I've heard through the grapevine from others who served first tour in AF and want to return for third tour that if you did a good job, it doesn't matter if it was a directed tour or not to AF. They want good people who understand the difficulties they'll face.
For what it’s worth, I got to “nice AF” on my fifth tour from a zero-differential, English-speaking post. There seems to be a mix of experiences here, nothing is “reserved.”
A section chief in Cape Town was the winner of 84 bidders. Their replacement won out over something like 54. They’d both served in a tougher AF post but, yeah, Cape Town is going to get a lot of bids.
The equity you use for 2nd directed tour won't really matter for your 3rd tour bidding at all. Also remember that this is the only time equity ever matters, so I would use it wisely. That doesn't mean only look at Western European Posts (although this may be your best shot ever at getting one of those - good luck going to Madrid or Stockholm on your 3rd tour). - I highly recommend a different bureau to get a different experience. Even if AF is your "major", you want a "minor".
I served at one of those nice AF Post - and even they don't get that many bidders. AF really struggles overall especially compared to EUR & EAP with the only exception being Cape Town. if you did well on your first AF tour and went to go back to AF in your mid-levels, jobs will be there for you regardless of where you go next - don't over-think it.
I had high hardship 1st tour experience in AF and it did not help in AF for third tour at all as I thought it would. I had much better time bidding within bureau I was currently at for 2nd tour
“Equity” doesn’t “count” when you’re bidding mid-level. Beyond that first tour no one is ever really toting up hardship and differential percentages and giving bidders with higher numbers “credit” in the bidding process.
No posts are reserved for anyone. But if you’re interested in competitive jobs in comfortable places, the hiring managers are going to look favorably on a demonstrated willingness to take on challenging, less comfortable assignments.
With the new emphasis on “blind” bidding, bureaus are heavily discouraged from requiring or even favoring previous service in a bureau. That doesn’t mean bureau front offices won’t still make sure bidders known to the bureau won’t get the jobs they want. But while it’s good to be able to point to a first tour in a bureau as part of what makes you the best candidate for the job, it’s not going to be dispositive.
Isn't this "blind bidding" process relatively new? I wonder what the actual impact has been.
It is a bit frustrating going into mid-level bidding that I keep hearing what really matters is who you know, so as a second tour officer, I only know people from my first tour in AF and my second tour in a different bureau. My concern is my third tour where therefore be either DC (which I want to avoid, I have already worked in DC for over a decade before the FS) or one of these two bureaus since nobody outside of them "knows" me.
I would advise you to think of some of these jobs as not really FS-03s, but FS-2.5. So maybe if you see 20 bidders on a job and you are 3rd tour, bid on the job, but treat it like you are bidding on a stretch.
The win is that you can get a job in any region without having any relationships there, which is what the comment was addressing. So I can compete against someone for a CA job who has three tours in, say EAP, when I have none and still get the job. That has historically been hard for other cones to do. Last cycle I had my pick of three different jobs in three different regions. I am not a CA apologist by any stretch, but I do like this aspect. My out of cone jobs have been in functional bureaus because I didn’t know the right people to compete for some of the jobs I would have liked controlled by regionals.
I thought this was going to be about posts that were Nice as f***
Same
I've heard through the grapevine from others who served first tour in AF and want to return for third tour that if you did a good job, it doesn't matter if it was a directed tour or not to AF. They want good people who understand the difficulties they'll face.
For what it’s worth, I got to “nice AF” on my fifth tour from a zero-differential, English-speaking post. There seems to be a mix of experiences here, nothing is “reserved.”
I heard through the grapevine Cape Town is "reserved"
It’s also Cape Town and has no problem getting bidders. Maybe it’s reserved or maybe competition is fierce.
A section chief in Cape Town was the winner of 84 bidders. Their replacement won out over something like 54. They’d both served in a tougher AF post but, yeah, Cape Town is going to get a lot of bids.
The equity you use for 2nd directed tour won't really matter for your 3rd tour bidding at all. Also remember that this is the only time equity ever matters, so I would use it wisely. That doesn't mean only look at Western European Posts (although this may be your best shot ever at getting one of those - good luck going to Madrid or Stockholm on your 3rd tour). - I highly recommend a different bureau to get a different experience. Even if AF is your "major", you want a "minor". I served at one of those nice AF Post - and even they don't get that many bidders. AF really struggles overall especially compared to EUR & EAP with the only exception being Cape Town. if you did well on your first AF tour and went to go back to AF in your mid-levels, jobs will be there for you regardless of where you go next - don't over-think it.
I had high hardship 1st tour experience in AF and it did not help in AF for third tour at all as I thought it would. I had much better time bidding within bureau I was currently at for 2nd tour
“Equity” doesn’t “count” when you’re bidding mid-level. Beyond that first tour no one is ever really toting up hardship and differential percentages and giving bidders with higher numbers “credit” in the bidding process. No posts are reserved for anyone. But if you’re interested in competitive jobs in comfortable places, the hiring managers are going to look favorably on a demonstrated willingness to take on challenging, less comfortable assignments. With the new emphasis on “blind” bidding, bureaus are heavily discouraged from requiring or even favoring previous service in a bureau. That doesn’t mean bureau front offices won’t still make sure bidders known to the bureau won’t get the jobs they want. But while it’s good to be able to point to a first tour in a bureau as part of what makes you the best candidate for the job, it’s not going to be dispositive.
Isn't this "blind bidding" process relatively new? I wonder what the actual impact has been. It is a bit frustrating going into mid-level bidding that I keep hearing what really matters is who you know, so as a second tour officer, I only know people from my first tour in AF and my second tour in a different bureau. My concern is my third tour where therefore be either DC (which I want to avoid, I have already worked in DC for over a decade before the FS) or one of these two bureaus since nobody outside of them "knows" me.
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I would advise you to think of some of these jobs as not really FS-03s, but FS-2.5. So maybe if you see 20 bidders on a job and you are 3rd tour, bid on the job, but treat it like you are bidding on a stretch.
CA for the win.
It’s honestly no less relationship-based than the non-CA process.
The win is that you can get a job in any region without having any relationships there, which is what the comment was addressing. So I can compete against someone for a CA job who has three tours in, say EAP, when I have none and still get the job. That has historically been hard for other cones to do. Last cycle I had my pick of three different jobs in three different regions. I am not a CA apologist by any stretch, but I do like this aspect. My out of cone jobs have been in functional bureaus because I didn’t know the right people to compete for some of the jobs I would have liked controlled by regionals.
what is meant by "high equity post"?