Frequently Asked Questions

• General
• The Exams
• Criteria
• Missions Administering the Exams
• Salary
• Foreign Service Officers
• Management and Consular Affairs Officers
• Foreign Service Development Program (FSDP)
• Language Training
• Development Officers (CIDA)

General

Q. Is there any question the three departments will not be able to hire the stated numbers?

A. None of the departments are exempt from government cost cutting or downsizing measures. Given, however, such considerations as attrition and human resource planning issues, the departments foresee hiring the numbers indicated without difficulty. It is essential that both develop and prepare the next generation of foreign service officers.

Q. How many positions/openings are you recruiting for?

A. We are recruiting for approximately 60 openings, 20 with FAC, 30 with ITCan, and 10 with CIC.

Q. I understand the Foreign Service has changed the way it hires candidates and that your practices now resemble that of the Management Trainee Program. Is this true?

A. Yes, this is true. Please click on the Foreign Service Development Program for more information.

Q. How do I know if my application has been successfully completed?

A. Upon logout, you will receive a message indicating the status of your application. If anything is left outstanding, you will be advised that you must complete all requirements by the closing date.

Q. For reasons beyond my control, I was unable to complete my application by the deadline. Can you accept my late application?

A. Unfortunately, due to the magnitude of this exercise, we cannot accept applications beyond the deadline. There will be no exceptions.

The Exams

Q. Where can I obtain an information package and an application form or can I apply online?

A. Only online applications are accepted and can be accessed through the Foreign Service Recruitment Site or by going directly to the PSC Web site under Post-Secondary Recruitment.

Q. I want to write the “foreign service exams”. What must I do?

A. You must complete your application within the Post-Secondary Recruitment Campaign of the Public Service Commission by the poster's end date. Failure to do so will negatively impact on your eligibility and your candidacy will be rejected. Only after you complete your application will you be invited to write the exam. The PSC recruitment Web site, the PSC office in your region or the career placement office of your university will indicate where the exams will be administered in your region. If you have applied in Canada and will be overseas at the time of the exams, we would ask you to contact the appropriate Canadian mission to ensure they are administering the exams and to provide them sufficient notice that you will be there to write the exams. You must bring with you a copy of your application form. For Canadian missions administering the exams, please consult the section entitled ”Missions Administering the Exams“.

Q. What is involved in the examination process?

A. Candidates who wish to apply for a career must write all the exams listed below.

• The Situational Judgement Test
  The Situational Judgement Test (SJT) 317 assesses judgement required for solving problems in work-related situations. The SJT presents you with hypothetical and challenging situations that one might encounter at work, and that involve working with others as part of a team, interacting with others, and dealing with workplace dilemmas. In response to each situation, you are presented with five possible actions that one might take in dealing with the problem described. Your task on the test will be to select the one response alternative that is the most effective and the one response alternative that is the least effective in dealing with the problem described.

• The Graduate Recruitment Test (GRT)
  Assesses general cognitive ability, the ability to use reasoning skills to solve problems.

• The Written Communication Proficiency Test (WCPT)
  You will be tested on your knowledge of the following features of writing: grammar, punctuation, vocabulary richness and preciseness, appropriate level of language use, avoiding wordiness and redundancies, knowledge of main points vs. subordinate details, and paragraph and text development including order of sentences and paragraphs.

• A Written Communication Test
  The purpose of the Written Communication Test is to assess an individual's ability to write in a clear and concise manner.

Q. When is the foreign service examination process?

A. When completing the online application, you will be provided with the examination dates and locations at which the examinations will be conducted.

Q. I wrote the exams last year. Can I keep last year's mark?

A. Your marks are still valid if you wrote the exams in October 2001. If you wrote prior to October 2001, you will need to re-write all the exams if you wish your candidacy to be considered in this year's Post-Secondary Recruitment Campaign. The scores obtained after October 2001 will remain valid until the next exam revision. You may re-write an exam if you wish to try to improve your performance. However, note that your most recent test score automatically becomes your valid test score. Please note that all candidates will have to write the Written Communication Test.

