Careers in Foreign Service

The Foreign Service is the first choice of those interested in a global government career. Taking Foreign Service as a career means accepting a proficient life spent overseas with steady transfers every few years. Foreign Services is very satisfying, exhilarating and rarely fascinating job.

However, the Foreign Service career offers less salary as compared to the private sector but liberal bonus and allowances make up the difference. For example, you will get hardship bonus up to 25 percent of your base salary if you are posted in some difficult part of world.

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Candidates seeking a career in the Foreign Service will enter one of the five career path. These are consular affairs, political affairs, economic affairs, management affairs and public diplomacy. The nature of your coursework and your career will largely depend on careers path that you choose at the start of your career as Foreign Service Officer. FSOs go through rigorous training program before they go for their first overseas assignment. Training program might include full time language study for almost two years. You can go through web site www.state.gov for more information regarding the application procedure. Every year around 40,000 aspirants apply for the positions of FSOs out of which only 400 are finally selected. If you are seriously interested in the Foreign Service career then do your homework meticulously. This exam is held once in every year and studying for this exam is very demanding. To complete your exam successfully, it will take wide and serious information about U.S. and world history along with international affairs and major political issues.

The Foreign Service offers you an outstanding learning experience and a better way to observe the world. Since the world is a continuously varying place and there is an increasingly wide array of international issues including medical, terrorism, social, environmental and religious, along with economic and political program, the Foreign Service career offer a thrilling and inspiring career path.

Foreign Service career involve continuous rotations which may affect your personal life. At the start of your career, it is easy to cope with exploring a new city and a new job every few years. However, it becomes difficult as you get elder. The State Department is looking into this matter and steadily increase the time of each rotation, three or four years on average.

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