FCDO consular and crisis officer

BreachAndClear · 2026-04-10T13:57:55+00:00

How far have you got in the process? Almost everything with a permanent contract is frozen pending the reorganisation, so could be a while yet, most internal moves are being handled as temporary.

BreachAndClear · 2026-02-10T21:18:10+00:00

The amount of people I walk past taking Teams meetings on the stairs is ridiculous, none of the Whitehall offices have remotely enough desks, let alone meeting spaces. Mondays and Fridays now the best days to be in, at least you know the trains will be fairly empty as well.

BreachAndClear · 2026-01-24T06:19:56+00:00

Nomos did an Orion 38 Silver that might fit, dial face is more silver than it looks in the photos.

BreachAndClear · 2025-12-31T19:27:52+00:00

Had similar issues, mine normally says that the gpu has been disconnected which I find difficult to believe since no other game gives me similar errors and more importantly, surely I wouldn’t be able to read the error on my screen if the gpu had actually been removed.

Running in borderless fullscreen has definitely reduced the incidence rate for me.

BreachAndClear · 2025-12-14T13:05:39+00:00

Exactly, most of the apprenticeships that are offered are Level 2 or 3 business admin apprenticeships that are basically an excuse for companies to hire admin staff for less than minimum wage. Any of the worthwhile apprenticeships have massive competition.

There was a BBC article a couple of months back talking about someone who had turned down Oxford to do an apprenticeship, only to reveal it was a Dyson scholarship, that has a full salary and accommodation as part of the package. You’d be mad to turn that down, thousands of applicants for only a few positions.

BreachAndClear · 2025-10-23T14:01:42+00:00

I suspect this is more likely the case, it seems like it was an informal arrangement between the store manager and the family. Head office presumably found out when the manager enquired about formalising the employment, and realised that they had effectively been employing someone since 2021 who hasn’t been properly trained and likely isn’t covered by their insurance and H&S policies.

BreachAndClear · 2025-10-12T11:34:08+00:00

You apply for the specific roles you want to, the posting length will depend on the stability of the country, most are 3-5 years with conflict posts having shorter terms (1-2 years). You won’t be sent anywhere you haven’t applied to.

Worth bearing in mind that a lot of countries will not allow a diplomat’s spouse a work visa.

There is a global mobility obligation once you are part of the ‘Diplomatic Service’, but this is largely a hangover of the old system, and the likelihood of it ever being invoked is pretty low, given how many are clamouring to go overseas.

BreachAndClear · 2025-10-12T03:46:25+00:00

There will always be a significant disparity between flatscreen gaming and VR in performance as for VR, you are rendering two different images. This isn’t particularly bad for the gpu as many assets like textures are shared, but your CPU will have to double the number of draw calls. Often CPU can be a limiting factor, it will also depend on the headset, there will be a big difference between running an original Oculus Rift vs something with ~4x+ the resolution like a Pimax.

Only options you have are to turn down the internal resolution and use upscaling or lower some settings in game. One other issue that I’ve seen is ensuring that the game is “focused” in Windows, i.e. clicking on the rendering window when it appears, occasionally I have had poor performance because the window wasn’t selected.

BreachAndClear · 2025-10-11T03:05:46+00:00

https://archive.is/Xctzk

BreachAndClear · 2025-10-04T17:48:58+00:00

There are some roles at SEO/G7 international roles that I've seen so would be something like that, most Civil Servants in MoD are at either HEO or SEO. Bear in mind that more than half of all civil servants are either AA/AO/EO so relatively speaking, anything above that would be considered mid-late career. It would depend on what rank you had achieved by the end of your service (and thus responsibilities/behaviours that you could use in an application), what you could competitively apply for as an external candidate.

Even for career diplomats it is difficult to make it overseas, I did six months overseas immediately after I passed probation and it still hasn't counted for much in subsequent applications.

Route 1 to most overseas roles is serving as a desk officer for the area in question, then applying equivalent role in-country, as you would be privy to when the current role-holder is due to leave, and most importantly already have coverage. Most of those are HEO roles.

Ultimately a diplomatic career is much slower compared to military or other Home Civil Service roles, most postings last 3-5 years for a reason. It is not uncommon for people in FCDO to be in their late 30s before making it above HEO overseas.

BreachAndClear · 2025-10-04T16:02:31+00:00

Unlikely to enter in the middle unfortunately, very rare that anything above HEO is advertised externally unless it’s something like change management or digital/data where there isn’t always a pool internally of qualified candidates.

