Meet myBidPal: one sheet for your bid list

Bidding might be one of the worst aspects of Foreign Service life. You're researching and imagining life at a post, and boom, it's off the list.

Or maybe you and your spouse or partner don't see eye-to-eye on your next post: one of you cares most about schools, the other about pay. The facts are in a spreadsheet, the opinions are in a text thread, and neither is where you need it.

myBidPal

myBidPal is a free sheet for the bids you're weighing. Use it on your own, or share it with the people you choose. You don't need an account.

You add up to five positions, each person says what matters to them, and one table compares the facts for every post. It estimates your pay and shows the schools in each city. It can't tell you which post to bid on, and it isn't meant to.

What you do with it

A new sheet walks you through three short steps, then opens the comparison.

1. Where to. Add the posts you're weighing: start typing "Paris" and pick from the list. Name the job you'd bid on at each one, like "04 ESTH" or "03 Staff Assistant". The same city can hold very different jobs, so tap "Another job here" and the post appears twice, once for each.
2. Who's coming. Your grade and step for the pay estimate, and anyone coming with you: a spouse or partner and the work they'd look for, children and pets. Then, if you like, add family, friends or a mentor who should weigh in, or who'd rather just comment.
3. What matters. Pick up to five priorities: pay, schools, preschool, health care, air quality, work for family members and more. Each one adds its facts to the comparison.
4. Compare. One table shows every position, with the best value in each row in green. Add pros and cons right in the table: the add box offers a few starting points drawn from the post's own figures, such as the hardship differential or the travel advisory level. Tap Details on a position for its pay options, schools and pet rules.

You can go back to any step from the comparison with Edit posts, Edit people or Edit priorities.

If none of the priorities fits, add up to three of your own in your own words, like "Near a dog park". Then say Yes, Not sure or No for each position.

Pay and schools

Pay is an estimate for your grade and step, using the same rules as our Salary Calculator. Add language incentive pay, skills incentive pay or the Service Need Differential in a position's Details, and the total changes. It's gross pay, before taxes and deductions, so use the Salary Calculator for a full breakdown.

Washington, D.C. and the other U.S. locality areas are on the post list too, with an estimate of your base pay plus locality pay.

Once you add your children and their grades, each position's Details gets a collapsed Schools box. It shows the education allowance for your children and the State Department's assisted schools in that city, each with a link to its fact sheet and Special Needs Profile. If a child may need support, tap Special Education Support and pick the kinds. The box then says how many schools at that post report they can support all of them.

What the box shows is what each school told the State Department. It doesn't say how good a school is, and a "yes" is the school's own statement. We don't have school information for U.S. posts, and a few schools have no readable profile, so the box says "No data about this at this time" instead of guessing.

Preschool is generally not covered by the State Department's education allowance, so those fees come out of pocket. Pick Preschool under What matters and the table shows the lowest preschool fee the post's international schools list. Local preschools often cost much less, so ask the post's Community Liaison Office (CLO) about them.

Bidding with other people

Up to six people can share one sheet. Share it and each person gets their own private link.

Send each link to its person: your spouse or partner, a tandem partner, or anyone who should add to the sheet. Opening it signs them in as themselves, with no name to type, and they pick their own priorities. The Share box shows when each person first opened their link, so you can tell whether it's been used.

If you add a friend before you share, you can set them to Comments only: they add pros and cons but don't pick priorities. Their pros and cons show up in their own color with their name beside each one, so you can talk about the actual items.

The view link only lets someone read, so it's safe to send to a parent or a mentor. Anyone with a link can use it, so send links only to people you trust. If a link goes to the wrong person, tap "New link" and the old one stops working at once.

The person who started the sheet names the jobs and rates each one's promotion potential as Low, Medium or High, because nobody publishes numbers for it. Everyone else can give the rating a thumbs up or down, and the table keeps a running count. Maybe it's not quite the guaranteed promotion you imagined.

Bidding as a tandem couple

Pick "Me and my partner" on the first step if your partner is bidding too, on a Foreign Service job or a DETO job. A position can then hold up to four jobs, and each job belongs to one of you. Its owner names it, says whether it's a Foreign Service job, a DETO job, or not bidding there, and rates its promotion potential. Each of you enters your own grade and step, and DETO pay uses the DETO overseas locality, as in our Salary Calculator.

A spouse or partner looking for an embassy job or a local job isn't bidding, so you add that on Who's coming. Choose a local economy job and the table shows whether the country has a Bilateral Work Agreement.

The sheet then shows which positions keep you together and what each pairing pays, combined, with each person's pay worked out at their own grade and step. You can switch it off again, and your jobs stay on the sheet.

The whole picture

We're getting data on health, air, electricity, and travel advisories from where and when they're available. Figures describe a whole country, not a city or a clinic, and the Department's medical office decides each person's clearance. They're meant to give you an idea about a country. "Show every fact" shows the year of each figure, and the line above the tool shows when the tables were last refreshed.

It can't see your boss, your housing, or what your household needs.

Print it out, mull it over.

"Save as PDF" makes a clean summary of the positions, the facts, your own priorities and who wrote what. Tap "Make my PDF" in the box that opens. You can leave the pay out before you share it. We don't back sheets up for you, so keep a PDF of anything you can't lose.

What we keep

A shared sheet holds what you type: its name, the positions, the job labels, the names of the people on it, their priorities and languages, the priorities they write in their own words and their answers, whether each person weighs in or only comments, whether a spouse or partner is coming and the work they'd look for, their pros and cons, and when each person first opened their own link.

We delete a sheet that nobody has opened for 18 months, and you can delete yours any time. Please don't type medical details or your children's personal details into anything you write on the sheet. Our Privacy Policy has the full list.

And of course, our disclaimers: this is our personal blog, not the State Department, and myBidPal is an unofficial tool. Check the official source before you rely on anything here. If something looks wrong, or you wish it did one more thing, write to us at myforeignservicepal@gmail.com.