I applied online. The process took 5 months. I interviewed at US Patent and Trademark Office
Interview
I interviewed in June of 2013. The interview questions were:
•Define the USPTO and what they do.
•Describe the last confrontational situation you were in and how you solved it.
•Describe a situation/project where you had to prepare a technical paper/presentation.
•When was the last time you had an assignment that had to get completed quickly and how did you organize/manage your time.
When was the last time you had to convince your supervisor that he/she did not necessarily believe in and what did you do to try to persuade them.
•How would you describe the process for patents?
•How do you handle constructive criticism?
I was very relaxed, it seemed as if they just wanted to know if you could do a lot of solo work and able to manage several different assignments at the same time. Also, I strongly recommend that you do your research on the art units and technologies. That really helped me out when answering follow up questions from my responses.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
When was the last time you had to convince your supervisor that he/she did not necessarily believe in and what did you do to try to persuade them.
I interviewed at US Patent and Trademark Office (Washington, DC)
Interview
Online Hirevue interview. Interview was simple and brief. Questions were related to the general breadth of patents as a whole along with various personality questions. You are given multiple attempts to record your answers.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
"Give us a time where _____ happened and how you responded"
I applied through a staffing agency. I interviewed at US Patent and Trademark Office (Oxnard, CA) in Jun 2026
Interview
I've only done the digital one, where I recorded myself, and it was fairly easy. You got chances to redo your recording, which was nice, and you had a minute before you read the question to prepare your answer. I found it to be intuitive.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
What was one time you had multiple things to do? How did you prioritize those things, and how did you complete them? (that's the gist of the question)
I applied online. I interviewed at US Patent and Trademark Office (Alexandria, VA) in Jun 2026
Interview
1st round: Hirevue interview, pretty simple, they asked 5 questions and you have the opportunity to retake each question 1 time. Total length was about 25 minutes.
2nd round: In-person interview scheduled a week after.