EER Writing Advice
The world according to TROY
Version 2.1
1. Introduction:
This document is merely advice. You know what is commonly said about advice… ” advice is like bellybuttons… everyone’s got one.”
First, let me give a little background. I jointed the Foreign Service in 1987 and worked for almost 12 years. I then left the DoS for 8 years and re-joined. I loved the Foreign
Service and have seen and been part of various organizational transitions throughout these past 25.
What is interesting is that upon my return, I was recommended on my 2 nd year back and was promoted to FS-02 in my 3 rd year. Why was I considered and ranked higher that my peers? I have my beliefs and am willing to impart them to deserving others. I now understand why some “good and hard working people” do not get promoted while others who lack motivation and produce less quality deliverables, do, in fact, get promoted. It all makes sense to me and, hopefully, you will agree once you finish reading this document.
2. Comments and Beliefs about the Promotion Process:
I truly believe a person’s promotion is based upon the following:
1.
10% - work completed 365 days out of the year (“good” work)
2.
40% - 3 to 4 projects with impact to an organization (job assignment)
3.
50% - the rating and reviewing officer’s ability to: a.
write well (tell a story) b.
convey potential of the employee c.
cite the ”impact” of each of the employee’s accomplishments
As you can tell from the above, I think the EER writing process must be taken seriously in order for a person to get promoted. It frustrates me to hear people say they did a great job but others got promoted “over them” when they didn’t take the time to “take ownership” of the wording of their own EER. They MUST work with their supervisor to get the wording just right for the promotion panel.
In my opinion (there’s that word again, LOL), the actual EER process is fair in that management does not dictate who they want promoted. It is less fair to an employee since the promotion process relies upon their supervisor’s writing skills and desire to get the employee promoted. So, the promotion panel can receive a good indication of who the employee is, what they’ve accomplished, and if they are at the top of their game when compared to others. Well, that is only if the employee, rating officer, and reviewing officer has done their job correctly.

3. Assignments:
While management does NOT have the ability to directly influence the promotion panel’s decisions of who they should promote, management does have the ability to put “good employees” into positions of higher authority. This will give that employee an advantage over other employees who are working in positions at grade.
If a person is working in a position 1 grade higher than their current grade it does not mean they will be promoted. Why not? Well, if that person’s supervisor does not successfully convey the employee’s accomplishments & potential then that employee may not be recommended for promotion. Remember what really matters is what goes into the EER and how that information grabs the promotion panel member’s attention and emotion.
I’ve also seen people at the FS-02 grade serve in lower position of FS-03 and they were promoted to FS-01 over their supervisor who was also an FS-02. All things being equal, his EER conveyed strong accomplishments and strong potential for leadership and managerial skills well above that person’s current grade. In the Foreign Service, it is not uncommon at all for someone at the same grade and their supervisor to be promoted higher than their supervisor. In fact, I was promoted over my supervisor. I believe he did an excellent job but, evidentially, his rating officer did not convey it clearly enough.
The Foreign Service has a grade-in-person structure while the Civil Service has a gradein-position. The grade-in-person structure allows anyone to get promoted and the promotion is carried by that individual. Grade- in-position allows a person in a temporary position to receive the grade (and pay) of that position, but when that person leaves that position, their pay grade reverts back to their certified position.
4. Writing Styles:
Before continuing let me say, in writing terms, the writers (employee, rating officer, and reviewing officer) must know their audience--the panel members. The panel is usually made up of 1 or 2 people in-cone, 2 to 3 people out of cone, and 1 non-DoS businessman/businesswoman.
The writers must pick a style of persuasion be it Ethos (enhance credibility such as “trust me”), Pathos (get the reader to feel emotions), or Logos (use logic to lead the audience to a conclusion). I think the rating officer must use Logos when writing about the 6 skills and Pathos when writing about the employee’s Performance and Potential.
The reviewing officer should also write his/her text with a style of using Pathos. Finally, the employee should write using the Ethos style by conveying a sense of “trust” to the panel or to convince them you have strong “good will.”
All three writers must bring the panel to the same conclusion: This employee has the potential to effectively work at the next higher level and this is clear from their stated 3 or 4 (not 10) accomplishments. Do NOT water down the main accomplishments by using up precious lines of text on general completions of routine tasks.

