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Topic: Working for the USPTO (Read 449019 times) |
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mk1023
Junior Member
Posts: 52
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Re: Working for the USPTO
« Reply #850 on: Feb 16th, 2007, 3:30pm » |
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on Feb 16th, 2007, 2:10pm, mandejapan wrote:
I think he is saying he did get the bonus, but I had a few questions in response. May I ask...
1) What art unit did you get hired into?
2) I didn't understand what you were trying to say with the dates of when you actually got your formal offer and when you had your interview..."they didn't give me my formal offer for 2/20 start date until 2/06"
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Yeah I am getting the bonus. Nobody's told me what art unit I'm in. On my official letter it says to contact Ayaz Sheikh if I have any questions about my new position. He's listed on www.usptocareers.gov/contact.asp under "Error Correction, Cryptography, Security".
Here's a timeline of my experience with USPTO:
August 2006: Submit application to JARS
mid-November 2006: Phone interview with an SPE. This guy said he processed patents for stuff like medical scanning, but he was allowed to recommend people be hired for other units (which is what happened in my case).
late-November 2006: Email asking me to submit various hiring forms
January 2007: I followed up with my original contact at the hiring center. He checked my file and found out that they decided to hire me on 12/27/06. He sent an email to HR person. A week later with no response I called the HR person. Turns out they lost my transcripts so I had to send new ones. At this point I was basically told that I would be hired as a "general engineer" without the bonus unless my transcripts were adjudicated by "The Director". About two weeks and four or five phone calls later and I finally got an offer for the 2/20/07 start tate.
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mandejapan
Junior Member
Posts: 58
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Re: Working for the USPTO
« Reply #851 on: Feb 17th, 2007, 1:21pm » |
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I see. Your SPE contact, Ayaz Sheikh is the SPE of Art Unit 2131 - Computer Security & Cryptography according to these links:
http://www.uspto.gov/web/info/2100.htm
http://pair.uspto.gov/cgi-bin/final/employee_loc.pl?action=orgquery& ORGANIZATION=2131
You mentioned in your previous post that you got hired as an "EE" even though you were a general engineer for undergrad. Did you have a lot of EE credits or CE credits? If so, how many credits/courses? I'm just trying to understand how it was possible for the Director (probably director of that Technology Center) to adjudicate your transcripts to hire you as an EE.
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| « Last Edit: Feb 17th, 2007, 1:33pm by mandejapan » |
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mk1023
Junior Member
Posts: 52
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Re: Working for the USPTO
« Reply #852 on: Feb 17th, 2007, 6:27pm » |
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Undergraduate: 41/133 credits EE
Graduate: 21/31 credits EE
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jchris
Newbie
Posts: 1
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Re: Working for the USPTO
« Reply #853 on: Feb 18th, 2007, 12:22pm » |
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Hello all, I've read some of the posts here and would like to share my story and hope it helps someone out and to pose some questions.
I come from the NYC/NJ area. I graduated Fall 06 with my BS in Biomedical Engineering. I became interested in the Patent Office over a year ago from classmates who were offered positions there. Over time, I wanted to work for the PTO for a couple of reasons
1. Job security - govt work is always secure and the engineering market (at least for me and my friends) was a little bleak
2. Pay. I was hired this past week starting at GS7/10 at 61893 my GPA was a 3.44. A friend of mine working as an EE for 4 years with a master's was making 64K so I thought the pay was more than competitive.
3. Hours, after being a slave to work and school through out my undergrad, I don’t want to be a slave to my job and dealing with random hours. I learned to value my time and freedom and knowing that after training, I can set up my own schedule was a great bonus, not to mention all holidays off, the vacation, and overtime for comp hours or pay.
4. I do not want to move but the drive from VA to NJ is not too bad so at least I know on the weekends I can always come home and visit my family and friends.
My job process went as followed.
1. I applied to JARS in May 2006. Heard nothing
2. A jobfair was held in NYC in Nov 2006. I attended and interviewed. The guy seemed more interested in my GPA. Not too many technical questions, so I thought it went well. Then again, I had interviews in the past where I thought it went well and didn't get it. It was also conducted in the hallway of the hotel. Heard nothing.
3. Jan 07, started a new job and hated it. Wondered what the PTO was doing with my application. I called a bunch of people and they basically told me that because of the amount of applicants they get, I might not even hear anything.
4. Mid Jan 07, really hating my new job, I saw another Job Fair in Alexandria for Feb 2. I e-mailed the hiring coordinator for BME and explained to her how I interviewed before, that I'm interested in the job, saw the career fair in Feb, should I apply for that. I got a call the next day saying that they read my e-mail, pulled up my file and want to hire me.
5. Sent me links for paper work and submitted it the following week. Got a call from HR confirming the hire. From the call from the Hiring Coordinator to HR was from Jan 17 to Feb 15, nearly a month of waiting endlessly.
So I hope my story helps those interested in applying. I would recommend just going to the job fair and following up !! If I did not e-mail the hiring coordinator, my application would still be on file.
Now that I'm hired, I am excited to move down to VA. I start in July, so I have plenty of time to get myself organized. I have a couple of questions for people who work at the PTO.
1. For the first 2 months of training, its 730-5 with every other friday off? What happens to your hours after that? I have an important function to attend to during the last weekend of Oct and would like to try to get a day or two off of work. And for those who are in training or just recently finished training, what were your impressions/thoughts of it?
2. The general feeling is that your supervisor will make or break your experience. If you don't like your supervisor, can you switch?
3. I started looking into apartments and found some decent ones within a 5 mile area of the PTO headquarters in Alexandria. Are there any areas that I should avoid like the plague? I.e. north of the PTO office, south, west, east? Coming from NJ/NYC, I am familiar with the hood spots and would prefer not to revisit them, lolz. Or what areas in Alexandria or in the area would you recommend living? I'm 23 and recent grad with loans, so I would like to keep everything a thousand or less.
4. I know a little bit about patent law just from the DVD from the PTO and the IP Person from my university talked with us one lecture. What would you recommend I do while I wait to get started? I was thinking of getting some books on IP and PAtent law and general books of Biomedical Engineering just to keep my mind fresh.
5. I never considered law but the PTO has spurred my interests. What are the stipulations for obtaining a law degree after 2 years? For example, after obtaining your degree, how many years are you expected to stay with the PTO?
I appreciate any and all feedback.
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mk1023
Junior Member
Posts: 52
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Re: Working for the USPTO
« Reply #854 on: Feb 18th, 2007, 5:51pm » |
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on Feb 18th, 2007, 12:22pm, jchris wrote:
3. I started looking into apartments and found some decent ones within a 5 mile area of the PTO headquarters in Alexandria. Are there any areas that I should avoid like the plague? I.e. north of the PTO office, south, west, east? Coming from NJ/NYC, I am familiar with the hood spots and would prefer not to revisit them, lolz. Or what areas in Alexandria or in the area would you recommend living? I'm 23 and recent grad with loans, so I would like to keep everything a thousand or less.
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A thousand dollars is probably on the low side of what you can expect to pay for something decent. Don't trust what you read. I saw a lot of apartment listings on craigslist that seemed pretty good, but when I looked them up at apartmentratings.com they had ratings like 13%. You should also consider renting a condo rather than going through apartment management.
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| « Last Edit: Feb 18th, 2007, 5:54pm by mk1023 » |
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