently in the MidAtlantic region, I can make it easier--just write to me at...