5. Three Hundred and Sixty-Five Days Prior to EER:
Quality time throughout the year should be dedicated to building a relationship with your supervisor while keeping the EER process in mind. You don’t have to like that person but you must keep in mind that your career will be directly impacted in the words he/she uses in your EER. You can work hard for a year and waste it on an average EER or you can “suck it up”, smile throughout the year, and have a well-written
EER that cites your skills, accomplishments, and the impact to the organization.
Remember, no matter how good you are or how much you have accomplished, if your supervisor does not like you and see your accomplishments, then the wording of that
EER will probably not get you ranked at the top 5% of your class. Your job is to develop that relationship for these 365 days so that your accomplishments and skills are described in such a way that you are competitive with your peers for those few and precious promotions slots.
The first part of this process happens when you first meet your supervisor as well as how you handle the fire few taskings. Start building a good relationship. Don’t waste a year of your life or waste excellent accomplishments throughout the year just because your supervisor “wants” to write you an average EER.
The second part of the process is to meet for quarterly reviews of your progress with your career and organizational goals in mind. You want to take an agenda to this meeting and it should contain your talking points for:
A.
What tasks you are working on and how do they map back to the organizational goals and mission statements. Be clear. Example: “So the radio program I am in charge of will meet the mission goals of ‘Increasing security posture for American
Citizens in-country.” Read the Embassy Mission Statement (or if in DC, read your organization’s Mission statement and goals).
B.
Clearly articulate your current taskings and determine if the important ones should be used to update your Work Requirements Statement (WRS). If so, ask your supervisor to do so.
C.
Describe some accomplishments that you’ve had this quarter and your supervisor can easily make these same correlations to your duties, specific objectives, or mission goals during the crafting of your EER.
D.
Ask them what you can do better. Ask them for their thought on your Area for
Improvement (AIP). If you can show your supervisor that you can address your
AIP during the year, then you will stand a better chance to negotiate a new more basic AIP during the EER process.
E.
Review “Next higher level work” and seek that out to add to your accomplishments.

Then before the rating period is over, I recommend you ask your supervisor to please take your career seriously. Ask if you can provide bullets of many accomplishments as well as general text for what you think are significant accomplishments.
6. Putting the Pen to the Paper:
When writing about the 6 skills of an individual the rating officer must consider that there are only about 6 or 7 lines (4 to 5 sentences) per each skill. I propose using the following as guidance:
1.
The rating officer text should be worded in such as way (using Logos style) to convince the reader of the argument that the employee, in fact, has this skill. a.
Use 1 sentence to state what skill has been put to use. b.
Use 1-2 sentence(s) to cite the who, what, where of an example c.
Use 1-2 sentence(s) to drive home what impact (very important) the completion of that task had on the organization d.
If possible, use 1 sentence to tell the panel how the supervisor or organization can “use” this skill in the future
2.
The “feel or sense” of the text should map back to the Decision Criteria for
Tenure and Promotion section of the Foreign Service Core Precepts document.
In this document, the Core Precepts are laid out in 3 columns: Entry-Level, Mid-
Level, and Senior-Level. OK, now this is where it gets VERY IMPORTANT: a.
If the employee is an Entry-Level grade, the EER should reflect on examples and accomplishments that have a “feel or sense” of the Mid-
Level skills (as cited in the Core Precepts). b.
If the employee is in the Mid-Level grade, the EER should reflect on examples and accomplishments that have a “feel or sense” of the Senior-
Level skills (as cited in the Core Precepts).
To get a “feel or sense” for these next higher skills, one should open the “Core Precepts” document and read all the text in the column for the next higher level. The employee, rating, and reviewing officer should use words and statements that clearly indicate the employee is operating at or has consistently accomplished tasks at the next higher level. For example, an Entry-Level employee should use words and accomplishments that the promotion panel can relate to a Mid-Level employee’s work. Use a thesaurus to find similar words of the stated category so you don’t simply copy the words cited for that particular skill.
7. Real Example (Text of EER Promoted):
The text used to describe examples and impact will be interpreted one of three ways. It is the interpretation that is the end result. It is not really the work you’ve accomplished nor is it that you are the best technician the State Department has ever hired. The fact is, does the promotion panel see your example as having a great impact to the organization. The only way they will know is by reading 4 to 5 sentences constructed by your rating officer.