Q. I passed the foreign service exams last year and am debating re-writing them. What were the cutoff scores from last year?

A. It is impossible to provide cut-off scores as these differ from year to year depending on the number of candidates writing and the overall scores obtained.

Q. What should I study for the exams?

A. A practice exam exists for the Graduate Recruitment Test and sample questions exist for the SJT test on the PSC website. Unfortunately, the same does not currently exist for the Written Communication Test (WCT).
We encourage you to explore the FAC, ITCan and CIC websites.

Q. Are the tests the same for the foreign service officer and the management and consular affairs officer careers?

A. This year, the foreign service officer recruitment requires all candidates to write the Situational Judgement Test, the Graduate Recruitment Test the Written Communication Test. Management and consular affairs officers are not being recruited at this time.

Criteria

Q. I have landed immigrant status. Can I apply for this position? Why not?

A. The information sheet on the foreign service officer career clearly states that you must be a Canadian citizen.

Q. Is age a factor in eligibility for the Foreign Service?

A. No, age is not a factor considered in a candidate's eligibility for the Foreign Service.

Q. I'm in a same sex relationship. Does this have any impact on my eligibility for the Foreign Service?

A. No, this has no bearing on your eligibility for the Foreign Service. If you are eventually hired, the departments would ensure that you are not posted to a country where your sexual orientation would endanger your safety or put your life at risk.

Q. What is meant by a working ability in Mandarin, Japanese, Arabic, Russian, German or Korean?

A. The individual is able to satisfy routine social demands and limited work requirements and can handle routine work-related interactions that are limited in scope. In more complex and sophisticated work-related tasks, language usage generally disturbs the native speaker. The individual can handle with confidence, but not with facility, most normal, high-frequency social conversational situations including extensive, but casual conversations about current events, as well as work, family and autobiographical information. The individual can get the gist of most everyday conversations, but has some difficulty understanding native speakers in situations that require specialized or sophisticated knowledge. The individual's utterances are minimally cohesive. Linguistic structure is usually not very elaborate and not thoroughly controlled; errors are frequent. Vocabulary use is appropriate for high-frequency utterances, but unusual or imprecise elsewhere. Candidates successful in the examinations will have their foreign language proficiency tested if they have indicated on their application that they have a working ability in one or more of the stated foreign languages.

Q. . Why is a proficiency in Mandarin, Japanese, Russian, Arabic, German or Korean valued?

A. They are relatively important in fulfilling our mandate. They are difficult to learn and require expensive and labour-intensive training.

Foreign Service Officers must be bilingual when hired. As indicated above, for those candidates who do not meet the second language requirements, up to fifty-two weeks of second language training will be provided at government expense. Only upon successful completion of second language training will candidates be hired into the Foreign Service.

Q. In the interviews/group exercise for the role of foreign service officer, what qualities/characteristics are being assessed?

A. Please refer to the poster on http://jobs.gc.ca.

Missions Administering Exams

Q. I will be out of the country at the time of the exam. What should I do?

A. The tests for the foreign service officer and management and consular affairs careers may be written at selected missions overseas (see list below). Candidates who have submitted an application to the Public Service Commission should communicate directly with the appropriate Embassy/High Commission to indicate that they will be there to write the exams. It is important that you provide sufficient notice to the Mission; failure to do so may result in the Mission, believing there are no candidates, not administering the exams.

Missions administering the exams

Salary

Q. What is the starting salary for a Foreign Service Officer?

A. For candidates who do not meet the language requirements, initially, they are not hired as public servants but receive an allowance of $35,221 while on government-funded language training.

For candidates who are bilingual and who are hired from outside the Public Service the starting salary is $44,026. The salary range is $44,026 to $55,495.

Q. I am already earning more than the starting salary. Is there any possibility of negotiating my salary?

A. Bilingual recruits from outside the Public Service are hired at $44,026. The salary range is $44,026 to $55,495. Different regulations apply to those candidates who are already Public Servants.

