Federal government interview turnaround Forum

[Anonymous User]

Interviewed first week of January for several divisions of a federal agency. Interviewers told me it was a slow process (one division made it sound like this week was when offers might come out, but not earlier) but I was wary of asking for too many specifics. Any insight/experiences?

[crazywafflez]

A long damn time. It took about 4 months for me. Applied in January, heard a response to schedule an interview about 2-3 weeks after, had interview in mid February, offered at the start of April.

[ughbugchugplug]

A long time. I’m doing a USAO and my timeline has been:

June: apply
End of October: invited for first interview
Early November: interview
End of November: invited for second interview
Mid December: second interview

Currently waiting (perhaps in vain) to hear if I’ll have a third.

[Anonymous User]

OP here. To clarify, it's a summer internship.

[ughbugchugplug]

OP here. To clarify, it's a summer internship.

Hard to say in that case - the stakes of taking you on are lower so they don’t need to do as many interviews, but the urgency is lower so they might forget about it. Maybe ping them after a month?

[Anonymous User]

AUSA here at a USAO. The question is impossible to answer because the government is massive, and federal agencies within the government are also massive. The answer depends on maybe the group of 20 to 25 people who comprise the geographically local micro-unit that you are trying to join. The Topeka office of the FCC might be super fast. Main Justice in Washington maybe not. (I do not actually know if there is a Topeka FCC office).

[Anonymous User]

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[Anonymous User]

Re: summer internship, it's too early to worry that you haven't got it - a couple of weeks still isn't a lot of time, especially depending on how many other people they had to interview (if it's an office in DC they probably take a bunch of interns so that will slow the process down, they probably won't send out offers till they've decided on everyone). Beyond that, it's pretty hard to predict.

If you have other summer offers that you need to address you can certainly reach out to them and ask for a timeline.

[Anonymous User]

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[Anonymous User]

OP here. I'm also wondering if I should update the agency with a recent position I secured for spring in the time since interview?

Experienced fed here. If you have an email address of someone who interviewed you, there is very little downside to a short and sweet courteous email of this nature providing an update to them. Yes, it can spur them along to act. And yes, it can persuade them that you might be off the market soon if they don't act. If you weren't really on their finalist list in the first place, then what did you have to lose by trying? Zilch. No downside.

[Anonymous User]

OP here. I'm also wondering if I should update the agency with a recent position I secured for spring in the time since interview?

Experienced fed here. If you have an email address of someone who interviewed you, there is very little downside to a short and sweet courteous email of this nature providing an update to them. Yes, it can spur them along to act. And yes, it can persuade them that you might be off the market soon if they don't act. If you weren't really on their finalist list in the first place, then what did you have to lose by trying? Zilch. No downside.

[Anonymous User]

Not the original responder, but also experienced fed attorney.

Hopefully you have your interviewer’s email from when you sent a “thank you” follow-up… email them directly.

[Anonymous User]

Not the original responder, but also experienced fed attorney.

Hopefully you have your interviewer’s email from when you sent a “thank you” follow-up… email them directly.

Different fed attorney who just wants to say that if you didn’t send a thank-you email, that’s completely fine too. Don’t freak out.