I’ve seen too many EERs written with examples and logic that places them in the Entry-
Level skill category or in the Mid-level category for a Mid-level person. When writing
EERs I keep the following in mind with ever sentence I write:
I have accomplished my job better than anyone – you are Entry-Level
I am leading others and I’m making good analytical decisions – you are Mid-Level
I am setting policies and changing the organization – you are Senior-Level
IMPORTANT: Do NOT fall into the trap of doing your job better than anyone. If you do, then you will be Entry-Level bordering on Mid-Level. You may touch on this fact, but don’t center your entire EER on this or you lose your ability to convey potential to lead the organization at the next higher level. Remember, your goal is to be recommended for promotion and the only way to do this is to get the panel to see you already posses the skills and are already operating at the next higher level.
Below is an example of a paragraph in my EER that shows how I map my 4 to 5 sentences to the Mid-Level category in the “Decision Criteria for Promotion.” I suggest you open the Core Precepts document and see how I’ve used similar wording and level of skill that makes sure I possess the particular “Team Building” Mid-Level skill. I was not a supervisor but I did have “Team Building” skills and I showcased it.
Leadership Skills - Troy knows just how to foster participation by rallying his team towards common goals while aiming to bolster his team members' confidence.
This was evident during the U.S. Embassy staff move to the newly renovated JAT
Building in Maputo. For this effort, Troy supervised a team in the planning and the subsequent move of the OpenNet network components (e.g. e-mail server, workstations, printers, etc.) to the new site. One team member told me he had gained new insight to much of the server and Active Directory planning not previously experienced. As a supervisor, I feel Troy's direct efforts to guide and instruct other technical specialists builds my confidence in being able to assign his team members to new tasks.
Questions to ask yourself:
1.
Does the above text state what skill is being put to use?
Team Building
2.
Does the above text state an example of who, what, and where?
Junior staff, moving the network components, Maputo
3.
Does the above text state the impact of my accomplishment?
Better trained staff capable of more
4.
Does the above text state how the supervisor or organization can use my skill?
Assign junior staff more complex tasks
5.
Does the above text use words that map to a Mid-Level skill?
Foster participation, rally team, goals, bolster confidence, planning
One must understand, I had NO direct supervisory responsibilities so I focused on Team
Building category in the Core Precepts document. Those who actually supervise others

have a leg up in this area. Team Building versus supervising helped to get me promoted so why not promote others with real supervisory responsibility?
Also take note that I didn’t “save the world” myself by doing all the work. Had I focused on myself accomplishing the task I would be, and rightly so, ranked Entry-Level. The rater’s slight adjustment to focus his words on my Team Building accomplishment was a calculated and critical adjustment. I did, in fact, focus my efforts on building up my team members to make them better off after the task was completed. Building up others will, in turn, build up yourself. But you must clearly show how you built up another person(s).
Now let’s map this example back to the “feel and sense” of the Core Precepts document.
A.
The Entry-Level category for Managerial skills states participation in preparation, develops plans, gives feedback, and completes evaluations.
B.
The Mid-Level category for Managerial skills states communicates broad performance spectrum, manages staff, delegates, creates productive work environment, and effectively works to train, develop, and supervise employees.
Which category do you think the EER text cited above falls into? I think it meets the
Core Precepts for Mid-Level Managers.
8. Area for Improvement (AIP):
No one is perfect and everyone can improve. You should not get emotional about this section. You should take this constructive criticism as it is intended—to make you better.
If you negotiate too weak of an AIP, some or all members of the promotion panel will move you down on their point scale. If you want them to believe the rating officer’s evaluation of you, then the rating officer should prove it with a valid AIP. DON’T LOSE
THESE POINTS just because you want to appear perfect. Wouldn’t you agree that you are not perfect?
What should happen in reality is that the rating officer should cite a valid AIP, you should work on it during the year, then in the next year’s EER you should prove that you can and have addressed it to their satisfaction.
So to address last year’s AIP, you should show proof that you have worked on this skill and that you have a good and proven outcome during this year’s rating period. You have the opportunity to prove that you posses the ability and skills to address your weakness and “turn things around.”
There are 2 things you want to stay away from in this section of the EER. Firstly, whatever you do, do NOT allow your supervisor to cite the same AIP for 2 to 3 years running. The promotion panel will see you are not ready to work at the next higher level until you solve this skill problem. However, if you truly have a problem in this area you may not be able to convince your supervisor to cite a different weakness—but do your best.

