Welcome Home USAID FSOs! What Now?

You're back in the USA. Time to start job searching. Yes, now!

July 1st is here. USAID Foreign Service Officers and Civil Service Officers are all now back on US soil. Probably at their parent’s house. Or some janky rental. And wrestling with the reality that their overseas chapter is closed.

Coming home isn't just about logistics. It's about asking yourself some uncomfortable questions.

Where Exactly Is Home?

Your “home of record”. What does that even mean? When was the last time you actually lived there? Are we talking about your parent's basement? That apartment you haven't seen in three years?

Most of us will need to find our own place, which is its own special kind of hell in today's housing market.

Those colleagues who took the fork on September 30th? They're looking pretty smart right now. Yes, it prolonged the purgatory, but they're already settled while we're scrambling for temporary housing and dealing with reverse culture shock.

Summer's Dangerous Illusion

Summer feels slow. The humanitarian world takes a collective breath. It's tempting to think we have time to figure things out, to decompress, to "ease into" our job search.

Brian LeCuyer captured this perfectly in a recent LinkedIn post: "It reminds me of trying to find the bathroom in a dark, unfamiliar hotel room. I'm going slow because I don't want to stub my toe, but I really need to pee."

That's us right now – moving cautiously when urgency is what the moment demands.

Why September Will Be Chaos

Come fall, we hope to see hiring madness.

Organizations will be finalizing their 2026 budgets, launching new programs, and posting positions they've been sitting on all summer.

But here's what will happen: everyone else who's been waiting will flood the market simultaneously. It will be worse than now. If you can image that.

Do you want to be part of that mass scramble, submitting applications into the void? Or do you want to be the person someone thinks of first when a position opens?

The answer determines what you do right now.

The Real Work Starts Today

This is where Career Pivot's 7-step framework becomes essential, particularly the first three steps. These are the foundation for everything that follows.

• Step one requires you to get brutally honest about what you actually want to do next. Not what looks good on paper. Not what our parents or partners think makes sense. What energizes you and aligns with your values after years of humanitarian work.

• Step two forces you to inventory your skills in language that non-humanitarian employers understand. Your program management experience translates to corporate project management. Your crisis response skills become change management and adaptability.

• Step three maps the landscape of where those skills are valued. This is where most of us get stuck because we default to applying only within the humanitarian bubble.

The Networking Imperative

But how do we break out of that bubble? Through informational interviews – the kind that most of us humanitarian workers are terrible at because we're trained to focus on beneficiaries, not our own career advancement.

September's hiring surge means decision-makers are already having conversations about future staffing. You want to be part of those conversations before positions get posted, not after.

That means reaching out to people now. Not in August when you're "ready." Now. When they have the mental bandwidth to meet with us.

Avoiding Mental Checkout

The biggest trap we face is mental checkout.

You're exhausted from moving back from overseas, processing difficult experiences, and dealing with the logistics of international moves. It's natural to want to pause.

But pausing now means fighting for attention later. It means competing with hundreds of other candidates instead of building relationships that lead to opportunities.

Your Summer Action Plan

Either way, you need structure. Here's what successful transitions look like:

• Week 1-2: Complete career pivot steps 1-3. Define your target clearly.

• Week 3-4: Build your target list of organizations and people to connect with.

• Week 5-8: Conduct 2-3 informational interviews per week. Yes, even while house-hunting and dealing with reverse culture shock.

The goal isn't to have job offers by September. It's to have advocates who think of us when opportunities arise in September and beyond.

The Long View

You've spent years building relationships internationally. Now you need to do the same domestically, but faster. The skills that made us effective humanitarian workers – relationship building, cultural adaptation, problem-solving under pressure – are exactly what this transition demands.

Summer won't feel slow if you approach it strategically. And come September, while others are scrambling to get noticed, you'll be the people decision-makers already know and trust.

The bathroom metaphor was right about one thing: we really do need to pee. Time to turn on the lights and move with purpose.

Introducing the AI-Accelerated Networking Toolkit

Applying to jobs without networking is like whispering in a stadium. No one hears you. And no one remembers you.

AI can help you network faster, smarter, and actually get results!

Built for career pivoters like you - job seekers who are done wasting time. This toolkit helps you:

• Craft better outreach messages in seconds

• Know who to talk to using power-mapping prompts

• Use AI to prep for impactful informational interviews

• Handle ghosting - and bounce back fast!

Paid Career Pivot Subscribers can download this toolkit for free!

This is the practical playbook I wanted when I was laid off in January and hearing nothing but silence in February. Don’t waste months of time like I did.