This week we will talk about promotions in the Foreign Service. After my post about the cost of living increases and awards, a reader sent me this question:

It is cool to see the government typically gives annual cost of living raises, but how do promotions work if there are any at all?

I want to start this answer by saying that I am very new to the State Department, am nowhere near being considered for promotion, and a lot of this answer will apply to specialist promotions and not generalist promotions. Generalists when they start their career’s will get administrative promotions every year up to Class 04 if they start at a lower level. Specialists start at a designated pay grade, and their promotion potential and mobility is limited for their first 2-3 years of service. For example I started at grade (class) 03 and Regional Medical Officers start at 01. Below is what our pay scale looks like:

The steps within a grade are determined when you are hired based on relevant job experience. From there, if you are below step 10, you can expect a step increase every year, and every 2 years if at or above step 10. If you come in at step 14, like I did, you are stuck there for at least 3 years, and likely longer. Step increases are not considered promotions.

In order to be eligible for a promotion, one has to be tenured. Tenure is a separate process where a panel called the “Tenure Board” meets and basically determines if an individual has the fortitude to make a career out of the Foreign Service. Generalists and MED employees are eligible for tenure at 3 years. Other specialists can get tenure at 2 years. They will look at your employee evaluations and based on what they see make a decision to grant or not grant tenure. An individual has 3 shots at being granted tenure over the course of a year, and if they have not gotten tenure by their 5th year of service, they are separated from the Foreign Service. From what I gather, it is very difficult to not be granted tenure, and you would have had to make some pretty epic mistakes or be very toxic to not get tenured.

Once tenured, you will then be eligible to go in front of the promotion board, where they too will look at all your evaluations and award history, rank you next to everyone else in your specialty, and if you make the cutoff you will be promoted to the next class level. For example, I am at Class 03 right now. Hypothetically in 4 years I am granted tenure and go before the promotion panel. They rank me 10th out of 25 in the same class and med specialty, and they decide to promote the top 10. That means I would go from a Class 03 to a class 02. The step you start out in your new class is a fairly simple process. You find the salary closest to your current salary without going under, and go up two steps. So a 03-14 would then become a 02-9. Class 02 step 7 is the closest salary to a 03-14, and you go up two steps. It basically boils down to a 6% salary increase.

Promotion for most folks in the Foreign Service also dictates the jobs you can bid on. Most 02 and 01 positions involve managing a lot of people and usually being a section head or even a deputy chief of mission (for 01). So getting that promotion comes with more supervisory responsibility. This doesn’t really apply to MED, and outside of some very senior D.C. jobs, MED doesn’t really designate any jobs based on class since the role of running a health unit and providing care to patients doesn’t really change much depending on the country, and ironically, newer providers to the service find themselves in many of the more austere posts where you would think they would want more seasoned staff.

So yes, there are promotions, they happen after being granted tenure, and for most jobs come with more money and more management responsibilities. I hope that wasn’t as clear as mud. – Nick