The State Department’s new criteria for promotions and career advancement in the Foreign Service will assess employees, in part, on their “fidelity” to the Trump administration’s policy goals.

The department’s newly released “core precepts” for tenure and promotion will grade Foreign Service on five criteria — fidelity, communication, leadership, management and knowledge. Previous versions of this scorecard placed a greater emphasis on subject-matter expertise and assessing an employee’s contributions to diversity, equity and inclusion goals.

The State Department’s Bureau of Global Talent Management releases new precepts every three years, outlining the most important qualities Foreign Service officers must demonstrate to advance to higher ranks.

The department is unilaterally implementing these new standards as it’s preparing for mass layoffs that will reshape both its civil service and Foreign Service workforce. Critics say these changes place a greater emphasis on loyalty to the administration and less of a focus on skills and expertise. Similar criticisms have been raised against the Trump administration directing federal job candidates to fill out short essays, explaining how they would advance the administration’s priorities.

]]>

As part of a newly added “fidelity” standard, Foreign Service employees across all ranks will be evaluated on their contributions to “protecting and promoting executive power.” The fidelity portion of the scorecard links to a White House webpage listing President Donald Trump’s executive orders and presidential actions.

The Bureau of Global Talent Management says that mid-level Foreign Service officers should be able to demonstrate how they are “zealously executing” U.S. government policy.

Under these new standards, senior-level employees seeking promotion into the Senior Executive Service must demonstrate how they are “quickly and completely aligning oneself and one’s team to the most current [U.S.] goals,” as well as “resolving uncertainty on the side of fidelity to one’s chain of command.”

The Bureau of Global Talent Management wrote that the core precepts “reflect the competencies determined to be the most critical to successful service throughout a Foreign Service career and comprise the most important competencies in which potential must be demonstrated in order to advance.”

“Through evaluation of these competencies, Foreign Service Selection Boards identify and rank-order employees who, through their files, demonstrate potential to succeed in positions of greater responsibility and, assuming normal growth and career development, to serve effectively as Foreign Service Officers over a normal career span,” the bureau wrote.

The Foreign Service made diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility one of its core precepts for evaluating employees between 2022 and 2025. But Trump signed an executive order in March removing that DEIA criteria from Foreign Service evaluations.

The Bureau of Global Talent Management states these core competencies “should be used as guiding principles for all employees seeking tenure into the Foreign Service.”

]]>

“While the list is not exhaustive, individuals are expected to progressively demonstrate substantive knowledge and experience across each of the competencies,” the bureau wrote.

The Foreign Service outlined the following core precepts for employees between 2022 and 2025:

  • Communication
  • Diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility
  • Leadership
  • Management
  • Substantive and technical expertise

Foreign Service employees were assessed on the following core precepts between 2018 and 2021:

  • Communication and foreign language skills
  • Interpersonal skills
  • Leadership skills
  • Managerial skills
  • Substantive knowledge

A Foreign Service officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not cleared to speak to the media, called the precepts “scary and totally backwards,” adding that they prioritize “fidelity to the president” over skills and experience.

The American Foreign Service Association said the State Department implemented these new criteria “without meaningful consultation,” and that the prioritization of fidelity “risks eroding the very foundation of an apolitical Foreign Service that serves the American people — not any single administration.”

“This new standard insults the professionalism and integrity of the Foreign Service, undermining decades of merit-based evaluations. Its vague wording suggests that officers will now be judged on their willingness to bend with political winds rather than on their skills, expertise, and steadfast dedication to nonpartisan service.”

The Office of Personnel Management, in a Merit Hiring Plan it released in May, outlined the Trump administration’s plans to ensure “only the most talented, capable and patriotic Americans are hired to the Federal service.”

Under this hiring strategy, all federal job vacancy announcements graded GS-5 or above will require candidates to write four short essays, each 200 words or less. The essays ask candidates what they’d do to improve government efficiency, and how they would “advance the President’s Executive Orders and policy priorities.”

OPM, however, is now placing less of an emphasis on these essays, telling agencies they can’t screen out applications from candidates who don’t complete the essays.

]]>

In follow-up guidance to agency chief human capital officers, OPM said “answers to these questions are not scored or rated,” and that agencies should treat responses the same way they would treat a cover letter.

“The questions give candidates an opportunity to provide additional information about themselves, their background, and dedication to public service, but must not be used as a means of determining whether the candidate fulfills the qualifications of a position,” OPM wrote. “The questions also must not be used to impose an ideological litmus test on candidates.  If an applicant does not answer the questions along with their application, they will not be disqualified or screened out.”

Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) said this new guidance “may transform OPM’s use of the essays from an illegal screening tactic to a silly waste of time.”

“Asking federal job applicants how they feel about Trump has no place in the merit system. Such questions are highly inappropriate,” PEER General Counsel Joanna Citron Day, a former attorney for the Justice Department, Interior Department and Environmental Protection Agency, said in a statement.

PEER sent a complaint to the Office of Special Counsel last month, raising concerns that the addition of these essays to the federal hiring process, amounted to a prohibited personnel practice.

OSC Senior Counsel Charles Baldis told PEER in a June 30 letter that OPM’s additional guidance “resolves” any concerns that the essays would be used to screen candidates over their political ideology.

“The original Merit Hiring Plan did not specify the function or purpose of the four essay questions or how those questions or any answers were to be treated or used in the hiring process, establish clear limits on the use of those questions for ideological or political purposes, or provide clarification about the optionality of using those questions,” Baldis wrote. “While OSC cannot conclude that the original Merit Hiring Plan constituted or directly encouraged a PPP, we understand the concern that the four essay questions may be used by agencies in an improper way that could constitute such a violation.”

Copyright
© 2025 Federal News Network. All rights reserved. This website is not intended for users located within the European Economic Area.