Research Paper on:
Foreign Service Officer Qualifications and Skills

Unformatted Sample Text from the Research Paper:
Todays "Foreign Service Officer" has tremendous professional responsibilities. To fulfill these responsibilities the successful Foreign Service Officer must be well grounded in a number of academic as  well as practical areas of knowledge, skills, and abilities. The U.S. Office of Personnel Management is responsible for assessing an applicants qualifications for this job category. Currently, this  is accomplished with the use of standardized tests and subsequent oral assessments. In 2002 this process was streamlined with alternative entry programs which included the Alternative Exam Program and  the Diplomacy Fellows Program (Office of Personnel Management, 2003a). Those alternative means of qualifications may be made available for post-2002 qualification processes as well although the 2003 testing cycle  began on January 13 and does not appear to allow for these provisions. Whatever the means of assessment, however, the successful Foreign Service Officer must be well prepared in  certain key areas. These areas include knowledge and abilities in administrative, consular, public diplomacy, political, and economic functions alike. A number of qualities enhance an Officers ability to  fulfill those functions. There are, of course, certain general qualifications for the Foreign Service Officer. U.S. citizenship if the primary qualification criteria.  Citizenship is followed by the mandatory age of at least twenty years of age (Office of Personnel Management, 2003a). Maximum age at the time of application is fifty-nine  (Office of Personnel Management, 2003a). The only other general qualifications for this position is that the applicant be available for worldwide assignment and that they have not previously worked  from the Foreign Service and then separated under certain sections of the Foreign Service Act (Office of Personnel Management, 2003a). In