Secondly, do NOT allow your supervisor to cite “Interpersonal Skills” as a weakness or else the promotion panel will get the perception that you cannot work well with others.
Who would dare promote someone who cannot work well with others only to have them be a manager at the next higher level? While it does happen, you will get points deducted from an otherwise very good EER.
9. Negotiating with Rating and Reviewing Officers:
So, how do you get the text you want into your EER? That would depend upon your supervisor. This starts with the relationship during the year and his/her preference.
At the end of the year, I provide my supervisor with about 12 bullets on my accomplishments as well as proposed text for 6 of my accomplishments. I, respectfully, ask him to:
A.
use these bullets since I think they are important to me
B.
use the general “feel or sense” of the text I am providing for his sections
C.
write new text that he feels may be more important but still has the same “feel or sense” of me operating at the next higher level of my current level (see. Core
Precepts).
In my e-mail to my supervisor, I provide the proposed EER input. I respectfully ask if I can work with him to adjust the wording or phrasing that I believe will give me the best opportunity for promotion. How can he say no to that? It also, sets the stage that you want involvement and you are hoping to not simply receive a finished product from your supervisor. All my supervisors have agreed to my direct adjustments in their wording when I approached them in this manner.
The fine-tuning of your EER is an iterative process. If your words are too strong they may disagree with a particular statement but they will let you know. Be bold but be truthful.
10. Promotion Panel’s Point System
For many years the make-up of the promotion panel has been somewhat consistent.
That is, HR tries to assign 2 members from IRM, 2 members from the Generalist field, and
1 member from an external organization like a private company.
These panel members are usually sequestered and dedicate their time to reviewing evaluations. They are not supposed to talk to each other about any person’s EER.
There is no name dropping allowed and from my experience, the panel members adhere to this since there is a chance that someone, especially the person from the private section, may inform HR of the inappropriate statements that broke the rules.
Each panel member will perform a 1 st pass as the read the EERs. This process is used to separate the EERs into 3 stacks: possibly promotable, average, poor performers. Your
EER needs to make the first cut and be placed into the “Possibly Promotable” stack. If this happens then your rating officer has accomplished their job. Next it is up to your efforts to separate yourself from your peer by either doing more extracurricular work that strengthens our organization or more directly accomplishes the DoS or Bureau mission objectives and goals. Did you get this? I said now that you are in the stack to

be rank ordered the promotion rests wholly upon the planning and accomplishments that YOU’VE done for 365 days of the past year. To get the highest scores from each panel member you must convince them to give you those points over others. One excellent way is to seek out extracurricular activities that others who are doing their job are not doing—you must be a leader.
So, how does the rank ordering work? Each panel member is given a set of numbers from 10 thru 1. If there are 35 people to rank order, then each member will receive three sets of 10 thru 1 numbers and one set of 10 thru 6 numbers totaling 35 separate numbers. As the EERs are re-read the panel members then assigns them a number.
Realizing that for 35 people there are only 4 possible number 10s and 4 possible number
9s, and so on, the panel members use each number judiciously. If all panel members give one of their number 10s to 1 person’s EER then that person will have a score of 40— a perfect score. In order for you to get promoted you must convince all 5 people to give you one of their number 10s or 9s. If you one or two members give you an 8 or a 7 then your chance of getting promoted is much lower depending upon the number of promotions that HR will eventually give.
There is a second line that is perpendicular line across the list of ranked EERs that HR draws. This is the promotion line dictated by the number of potential positions available
(averaged over 5 years). Those EERs above that line will e promoted. Those below the promotion line will not. However, the top X percent will receive a Meritorious Service
Increase (MSI) by the promotion panel. They believed you had the potential for promotion but there were not enough slots to promote any more. The three benefits of getting an MSI are:
1.
you will receive a 3% pay raise
2.
the next year the previous panel’s recommendation will bolster your case
3.
you can bid assignments at the next higher grade position as if at grade
11. Summary
To summarize, the planning of your EER should start 365 days from the end of the rating period. Your 1 st EER draft should be completed by the180th day of your evaluation period to help gauge how successful you’ve been with reaching out and accomplishing more work with greater impact on the organization. You should use your quarterly counseling wisely to further your career. Lastly, tour bullets and proposed
EER text should be provided to your supervisor so that it conveys a “feel and sense” that you are impacting the organization at the next higher level of skills.