bidding

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Foreign Service: Domestic Bidding for a Change

How Did I Get Here?

This is not where I expected to be: neither in Washington, D.C. nor bidding for my next job. I expected to still be working in Guinea and to have another year before my next bidding cycle. But, here I am.

It was in 2020 that I last went through the U.S. Foreign Service bidding cycle, when those whose tours are coming to an end apply, or rather “bid,” for their next assignment. With nine months of training and then a planned three-year tour, I expected to work in Guinea until the summer of 2025, with bidding then landing in the fall of 2024. Unfortunately, for a host of reasons, I curtailed from my assignment in Conakry after only six months, and returned to Washington in January 2023.

I landed a great assignment in the Afghanistan Special Immigrant Visa Unit reviewing application documentation from Afghans who were employed by or on behalf of the U.S.. When Kabul fell and the U.S. made its final withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021, I was on my Home Leave between my assignment in Malawi and starting my training for Guinea. As many of my colleagues assisted with the final evacuation or with Afghans resettling in the U.S., I felt useless watching it unfold and not being in a position to assist. With my current posting, I am now able to help in a small way.

Conventional wisdom in the Foreign Service says that an officer should spend the first two tours overseas and the third in D.C. And plenty of people follow this playbook. The thing is everyone knows an exception to the rule, including quite a few high level officers. For me, I figured A. I spent several years working for the federal government in Washington before joining the State Department and B. The high cost of living in and around the nation’s capital is not at all single-parent friendly.

Yet at the beginning of 2023, counter to all my best-laid plans, I found us in Washington. A condition of my curtailment was to work here at least one year, and I was lucky to secure a position for a year and a half. Though a part of me would like to be abroad again, another, much stronger, part could not fathom moving again so soon. We had moved three times in nine months. To Guinea in June 2022, to temporary housing in the States in January 2023, and then into more permanent housing in March 2023. Throw in the second half of our between tours Home Leave with a trip to Grand Teton and Yellowstone and then nearly two weeks in a hotel and it’s more upheaval. Add in our departure from Malawi and then Home Leave in Florida in August 2021 and then the move to Virginia in September 2021 for nine months, and the tally is five or six moves in a 20-month period. Guinea was supposed to have been for three years. My daughter, my cats, and me, well, we deserve to settle in for a spell.

And so this is where I found myself: bidding earlier than expected, bidding from a different place than expected, and bidding on different jobs than expected.

On the Auction Block

It is not easy to explain the whack-a-doodle (why yes, this is a diplomatic term) process the Foreign Service has its mid-level diplomats go through to procure their next assignment. Here we are, having already passed a multi-step rigorous entrance exam to join the ranks of the diplomatic corps, every two to four years in a stressful and time consuming competition for our next assignment.

I have bid mid-level twice before. The first time was in 2016, when I tried to compare it to how teenagers might finagle a date to the homecoming dance. My second mid-level bidding session occurred in 2020, smack in the middle of all the weirdness of the first six to eight months of the COVID-19 pandemic, when I attempted to equate bidding to buying a house in a very competitive market. This year though, the whole thing felt more like an auction.

It is not a perfect analogy. Though I have not been to a live auction, I have seen them portrayed in movies and television, and they move with lightning speed. You have an item up for bid, the auctioneer gives a little introduction and then a starting price, and then away it goes. Within minutes the item is sold and the next item is up for bid. The government, however, does not do anything quite that fast. Our bidding is a slow burn that takes place over weeks. We have our catalog of open positions with written descriptions and we set up calls with the incumbent to gather more information. We can see in the system how many people are bidding our target jobs, but we are not in the room with them. We do not know how serious their bids may be, we do not know what they are bringing to the table. They might raise their paddle to express interest, but they can later decide not to make a final offer. We are hoping that our bid package–a combination of our past assignments, references, and interview responses–will make us the highest bidder on at least one of our preferred jobs.

In the early days of the bid season, I felt very much like a competitive bidder. With multiple tours under my belt at different posts (some Consulates, some Embassies, and now a DC job) and in different career tracks (some consular, some political, and now a management designated one), I felt fairly confident as I strode into the virtual auction houses. During interviews I felt like a bidder on the edge of her seat, straining to hold my bid paddle higher than any others, basically yelling “pick-me!” with every response.

