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The U.S. Department of State is developing a rank-ordered list of eligible hires for a limited number of Foreign Service Regional Public Engagement Specialists (RPES) positions. Learn more about Foreign Service careers at https://careers.state.gov.
There is more to joining the Foreign Service than just salary. Refer to the Benefits section for more information on total compensation.
Learn more about this agency10/08/2024 to 10/29/2024
$98,697 - $144,940 per year
FP 03
No
No
75% or less - Foreign Service Specialists generally spend the majority of their careers assigned to overseas missions and at times, live away from family and/or in difficult or isolated conditions.
Yes—Upon completing orientation and initial training in Washington, D.C., employees are assigned to two sequential tours, typically two-years each, directed by the Department. These entry-level assignments may be overseas or in the United States. After the initial two tours, employees have greater choice as to the location, length, and substantive nature of assignments.
Permanent - Permanent after tenure granted by a Foreign Service Specialist Tenure Board.
Full-Time
Excepted
01
Yes
No
RPES-2025-0001
812844300
Must be a U.S. citizen. Candidates should read the entire announcement to ensure they meet all requirements. Candidates may reapply one year after their most recent date of application submission for the same position. Candidates may not apply if a State Department Suitability Review Panel denied suitability in the last two years for any position, (except if the denial was for a DS Special Agent (SA) candidate whose denial was based solely on the unique requirements for SAs).
Foreign Service Regional Public Engagement Specialists (RPES) are experienced professional leaders with expertise in information resources and the management of American Spaces, the U.S. government’s primary public cultural and information centers abroad. RPES, under the leadership of the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs’ (ECA) Office of American Spaces, and Public Diplomacy sections at U.S. missions, provide professional expertise and program support to over 600 American Spaces located at U.S. embassies and consulates, and at partner institutions. ECA is the Department’s bureau that works to build friendly, peaceful relations between the people of the United States and the people of other countries through academic, cultural, sports, and professional exchanges, as well as public-private partnerships. American Spaces are centers to promote engagement with audiences around the world on issues of importance to U.S. foreign policy, and on U.S. culture and values. RPES serve in 23 overseas locations (Accra, Almaty, Amman, Beijing, Belgrade, Brasilia, Buenos Aires, Cairo, Dakar, Hanoi, Islamabad, Jakarta, Kigali, Kyiv, Mexico City, Nairobi, New Delhi, Panama, Pretoria, Riga, Rome, Suva, and Vienna) and Washington, D.C. and provide professional direction and guidance to American Spaces within their assigned portfolio of 2-12 countries.
TASKS AT BUREAU OF EDUCATIONAL AND CULTURAL AFFAIRS (ECA) AND WASHINGTON-BASED OFFICES
Advisory Functions: Advises Department officials and other stakeholders in Washington, D.C. on American Spaces program environments. Advises overseas posts on American Spaces programming and operations; monitors trends; reports on the impact of American spaces; and files consultation reports.
Development of Programs: Proposes new programs, serves as a member of program development teams, and tests and evaluates program outcomes.
Administrative Functions: Manages fiscal resources, advises on funding sources for American Spaces, maintains currency of centralized databases, and ensures accountability.
Advocacy/Promoting Functions: Promotes American Spaces programs, awareness of American Spaces within the Department and among U.S. stakeholders, optimizes use of Bureau programs, and liaises with American academic, library, information, and cultural institution communities.
Specialist Expertise: Provides and applies specialist knowledge focused on public access to reliable, correct, and timely information and resources, and outreach to a wide range of audiences focused on identified priority subjects.
TASKS AT OVERSEAS MISSIONS AND AMERICAN SPACES ASSIGNED TO RPES PORTFOLIO
Engagement with Public Diplomacy Officials: Participates in public diplomacy programs, conducts official travel related to advisory and consultative services to PD sections, provides specialized expertise in information resources, troubleshoots on behalf of post, and promotes institutional linkages.
American Spaces Management: Develops strategic plans, provides expertise in the management of venues, such as libraries, museums, makerspaces, cultural spaces, and other related centers, assesses local information landscape, evaluates American Spaces collections, and advises on library/information/resource practice and standards.
American Spaces Supervision of Locally Employed (LE) Staff and Partner Coordinators: Conducts needs assessments, trains staff, hosts regional and topical workshops, writes position descriptions, participates in staff recruitment, and builds professional communities.
American Spaces Program Oversight: Promotes best practices, conducts outreach to library, tech, business, and cultural institution professionals and broader NGO and private sector community, develops collection resources, oversees programs, advises staff on the management of American spaces, recruits participants for exchanges, promotes use of new technologies, advises on copyright compliance, and advises on purchases/acquisitions.
