Foreign Service Officer Overview

There are certain skills that many foreign service officers have in order to accomplish their responsibilities. By taking a look through resumes, we were able to narrow down the most common skills for a person in this position. We discovered that a lot of resumes listed analytical skills, technical skills and leadership skills.

When it comes to the most important skills required to be a foreign service officer, we found that a lot of resumes listed 19.6% of foreign service officers included international organizations, while 8.9% of resumes included usg, and 7.5% of resumes included technical assistance. Hard skills like these are helpful to have when it comes to performing essential job responsibilities.

When it comes to searching for a job, many search for a key term or phrase. Instead, it might be more helpful to search by industry, as you might be missing jobs that you never thought about in industries that you didn't even think offered positions related to the foreign service officer job title. But what industry to start with? Most foreign service officers actually find jobs in the finance and government industries.

If you're interested in becoming a foreign service officer, one of the first things to consider is how much education you need. We've determined that 24.3% of foreign service officers have a bachelor's degree. In terms of higher education levels, we found that 50.0% of foreign service officers have master's degrees. Even though most foreign service officers have a college degree, it's possible to become one with only a high school degree or GED.

Choosing the right major is always an important step when researching how to become a foreign service officer. When we researched the most common majors for a foreign service officer, we found that they most commonly earn master's degree degrees or bachelor's degree degrees. Other degrees that we often see on foreign service officer resumes include doctoral degree degrees or associate degree degrees.

You may find that experience in other jobs will help you become a foreign service officer. In fact, many foreign service officer jobs require experience in a role such as officer. Meanwhile, many foreign service officers also have previous career experience in roles such as internship or operations officer.