Promotion to FP-03

Barely Missed Promotion

I was selected for promotion in September but I didn't meet the cut for how many people they could promote. I wrote about it in Promotion Bridesmaid. I didn't have my ranking or the overall statistics to know how close I was to the cutoff at that time. The promotion statistics have been released. It was a close one and it couldn't have been any closer.

214 people competed for promotion in my specialty and pay grade. My personal scorecard says 66 people were deemed worthy of promotion and I was 46 on that list. They were only able to promote 45 of those people or 21%.

They promoted 45 so I'm first loser at number 46!

Promotion Bridesmaid

I'm a bridesmaid. You can add that term to other odd Foreign Service terms like the "air kiss" used during the assignment process. Obviously it isn't official terminology. However, many people use it to mean a person selected for promotion but not actually promoted because there aren't enough to go around.

Foreign Service Administrative Promotion