First, I want to wish Mara a very happy birthday. I'm usually pretty bad at remembering birthdays and the like, but I'm trying to get better. Happy B-day, Mar!
Second, I submitted our bidlist yesterday, so I guess I can share it today without jinxing it. Here's to hoping!
Before I get there, tho, I should explain that we have agonized over this list since July 1. We've culled through post reports, real post reports, post profiles, wikipedia articles, diplopedia articles, post info to go documents, and more to try and cull a list of 550+ positions to 20, with no repeats.
The first thing we had to do was figure out what the requirements were, and then what matters most to us; we broke this into professional considerations and personal considerations. Mind you, since we have to send this to my career development officer, we focused on my professional considerations in our summary, and Katie's in our research.
Our requirements were that we had to find a consular position for me. We also had to find one with timing that works out perfectly and includes home leave, consular training, area studies, and, possibly, language training. Those requirements took us down to about 180 positions.
My professional considerations were already mostly included in the requirements. The only other major professional consideration we had was the size of the post (yes, size does matter!) to try and find something different. Since I've worked on the Middle East for 10 years, we wanted something somewhere else, although, if any really good ME positions had worked, we would have considered them.
Our personal considerations were that we wanted to find a place where Katie could continue her career development, preferably in the private sector, but possibly as a State Department contractor. We wanted to find a place where we can take the dogs (which meant no Jamaica, among other places).
So, here's the list. CON means it's a consular position, the - means it's a rotation, POL = Political Officer, ECON = Economic Officer, and the IROG in Curacao means it's a do a bit of everything. We ranked the top 9 high, 10-16 medium, and 17-20 "Low", but we might go to any one of these, or, if the Career Development Officers (CDOs) don't like the list at all, somewhere else entirely. I like our chances for several of these, tho.
1. Amsterdam/CON
2. Warsaw/CON-POL
3. Buenos Aires/CON
4. Bucharest/CON
5. Santiago/CON
6. Lima/CON
7. Tijuana/CON
8. Bern/CON
9. Curacao/CON-IROG
10. Athens/CON-ECON
11. Frankfurt/CON
12. Montreal/CON
13. Toronto/CON
14. Panama/CON
15. Merida/CON
16. Guadalajara/CON
17. Brasilia/CON
18. Hong Kong/CON
19. Belgrade/CON
20. Belmopan/CON
4 comments:
OK, list approved. Amsterdam is so beautiful. You can ride bikes, and in the spring you can travel out to look at the tulips and windmills! Might have to visit you. . .
Glad you used Diplopedia - please contribute info there if you have a second.
Man, I put in a bid list for my assignment with AmeriCorps and I got Dover, Delaware. Granted they're all in Delaware, but still...
Fingers crossed you get where you want.
Great list! Can i reserve my spot for next year in case I have to evacuate from this place? ;)
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