US Bureau of Labor Statistics Financial Analyst Interview Questions
& Process

After you apply and get referred, managers will look at your stuff. If they like you, they tell their HR director. The HR director will email or call you, or both like they did for me. They'll say managers want to interview you and ask when you're free. They'll set up phone or in-person interviews based on your availability and where you are. You'll get the date, time, interviewer's name, and office, which is super helpful for research. For phone interviews, the manager calls at the scheduled time. They introduce themselves. Hopefully, they don't use speakerphone because my worst experiences were phone interviews with multiple people due to bad speakerphone quality and not enough time. It's a gamble if you'll like the interview; some interviewers barely talk about the job, others spend ages on it. Some go straight to questions. Some seem like they've already decided, which is just how it is. Key things: 1. You gotta connect your experience to the job needs. 2. You need to explain your resume thoroughly. 3. Use full sentences. Interviewers liked it more when my explanations were planned, like starting with 'for example.' 4. Have questions ready, seriously, it's a must. They want to hear from you.

I applied for a gig with BLS in DC on USAJobs and they hit me up about a month later for an interview with Chiefs from two different teams in the Consumer Price Surveys division. The interview was over an hour long and they asked me a ton of questions about specific times I used data viz tools, gave virtual presentations, etc. It was hard 'cause I kept using examples from my grad thesis or my previous work experiences. I think I messed up by not using the STAR method well. Had to chase them up two weeks later to find out I didn't get it, which was a bummer.

I applied online using USAjobs. It took about a month to get through the initial screening on USAjobs. After that, it was another three weeks until I heard back that I had been referred to two different programs. I had one-on-one in-person interviews with both offices. The questions were pretty basic and focused on my skills and what I hoped to gain from the experience.