I applied for the patent examiner position in Alexandria, Virginia on January 26, 2020. The job posting had an opening date till June 2020, but it turned out, the patent office has something called cut off dates before the job posting expires, so they interview people every couple of months. Referred to selecting officials 3/30/2020 Invite for interview 4/9/2020 Interview date 4/15/2020 Tentative offer 05/27/2020 The interview was online using WebEx, it was with a supervisory patent examiner. The examiner was very nice and I felt like she was genuinely interested in what I had to say. The interview questions were just like you see all over on Glassdoor. Be prepared and show real interest in the job and I believe you will get it. I have a master's degree in engineering and I had passed the patent bar exam before I applied. Some people online say passing the patent bar is a disadvantage for a patent examiner position because the office might look at you as someone who is coming for a couple of years and then moving on. I do not believe this is true based on how the supervisory patent examiner handled this information when we talked about it during the interview.

I started getting emails for the first round of interviews on 4/16 and did that first interview on 5/13. It was just simple behavioral questions. I received an email to schedule a live online interview on 5/19, and I am scheduled to take it on 5/21.