As a former Boren Fellow, one reality I wish someone told me about before I accepted the Boren Fellowship was how difficult it would be to satisfy the government service requirement. It is prestigious to receive a Boren, but not many in government recognize your achievement, nor understand what Boren is about. And although NSEP maintains a very broad definition of what national security is and gives you two to three years to find a job, there is little effort on NSEP's part or IIE to aid returning Scholars/Fellows to find federal employment that satisifies the requirement. I met numerous former Boren Fellows/Scholars who felt this way, many of whom spent about one year looking for a job. Another important point: many Scholars/Fellows do not use the language that have been trained while performing government service as the jobs they receive have little to do with what they studied when they were abroad.
In short, the post-Boren experience can be somewhat disappointing. This should not deter one from accepting, but just realize the program is "still working itself out" in its infancy (It is only 10+ years old compared to Fulbright or Peace Corps which are much older programs). Here are a few tips to those who have or will be accepting a Boren. Begin your job search one year in advance even if you are abroad. Government applications take a long time to process and they can sit dormant for months at a time. Some may tell you not to apply to government jobs. You should not apply for any intell jobs while you are abroad, but everything else is fair game. Reach out to people who are currently completing government service, former Boren alumns, and people within the government. If you are performing a domestic portion of your program, this is imperative. Tell them you want to work in their department far in advance and to notify you of opporuntities. Continue to check in with them while you are abroad. Work with hiring managers and not HR representatives. They are more receptive to finding a place for you within their agency if they like you. In reality, you receive no hiring privileges. Although you are given Schedule A status, hardly anyone knows what that status means and what to do with that status. Most Borens are hired not through any special hiring authority, but get hired the way every other person on the street gets hired. KNOWING PEOPLE. Don't rely on any supporting organization to help you find a job (i.e. NSEP / IIE). They take the reactive approach rather the proactive one and look to check you off their list once you found a federal job and/or prove you can't rather than help individuals find a job. It makes sense, since there's only two people who support 100+ people looking for federal jobs. Realize you will be entering the workforce when the federal government is decreasing its hiring efforts due to the budget problems. This will most likely make it harder to find something, so start very early.
