This is a good, general breakout of the overall structure of the Foreign Service. It is also entertaining because it makes it seem like either the President or Secretary of State personally knows and appoints every member of an organization with 15,000 members.
What happens in practice is that these names are floated to Congress and the President en masse. This is after the individual member is recommended for tenure, promotion, or entry into the Senior Foreign Service.
http://us2.campaign-archive2.com/?u=...&id=04b7b4426e
So if John Kerry isn't stopping by every office to say, "great work, I think you are ready for the next level of responsibility!", then who does? Well, that would be the Foreign Service Selection Boards which convene annually. They compare the employee’s annual performance appraisal to core precepts to determine if a member is ready for promotion. Employees are rank ordered based on performance. HR indicates a number of positions to be filled by cone, and by grade.
If HR and Diplomatic Security agree they needs 10 more FS-2 Agents and you are number 5 on the DS Agent FS-3 promotion list – congratulations, you just became an FS-2 DS Agent. If you were number 11 on the list, then you remain an FS-3 for the following year.
An older exemplar of these precepts is available here:
http://www.afsa.org/Portals/0/2011precepts.pdf