Diplomatic Services operational officer : Training

The Civil Service has a strong commitment to training and developing its employees. All entrants complete a two-week induction course that introduces them to the work of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO)  and the Diplomatic Service. After this, you are assigned to a department within the FCO and, after a period there, you will then generally work in a second department before going overseas. Individuals are responsible for arranging their own training and action planning to meet their development needs, though a wide range of courses and opportunities are available to assist with this.

Professional development consists of a range of professional, management and developmental training, which will continue throughout your career in the service. There is an emphasis on developing your drafting and IT skills and all staff are encouraged to improve their knowledge of foreign languages. Good facilities are available to develop these skills.

Learning on the job is an important part of developing your knowledge of the way the Diplomatic Service operates. The ability to take on new information and deal with different situations can be just as important at this stage as when you are based overseas. The training and development process also involves annual appraisals for both development and salary purposes.

Training for overseas work - 'pre-post training' - covers specific skills, depending on your particular posting. Once you have accepted an overseas posting, you are entitled to training to 'confidence level' (approximately GCSE standard) in the official language of the country of your posting, regardless of whether you need it for your job. The hardest languages (such as Arabic, Cantonese, Persian, Japanese, Korean, Mandarin and Russian) require a year's training in the UK, possibly followed by a year's immersion training in-country.