Foreign Service Specialist Assessment Appointments – Case Management Exercise (CME)

All Office Management Specialist and Information Management Specialist candidates invited to advance to the next Specialist Assessment stage of the Foreign Service hiring process will start by scheduling their CME.

Please carefully review all information provided to decide whether to take the CME in person at a Pearson VUE Center or on your own personal computer via Pearson VUE’s OnVUE system. You can learn more about Pearson VUE’s testing systems at https://home.pearsonvue.com/Test-takers/Resources.aspx.

As instructed in your invitation letter, you must start by creating a new account using the information in the invitation letter, even if you have an existing Pearson VUE account. You must schedule your CME for one of the dates offered within the 30-day window – the Authorized Dates - specified in your original invitation letter. We cannot guarantee an alternative assessment date outside of the specified range of Authorized Dates unless there are emergency or compelling extenuating circumstances. Within two weeks of completing your CME, you will receive an invitation from SpecialistScheduling@state.gov to schedule the final stage of the Specialist Assessment process, the Structured Interview.

PLEASE NOTE: If you do not receive an email confirmation of your CME appointment within 24 hours of scheduling, please check your spam and/or junk folders. If you still do not find a confirmation email, please try logging back into your account to confirm your appointment is scheduled. If you do not find a confirmed CME appointment in your account, you may not have successfully scheduled an appointment and must try again.

Reasonable Accommodation:

If you require a new* reasonable accommodation based on a disability per the Rehabilitation Act for the CME, you must submit your request to the Pearson VUE Accommodations Portal no later than two weeks before your desired CME date. You may not schedule your CME until your accommodation request has been approved. Please go to https://home.pearsonvue.com/Test-takers/Accommodations.aspx for further instructions on how to submit your accommodation request for the CME.

* Candidates with a current, approved accommodation request registered in the Pearson VUE Accommodations Portal do not need to submit a new application, but they will need to contact Pearson VUE Accommodations at 1-800-486-0450 to schedule their appointment and specify that they are in the Foreign Service Specialist Appointment System (FSSAS) process.

Plagiarism & AI Policy

• The Department of State prohibits candidates from plagiarizing any portion of their employment application materials to include responses to questions in which candidates must provide a narrative response.  Candidates must create their own responses originally and not copy or adapt them from other sources. The Department analyzes candidate submissions for plagiarism and will discontinue any individual’s candidacy if found to have violated this plagiarism policy. 
• While the Department of State encourages candidates to create their narratives with great care, including correct use of grammar and style, candidates are prohibited from using any artificial intelligence (AI) tool, to include but not limited to ChatGPT, to aid in their written responses.  The Department will discontinue any individual’s candidacy if found to have violated this prohibition on use of AI tools in the application process. 

To Learn More:

Please visit careers.state.gov for more information on the Foreign Service and the Specialist selection process.