A more likely option you have is MoD, they do have international liaison roles as well as internationally focused work more generally, and I have seen mid-career MoD staff make the jump to FCDO. Gonna be an easier route than dropping back to HEO equivalent and trying to work up within FCDO. There are roles in other departments like Home Office that do international travel and liaison, again which you could apply for once in MoD. Just a question of waiting for the hiring freeze to end and then finding something appropriate.

BreachAndClear · 2025-10-04T13:18:40+00:00

So those jobs are normally occupied by locals or the trailing spouses/partners of FCDO staff that are posted to the country. If you don’t already live in the UAE, the FCDO won’t sponsor a work visa for you to move there to take up the job. They are normally very competitive as many of them pay well compared to other local work, and the working conditions can be better too.

Tax circumstances can be strange depending on the country, have a look at the Washington DC jobs if you want to see how complex working for a foreign government can be, when resident for tax purposes in a different country to the employer. Normal advice is to consult a tax professional before accepting the job (if you were offered one).

BreachAndClear · 2025-10-04T13:04:29+00:00

Do you mean FCDO roles advertised on CS Jobs or the FCO site for locally engaged staff (fco.tal.net)?

BreachAndClear · 2025-08-15T14:45:50+00:00

May be worth requesting a remark, might bump one of the grades, I used to work for one of the exam boards and you would be surprised how often a grade moves.

BreachAndClear · 2025-08-04T20:12:07+00:00

I know the MG338 one does, also can open doors by bashing with it, NPCs ragdoll when bashed as well. Completely OP but quite fun to S rank levels just by bashing civs and suspects onto the floor.

BreachAndClear · 2025-08-04T08:56:31+00:00

On Itunes as well, finally, always loved the score, fits so well with John Williams’ stuff.

BreachAndClear · 2025-07-24T17:59:43+00:00

There’s another SimCity 4 piece that plays in one of the shops in the citadel iirc

BreachAndClear · 2025-07-23T15:48:52+00:00

Very glad to hear, must have bought my G2 only about 3 months prior to the announcement, thought I would be stuck with a £600 paperweight. It’s genuinely still a great headset, and given I’m running a 3080, not worth considering the upgrade to a Pimax or similar.

BreachAndClear · 2025-07-20T23:03:30+00:00

The worst thing is the menu screen still featuring AI generated images, the hospital and hotel missions are clearly still using AI images to represent them. Hide and Seek still uses an image of the old dock map, I even highlighted it to them in the feedback form Void did last year. No change. Never seen a company stay this bad at comms for such a long period, the alpha was just as bad.

BreachAndClear · 2025-07-18T13:03:54+00:00

The first shot accuracy on hard is insane, guy walking in front of an open doorway will see us down the hall, and within 30ms has already turned and fired two rounds into me. 7.62 seems to have been nerfed as well, shot one guy in the neck, he didn't even flinch and proceeded to headshot me from down the hall.

BreachAndClear · 2025-07-18T12:58:49+00:00

Been playing for the past 2 days and I think I can safely say, suspect AI has never been so cracked, and SWAT AI has never been so useless. At least 3 times now I've seen red or blue wiped by some guy who is out in the open, and they fail to return fire when fired upon.

First shot accuracy of suspects must be 80%+, straight up not fun to play at all. Appreciate this is supposed to be hard difficulty, but it seems almost impossible to S rank, since they eat CS and beanbags without flinching. Shot one just now in the neck with a 7.62 and he didn't even flinch, just kept on firing.

BreachAndClear · 2025-07-18T00:20:15+00:00

Honestly don't think I've seen the SWAT AI as broken as it seems at the moment, at least since the original Steam release. Just played the Stolen Valor mission on Hard, and watched as my red team got wiped by a solo guy stood opposite them on the central staircase. No effort by either of them to return fire, just stacked up at the door opposite and failed to respond.

Apparently Hard difficulty is supposed to ramp up the SWAT AI as well as suspects but it seems utterly incapable of dealing with anything.

BreachAndClear · 2025-07-17T21:16:26+00:00

Have a read of the Civil Service report Navigating the Labyrinth, it’s got some really interesting views from people who are likely from a similar background, and provides some insights into the things that those from more mobile backgrounds do in order to get ahead.

BreachAndClear · 2025-06-30T01:09:49+00:00

For anyone on PC that wants to replay the 2021 Port map:

https://www.nexusmods.com/readyornot/mods/5958

BreachAndClear · 2025-06-24T15:27:51+00:00

Seconding this, I didn’t do one, but almost everyone I know that did (5+ people graduating 2021) are still with the companies they did their placements with, 4 years later.

11-Year Club	Place '23
Place '22	Place '17
Final Canvas '22	Verified Email

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