Foreign Service Officer

Q. I intend to tour the world before I start as a foreign service officer. Can I defer my hiring date?

A. No. As our recruitment process already takes a year before candidates can be hired, it is understandable that the departments are unwilling to defer hiring dates when faced with operational requirements. The candidate's options are to accept the offer for the specified date or to refuse the offer and participate in the next recruitment.

Q. My goal is to become a foreign service officer. What is the easiest career choice in which to succeed?

A. It is important for potential candidates to do their research before applying to the foreign service as each career is distinct and has its own rewards and challenges. It is difficult to change career choices as many factors are at play such as operational requirements, availability of positions and personal suitability.

Q. How quickly can I go abroad?

A. The answer varies according to the area of specialization. Citizenship and immigration officers who are bilingual could find themselves posted overseas after a year in Ottawa. For trade and political affairs, candidates who are bilingual would spend two to three years in Ottawa (training, headquarters assignments) before their first posting abroad.

Management and Consular Affairs

Q. Are you recruiting for the management and consular affairs career this year?

A. No, the departments will not be recruiting management and consular affairs officers this year.

Q. Do candidates for management and consular affairs officer positions write the same exams as candidates for the foreign service officer positions?

A. This year, the foreign service officer recruitment requires all candidates to write the Situational Judgement Test, the Graduate Recruitment Test the Written Communication Test. Management and consular affairs officers are not being recruited at this time.

Q. What is the starting salary of a management and consular affairs officer?

A. The salary band ranges from $43,863 to $47,260.

Q. Does the Foreign Service Development Program apply to the management and consular affairs career?

A. No, not at this moment. Candidates are hired from the outset as public servants whether they are bilingual or not. Candidates are provided second language training if required.

Q. . If I do not meet the second language requirements, do the same rules apply to management and consular affairs positions as to foreign service officer positions?

A. No. You are hired from the outset as a public servant and if you do not meet the second language requirements, language training is provided at full salary.

Foreign Service Development Program (FSDP)

Q. What is the FSDP?

A. The main features of the FSDP are the mix of in-class and on-the-job training that continues during the five-year probationary period.

Entrants whose proficiency in either of Canada's official languages is not sufficient will receive official language training on ab initio status for a maximum of 12 months. On ab initio status, participants will not be employees of the federal government but will receive a stipend of 80% of the starting salary for the training period. If they cannot achieve the required "CCC" proficiency in the 12 months allotted, they go no further in the program.

FSDP participants remain on probation for the five years of the program, with performance measurements at the 18-, 36-, 48- and 60- month points. Only those participants who successfully meet all performance measures will move to the next stage and, at the 60- month assessment, will be promoted to the FS-2 level, if performance has been fully satisfactory.

Q. What are its main features?

A. The main features of the FSDP are the mix of in-class and on-the-job training that continues during the five-year probationary period.

Entrants whose proficiency in either of Canada's official languages is not sufficient will receive official language training on ab initio status for a maximum of 12 months. On ab initio status, participants will not be employees of the federal government but will receive a stipend of 80% of the starting salary for the training period. If they cannot achieve the required "CCC" proficiency in the 12 months allotted, they go no further in the program.

FSDP participants remain on probation for the five years of the program, with performance measurements at the 18-, 36-, 48- and 60- month points. Only those participants who successfully meet all performance measures will move to the next stage and, at the 60- month assessment, will be promoted to the FS-2 level, if performance has been fully satisfactory.

Q. One of the features of the FSDP is training. What type of training is offered? Will I be on training for five years?

A. A. During the five years of the program, participants will receive approximately three months of mandatory training, spread mostly through the first two years, two thirds of which will be organized by the Canadian Foreign Service Institute. The remainder will be offered through the Canadian Centre for Management Development (CCMD) and foreign service participants will be in courses with participants from other government departments. CIC recruits will also receive specialized training in the Immigration Act and Regulations. For more information, please click on www.cfsi-icse.gc.ca.

Q. You indicate that there are control points at 18, 36, 48 and 60 months. What does this mean?

A. The performance of participants will be assessed at 18, 36, 48 and 60 months against competency profiles for each stage. Only those who successfully meet all performance measures will move to the next stage and, at the 60-month assessment, will be promoted to the FS-2 level, if performance has been fully satisfactory.