Partner American Spaces and Binational Centers: Advises on viability of partnerships with American Space host institutions, clears on memoranda of understanding and other agreements, assesses compliance with American Spaces standards, advises on library/media collections, participates in partner programming, promotes best practices for partners, trains partner staff, and oversees partner grants.
Specialist Expertise: Provides and applies specialist knowledge focused on public access to reliable, correct, and timely information and resources, curating information, and outreach to a wide range of overseas audiences focused on identified priority subjects.
Foreign Service Regional Public Engagement Specialists are experienced professional leaders with expertise in information resources and the management of libraries, makerspaces, cultural spaces, and other related centers. They are expected to interact with the global network of American Spaces, U.S. embassies and consulates, partner institutions, and the thousands of U.S. government and partner staff who operate them.
A Regional Public Engagement Specialist must adhere to the highest standards of integrity, dependability, attention to detail, teamwork and cooperation while accepting the need to travel frequently, to live overseas, and when necessary, to live away from family.
Specialized Experience demonstrates the candidate has acquired, and is able to apply, a combination of specific knowledge, skills and abilities appropriate to a Foreign Service RPES position. Candidates must demonstrate that their job-related experience has been at progressively increasing levels of performance and responsibility through such indicators as promotions, raises, increases in duties and responsibilities, and organizational and employee impact. Candidates must possess at least 10 years of Specialized Experience.
Examples of Specialized Experience include:
Candidates should demonstrate a strong command of the English language to include grammar, word usage, spelling, and punctuation. Foreign Service Specialists must consistently meet a high standard for English, both written (overall structure as well as grammar, spelling, and punctuation) and spoken (overall structure as well as delivery, clarity, and succinctness).
Formal experience studying a foreign language or demonstrated ability using a foreign language is desirable, but not required.
Knowledge, Skills and Abilities
The Department has conducted extensive job analysis research to determine Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities (KSAs) and other attributes conducive to successful performance in this position. A candidate’s education level, work experience, and other qualifications will be considered as part of the hiring decision-making process based on these KSA criteria. Not all of these attributes need to be met by a candidate; the attributes will be used as a set to evaluate candidates.
Knowledge of:
Skills in:
Partner Relationships: Skills in establishing new models of collaboration and strengthening partnerships with multiple stakeholders to achieve organizational objectives.
Ability to:
Other Requirements: Openness for international career: Accept assignments based on the needs of the Foreign Service, experiencing frequent global travel.
At the time of application, candidates MUST possess a Master’s degree (or higher) from an accredited U.S. graduate program in one of the following fields, or closely-related fields, and 10 years of Specialized Experience out of the last 15 years.
Education from a program or institution within the United States must be accredited at the time of program completion by an accrediting institution recognized by the U.S. Department of Education, http://ope.ed.gov/accreditation.
Foreign Education
Foreign education acquired outside of any state of the U.S., the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, a Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands, or any territory or possession of the U.S. must be evaluated by a member organization of one of the two national associations of credential evaluation services (NACES or AICE) in order to be given credit towards qualification.
For further information on the evaluation of foreign education, please refer to the Office of Personnel Management, Foreign Education section, and the U.S. Department of Education. The U.S. Department of State neither endorses nor recommends any individual evaluation service.
OPM: www.opm.gov
U.S. Department of Education: http://www.ed.gov
Please refer to the Required Documents Section on how to submit the required educational documentation for this position.
*EMPLOYMENT ELIGIBILITY VERIFICATION PROGRAM (E-Verify) – Verification of employment eligibility in the United States is required.
U.S. law requires organizations to employ only individuals who may legally work in the United States – either U.S. citizens, or foreign citizens who have the necessary authorization. This agency utilizes E-Verify to compare information from the Form I-9, Employment Eligibility Verification, to data from U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Social Security Administration (SSA) records to confirm employment eligibility. If the employee’s information does not match DHS and/or SSA records, the employee is given an opportunity to resolve the problem. If eligibility cannot be verified, employment will be terminated.
**The U.S. Department of State Suitability Review Panel and standards are defined in Chapter 3 of the Foreign Affairs Manual. For more information please visit: https://fam.state.gov.
***For more information about Veteran’s Preference and how it is applied in the selection process, please visit: https://careers.state.gov/faq-items/are-veterans-given-hiring-preference/.
