 From 1988 to 1990 she worked for the Department of International Law in the Austrian Federal Ministry for Foreign Affairs, and from 1990 to 1994 was posted as the First Secretary/Counsellor at the Permanent Representation of Austria to the United Nations in New York.From 1994 to 1997 she was the Counsellor and DCM at the Austrian Embassy in Dublin, and from 1997 to 2001 she was the Head of the Coordination Desk for Common Foreign and Security Policy of the European Union and European Correspondent in the Political Division of the Federal Ministry for Foreign Affairs in Vienna.From 2001 to 2005, Kehrer was the Austrian Consul General at Chicago, before leaving to become the Austrian Ambassador to Malta in 2005, in which post she remained until 2007.