However, as the day approached to lock in bids, I felt less like a bidder and more like the auctioneer trying desperately to sell myself, the “as-is” vase sitting alone on the pedestal in the glaring spotlight. “The next item up for bid is this capable mid-level officer with twelve years in the Department. She has both consular and political positions under her belt. She is about as handy as a pocket on your shirt. Let’s start the bidding at….” The power had shifted to the offices, who were now the buyers. Would any one of them bid on me?

Joining the Club of the Unassigned

The bid season lasts approximately eight weeks. For the first five weeks, bidding officers and offices with open positions prepare their respective bid cards, with bidders figuring out which positions will make their official bid list and offices ranking those they interview. At the end of the five weeks, bidders lock in their final five to ten bids in the system and hit submit. During the last three weeks, offices work out who they want. Shortlists of the top three to five candidates are made. Those who make the shortlists are informed. Top candidates will be sent a “Bureau Leading Candidate” (BLC) email about five days before the last day of the official bid season. Offers, called “handshakes,” are sent out on the last day.

I did not receive one.

While many may receive one or more offers on Handshake Day, a good many will not. This year I noticed several emails touting the statistic that 30-50% of positions remained unfilled a month after Handshake Day. Still, though we are told this and we tell one another its normal and not to put too much stock into it, when you see many friends and colleagues posting about their next assignment on the day, it does not feel all that great to be without.

And this was the first time I had not received a handshake on the day. During my first go-round my offer arrived two days late though it was dated handshake day (the bureau, it seemed, had forgotten to send it). In my second mid-level bid season, I received two BLC emails (not really a humble brag — my strategy? Bid jobs with few to no other bidders!), and once I made my preference known, the official offer came on Handshake Day. Nonetheless, this time, I had become an “unassigned bidder.” The auction had closed, and I had been swept off the display table to be stored in a back room until I found an office to proffer me the coveted handshake.

Success at Last!

Luckily, though Handshake Day might be the end of bidding for some, for others this is when things just get going. In this auction, an individual can only be the successful bidder on one item; any unfilled positions are then back in play. A week after Handshake Day, I was back searching the available jobs and found not only a few new-to-me unfilled positions, but also positions still open among my top four choices! Two weeks after the official Handshake Day, I received an offer for one of my original top desired jobs and I readily accepted. The day after I received another and had to turn that one down. All’s well that ends well, I suppose, but I am glad to be done with it, at least for (fingers crossed) two more years.

Our next assignment: Another domestic job in Washington. (I know, the whole title was a spoil alert!) I will be a Career Development Officer, like an assignment counselor, for first and second-tour officers. And for the first time in my Foreign Service career, I will not have to move when I change jobs.

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Here I Go Again — Bidding in the Time of COVID

Has it already been four years? I don’t mean those four years, like for the presidential election, but four years since I last bid for a new assignment in the Foreign Service. The answer is it has been though I tried to put it off for as long as possible with my two consecutive tours in Malawi. Yet, here I am again playing another game of Where Do I Go Next?

The last time, in 2016, was my first time to be introduced to the highs and lows and general confusion of mid-level bidding for the U.S. diplomat. The first two tours of a U.S. diplomat’s life are directed by Career Development Officers. We get a list of available Posts and we order them high, medium, or low, and can write in comments as to why one place might be high (I speak the language) or low (they do not allow pets in housing and I have two cats), and then we are assigned. That might seem impersonal to some, but believe you me, after going through how we do the mid-level bidding, many of us are nostalgic for those good ole straightforward directed assignment days.

Previously, I compared mid-level bidding to the mayhem of a small high school dating pool trying to suss out who does and does not get a date to Homecoming and with whom. But I am a bit older now and, forgive the pun, but I have already done this dance.

A colleague of mine says he compares our diplomatic job search process to buying a house. I have actually never bought a home, but I have watched a few of those house search shows here and there, and its an apt description.

So, you are looking to become a homeowner. You have some ideas in mind – maybe you want ranch or colonial? You want a certain number of bedrooms and baths. You want to be off the main street, maybe on a cul-de-sac? You want to be able to walk to grocery stores and restaurants.

And this is how it begins with bidding. You have certain criteria in mind. For myself, I wanted some place with a good school for C. I’m no Tiger Mom, so it doesn’t have to be Harvard, Jr, but a decent place where my daughter can get some much needed individual attention and a good education fits the bill. I also preferred a place where she would not have a long commute to school as in Lilongwe she is on the bus (when we had a bus) for 30 minutes at least each way. She says she doesn’t mind as she likes to chat with her friends, but I thought a shorter commute was in order.