Q. What would the career path of an FSDP candidate be over the five year period?

A. In addition to the mandatory training (see question above) participants will spend roughly half of their time at headquarters and half abroad at FAC, ITCan or CIC. Assignments will be tailored to the background, strengths and interests of individual participants as well as operational requirements. It is expected that each participant will have one assignment in each of the functional, geographic and staffing divisions.

The five-year FSDP program will include a 2-3 year posting abroad and, where possible, a six month to 1 year assignment in any one of the central agencies (e.g. Privy Council Office, Treasury Board Secretariat, Department of Finance), other major other governmental department (OGD) client, including, for trade commissioners, one of the Team Canada Inc. partners, international or equivalent.

Q. What are the advantages for me in joining the Foreign Service under the FSDP?

A. If you are not bilingual, up to fifty-two weeks of second language training at government expense and an allowance of 80% of the starting salary.

A higher starting salary of $44,026 to $55,495 and a more rapid salary progression over the five years of the program.

Training in a classroom setting with the Canadian Service Institute and with the Canadian Centre for Management Development combined with on the job training, foreign language training and assignments overseas.

Solid preparation for your role as a foreign service officer.

Quicker promotion to the next level in the foreign service group after five years with the FSDP.

Language Training

Q. You indicate that candidates who are not bilingual, but have demonstrated an aptitude for learning a second language, will be given language training at government expense. Individuals requiring language training will be paid an annual allowance during their training. What does this mean?

A. Successful candidates in the interview/selection process who do not meet the second language requirements are not immediately hired as foreign service officers. They receive an allowance in lieu of salary equivalent to 80% of $44,026, i.e. $35,221, and are provided up to fifty-two weeks of second language training at government expense. Candidates who meet the requirements at the end of the language training are then hired as foreign service officers under the Foreign Service Development Program. Candidates who are unsuccessful on their language training will not receive a letter of offer.

Q. What is my status while on language training?

A. A. Those candidates who do not meet the second language requirements are given an offer of language training of up to fifty-two weeks to attain the required level. They are not public servants during this period; they are under a special status, receiving an allowance of 80% of the FSDP entry-level salary. Their mandate during this period is to attain the level in the second language; only once this is attained will they receive an offer of employment as a foreign service officer under the FSDP. Failure to meet the language requirements would terminate a candidate's consideration for the foreign service.

Q. Does the Foreign Service Development Program apply to the management and consular affairs career?

A. No, not at this moment. Candidates in the management and consular affairs program are hired from the outset as public servants whether they are bilingual or not. Candidates are provided second language training if required.

Q. I am an indeterminate public servant who does not meet the second language requirements and I presently earn more than $35,221. What will be my status?

A. You will remain at your present salary and, if applicable, attached to your present position in your home department. You will continue to receive that salary while on language training. If you attain the required level in the second language, you will receive a letter of offer as a foreign service officer under the FSDP. If you do not, your participation will end and you will return to your home department.

Q. I am a term employee. Am I able to keep my salary and term status when I go on language training?

A. Term employees are not salary and status protected. Upon entrance into language training you are given an allowance $35,221 to learn your second official language. If you attain the required level in the second language, you will receive a letter of offer as a foreign service officer under the FSDP. If you do not, your participation will end and you will not be eligible to enter the FSDP.

Q. Is it possible to pursue language training in my home town?

A. No, language training is provided in the National Capital Region.

Q. As a Public Servant, I have previously had language training for level C but I no longer meet the requirement and will need language training to reattain the level. Will I be eligible for language training?

A. The language training provided under the FSDP is not considered as part of the maximum allotment of a Public Servant during your career. Yes, you would be eligible to do the language training to qualify for the FSDP.

CIDA/Development Officers

Q. What is CIDA (Canadian International Development Agency) doing this year?

A. Information about CIDA's Post-Secondary Recruitment Campaign can be obtained through the Public Service Commission or from the internet at http://jobs.gc.ca.