I applied to the USPTO online while they had openings available in Alexandria specific to my engineering background. A couple weeks after submitting my app I received confirmation from HR that I met requirements for the position and was being referred to a hiring official. A couple weeks after that I was contacted via email with explicit instructions to be available for a phone interview on a specific day at a specific time. I am not sure if they would have had any flexibility if that day/time would not have worked for me; the nature of the email made me think flexibility wasn't a real option. The interview was just over 30 minutes and they asked me 4-5 questions. I can't quite remember all of them but I do recall that they were all ones I had seen by other posters here on Glass Door. Curiously, two of the questions were in my opinion quite redundant. I was asked something to the effect of "You have a task due relatively soon. Explain how you go about completing it on time", this question immediately followed by "You have four tasks all with the same deadline. How do you go about completing them all on time". Different, yes, significantly different, I'll leave that up to you. Their similarly caught me off guard because I had difficultly making my answer to the second one substantially unique from the first, as I had already explained the main points I had prepared regarding my handling of any kind of deadline/scheduling of tasks. I was also asked to "Briefly explain the role of the USPTO" and "Explain a time when you received criticism and how you reacted" or something to that effect. (I don't claim to remember the questions verbatim, but hopefully you get the idea.) There was both a gentleman and a lady on the line, the gentleman leading for most of the interview. The lady then stepped in at the end to ask a couple specific questions about my work experience indicated on my resume, and both of them answered the few questions I posed at the end. Not a difficult interview, but one where it might be challenging to really distinguish oneself from other applicants with similar qualifications. Both interviewers seemed to have foreign accents in my case; it made it a bit harder to understand them, especially over the phone, but it wasn't a big issue. I share this only so you aren't potentially thrown off in your interview if you struggle a bit if your interviewer also has an accent with which you aren't especially familiar. I interviewed approximately four weeks ago and am still waiting to hear back, be it rejection or job offer.