I wanted a place where I could import pets relatively easy. It’s never easy to move overseas with pets, and this is why some people will not have them in this lifestyle. But for some, like me, having a pet makes life better. Still, I can make things somewhat easier on myself and our furry family members by not bidding on a place that has a long list of import requirements and/or a multi-month quarantine.

I wanted a language-designated position. I love living overseas. I love experiencing culture and history and all the in-between of a place from the vantage of residency vice tourism. (Though I love me some tourism too!) But language training also gives me and C some much needed time back in the U.S. C has not spent much time in her homeland, and the longest (six months) was from birth until our move to Mexico. I am desperate for Tex-Mex, salads, a good gym, and sidewalks.

And I wanted a place where I was not the sole political officer. Malawi has been a life-changing tour and the opportunity to head up a section both challenging and rewarding, but I wanted the chance to learn from someone else as the chief, with occasional stand in roles.

There were also a whole host of other little criteria — commute times, housing types, climate, the number of flights to and from the country (and where), post differential (how much additional money one receives for hardship), number of R&Rs, and so on. And I took these criteria and reviewed the projected vacancies list and then built a spreadsheet of the places I intended to bid. As one might put together a list of criteria for a house you want to buy. And as soon as bidding began, it was all upended.

OK. Hold up. Actually, my intended bid list was upended before the official bid season went live on September 21. COVID-19 struck again. Due to the pandemic, hundreds of Foreign Service families overseas opted to accept the Department’s generous offer of Global Authorized Departure (G/AD). This allowed those with preexisting conditions or with family members that had conditions that might make them more susceptible (including family in the States) or were in locations with poor medical care, or all the above, to return to the United States. After months of being on G/AD, some officers saw the writing on the wall; they were not going to be able to return to their Post anytime soon and thus they took advantage of a no-fault curtailment. With that, their jobs, that were on the bid list for a summer 2022 arrival after language, became NOW jobs — those that need immediate filling. I watched as two positions at the top of my list were suddenly no longer available.

Its like I had my eye on some nice properties — I saw the for sale sign out front and imagined those were the homes for me and I figure they will be on the market for a little bit when suddenly there is a quick sale and that’s it, my dream home is gone. And then you have to go back to the listings and find something else.

You might find yourself outbid. Maybe you go for one of those seriously heavily bid places like Paris, with some 50 people gunning for the same job? Or maybe you just find that a place you did not expect to be popular is? I found myself in this position this year, interviewing for two jobs that hit the 20 bidders mark. On one I felt I had a shot; on the other I quickly realized I did not.

On others, I just wasn’t the person the Post was looking for. I know I “looked good on paper,” had very strong academic and/or work experience specific to the country or the issues, and yet, I found myself waived away very early, encouraged to bid elsewhere. Try a few roads down, in another part of town. Discouraging? Absolutely. Angry? A wee bit. But that doesn’t get me another assignment. It’s back to the classifieds.

I found myself making all kinds of adjustments to my criteria. I did not want to be somewhere with a long commute — but hey, this position looks good, the country new and exciting, I get the world language training, C gets a good school, so I can maybe live with a 45 minute drive to and from work? I did not want a position where I was the sole political officer — but this other position, its somewhere I have regional expertise in, the commute is short for myself and my daughter, its warm year round, so maybe I could be the sole officer again though its also really complicated and costly to import pets? My daughter has said repeatedly she doesn’t want to go to college, so why not use that saved tuition for pet importation?

On House Hunters, persons in the market for a new home prepare a set of criteria and then an agent finds three candidate homes that mostly meet their requirements. Almost every single home has something they did not ask for, something that does not fit the criteria. The dream home of your imagination, is very often not the dream home of your reality. You make the best of what you end up with, you compromise and embrace.

Over the course of the four official weeks of bid season, the list I started with on Bid Season Eve was almost unrecognizable from the list I submitted on the final day. My top five spots were an eclectic mix; my top two completely a surprise.

Lo and behold, I was the number one for two places. I receive the coveted Bureau Leading Candidate email (Pro-tip: bid places with few other bidders!); and then I had to make a difficult choice. I wanted to go to both my top two. Heck, I wanted to go to every place in my top five. I had sold myself on the adventure to be found in each place. But in the immortal words from The Highlander: in the end, there can be only one — but perhaps one of the others next time? After all, we will move again.

Next assignment: Conakry, Guinea, summer 2022 via French training