I passed the oral assessment (OA) last week, scoring a 5.3 . That is the minimum passing score, but if I can get past the medical and security clearances, I think my chances are pretty good of getting called off the register. Management is an in-demand track, and I can always spend some time upgrading my Spanish and get some bonus points to bring my score to 5.47.
What a huge relief. I know what it is to come up short at the assessment, and it's no fun leaving the OA knowing that you've got another year to get back to that point again. This year, I left the OA completely exhausted, but as the owner of a conditional offer.
The day started out as expected. Having been through it once before let me settle in and focus on what was important, rather than being distracted. Anyone who's been to Annex #44 to take the OA knows that it can be a shock to get the instructions from the office coordinator. Last year I was very distracted by her style, but this year I was able to just smile and be entertained by it.
The group exercise (GE) was the first event of the day. My presentation went pretty well but I ran overtime, and even though I'd covered most of what I wanted to, my understanding is that running over is a big no-no. The discussion phase was a challenge, as expected. There were several people who wanted to lead the discussion, including me, and there wasn't enough time to have that happen. It was ugly. In a non-testing situation, I would have acted totally differently, but the test was a performance, and I forced things to try to score some positive points with the assessors. In the end, I didn't feel like we did a good job of respecting each other and I felt like our consensus was formed out of time desperation. I wasn't surprised to learn that I'd failed this part of the day.
I had my structured interview (SI) next. I had practiced a lot for this, by coming up with several examples of experiences that showed off the skills they are assessing. From last year, I had a sense of some of the questions they would ask, and made sure I had good answers in case they asked the same questions. I had one uncomfortable moment when I volunteered to them that I'd made an error on my application, but I was glad that they then knew and could judge me based on the truth. Overall, it went smoothly, and I passed this section.
Last up was the case management (CM). I was feeling pretty good about my chances of passing when I sat down to take the CM, but it was really hard, and I had a few thoughts of bombing the exercise and not passing for the day. There was a lot of information. The recommendation is to spend 45 minutes reading, 30 minutes writing, and 15 minutes reviewing. After 55 minutes, I was still reading and had no idea what I was going to recommend. It was a horrible feeling. At around an hour in, I started writing from the notes I'd taken. I figured I wanted to get everything I'd noted as important into the memo, even if I couldn't make sense of it all, or come up with a good recommendation. As I started writing, things seemed less chaotic. The pressure started to lift, and I was able to rattle off my memo and recommendations with a few minutes to spare. I added and edited up until I was told to stop. It was pretty stressful, but in the end, I passed this section.
I had two hours until it was time to hear the verdict. I stayed in the seating area chatting with the other candidates. It was encouraging to see that there were other candidates that I would enjoy working and spending time with. Foreign Service work is by its nature difficult and distant, so it was nice to see that I'd be in those difficult and distant situations with some good people.
When the assessors are ready to give the results, they assemble everyone in one room, and then call people out individually to tell them in a private setting. I have read recaps of other's experiences of hearing the positive news, so when I was called out and shown to a room that already had another candidate waiting there, I was pretty certain that I was about to get good news. Seconds later, a third candidate was shown into the room and we were told that we'd passed the OA. Not only was it nice to hear, but it was nice to see that the assessors were genuinely happy for me too.
From that point on, things were really a blur. I chatted with the assessors to go over some procedural stuff, and met with a security agent to submit my security clearance form (sf86) and to get fingerprinted. It seemed that as soon as I'd been told I'd passed, I lost the ability to complete complex tasks. I had spent the day proving that I'm a capable person with the skills to handle the job, but filling out the simple information on the finger prints card now seemed like a major challenge. I had used up all my energy and focus for the day already. I was ready to get out of there, get out of my suit, get something to eat, and reset my batteries.
It was almost 6pm when I got out of the building and made some "I passed" calls. What a long day!
I met up with G and A to get some dinner. After I got out of my suit, we went to Comet Pizza. It's a ping pong / pizza place. Good meal with good friends to celebrate good news.
Thursday, August 6, 2009
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