No candidate will be considered who has previously been separated from the Foreign Service under sections §607, §608, §610 or §611 of the Foreign Service Act of 1980, as amended, or who resigned or retired in lieu of separation under these provisions. In addition, no candidate will be considered who has previously been separated for failure to receive a career appointment under section §306 of the Foreign Service Act of 1980, as amended, or who resigned or retired in lieu thereof.
A Foreign Service Specialist separated for failure to receive a career appointment under section 306 may not re-apply to be a Foreign Service Specialist in the same skill code but may apply for another skill code or to be a Foreign Service Generalist.
Executive Branch agencies are barred by 5 US Code 3303 as amended from accepting or considering prohibited political recommendations and are required to return any prohibited political recommendations to sender. In addition, as mandated by 5 US Code 3110, relatives of federal employees cannot be granted preference in competing for these employment opportunities.
It is the policy of the Federal Government to treat all of its employees with dignity and respect and to provide a workplace that is free from discrimination whether discrimination is based on race, color, religion, sex (including gender identity or pregnancy), national origin, disability, political affiliation, marital status, membership in an employee organization, age, sexual orientation, or other non-merit factors.
The U.S. Department of State provides reasonable accommodation to candidates with disabilities. Procedures vary by test type, and all candidates must request reasonable accommodations in advance. For more information visit Requesting Reasonable Accommodations - Careers (state.gov). Decisions for granting reasonable accommodations are made on a case-by-case basis.
You will be evaluated for this job based on how well you meet the qualifications above.
Candidates will be evaluated on their total background including experience, education, awards, training, and self-development as it relates to the position. Selection for this position will be made only from among candidates possessing the best qualifications. Part-time work experience will be prorated.
The Department of State prohibits candidates from plagiarizing any portion of their employment application materials to include responses to questions in which candidates must provide a narrative response. Candidates must create their own responses originally and not copy or adapt them from other sources. The Department analyzes candidate submissions for plagiarism and will discontinue any individual’s candidacy if found to have violated this plagiarism policy.
While the Department of State encourages candidates to create their narratives with great care, including correct use of grammar and style, candidates are prohibited from using any artificial intelligence (AI) tool, to include but not limited to ChatGPT, to aid in their written responses. The Department will discontinue any individual’s candidacy if found to have violated this prohibition on use of AI tools in the application process.
It is the candidate's responsibility to ensure all documents are uploaded and the application is complete before the closing deadline of this announcement.
PDF documents are required. The candidacy will be terminated if the required documents do not meet the requirements or if the application is incomplete.
This narrative should discuss:
Candidates must submit the following documentation to demonstrate that they possess the educational level required for this position or the candidacy will be terminated. University diplomas are not accepted in lieu of transcripts. Transcripts must comply with the following requirements, or the candidacy will be terminated.
Transcripts must comply with the following requirements to be accepted:
Education must be accredited by an accrediting institution recognized by the U.S. Department of Education in order for it to be credited towards qualifications. Therefore, provide only the attendance and/or degrees from schools accredited by accrediting institutions recognized by the U.S. Department of Education.
Failure to provide all of the required information as stated in this vacancy announcement may result in an ineligible rating or may affect the overall rating.
The application submission deadline is 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time on the closing date of this announcement.
It is the candidate’s responsibility complete and submit the application and all required documents before the closing deadline. There are no exceptions.
The application submission deadline is 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time on the closing date of this announcement.
Candidates experiencing technical difficulties with the application must contact the Monster Help Desk by calling 1-866-656-6830 or by emailing mgshelp@monster.com. The Monster Help Desk is available Monday through Friday from 7:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. Eastern Time.
For more information on the Foreign Service Specialist hiring processes, please visit our FAQs at http://careers.state.gov/faqs.
After the close of the announcement, the application status in USAJobs will say "Reviewing Applications." This status on USAJobs will not be updated further. You can click on "Track this application" for more information.
Candidates will be notified by e-mail from the U.S. Department of State about the outcome of the initial application review and if they will be further considered for this Foreign Service position. We recommend adding the Department of State domain (@state.gov) as an approved sender.
Due to the high volume of applications, we ask all candidates to remain patient and await communication. It is not uncommon for several months to pass before you are informed of the results of your applications.
The Department will invite candidates who pass the qualifications review process to participate in the Virtual Foreign Service Specialist Assessment (VFSSA). For more information, please visit our FAQs at http://careers.state.gov/faqs.
The Federal hiring process is set up to be fair and transparent. Please read the following guidance.
This job originated on www.usajobs.gov. For the full announcement and to apply, visit www.usajobs.gov/job/812844300. Only resumes submitted according to the instructions on the job announcement listed at www.usajobs.gov will be considered.
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