No, Anonymous00, I am indeed an American, albeit one for whom the rules of grammar and punctuation are command rather than suggestion.  Perhaps that makes me an anachronism in the era of "like," "so I go," "ummmm," and other colloquia.  Alas . . .

BBernie, I might have hoped that your BI investigators would have been decent enough to examine your answer to your SF-86 and then give you a chance to explain any "derogatory" information.  I'm assuming you were dinged for your answer to the question, "Have you ever left a job under unfavorable circumstances?" which at best is amenable to many interpretations.  Suppose you were the object of mistreatment by a boss, or a coworker, and for that reason you decided to leave of your own accord and without any adverse personnel action.  Are these circumstances unfavorable to you?  I would suggest they are not.  Perhaps the conduct of your boss/coworker was improper and caused you grief, but when I think of unfavorable circumstances I think of someone who is obligated to resign in lieu of being fired for misconduct of some sort, or at least seriously poor and unremediated performance.  Suppose you are subjected to unwelcome sexual advances, and rather than litigate or file a complaint you leave to take a better job.  Is this unfavorable?  Suppose you have some other quarrel with your employer, and you offer to resign in exchange for a large severance package (in effect, an out-of-court settlement against your former employer).  Is this an unfavorable circumstance?  Perhaps for your former employer, but not for you!  In other words, it does not seem fair to adjudicate you as having been dishonest or lacking candor without giving you the opportunity to explain your answer to a vague and ambiguous question that is in regard to a potentially complex fact pattern.  Would you agree, and would you provide more detail if possible?
Thank you sir.

Thanks, BBernie.  I guess we all live and learn.  What is disappointing is that there is no due process to guide either the method by which the BI is conducted or an opportunity to respond directly to allegations of discrepancy or other "derogatory" information at a point where it might be possible to resolve them in favor of the applicant.  Often, it is possible to explain, mitigate, and dispose of issues, provided one is given the chance to do so.  Then, one can square the facts with one's answers, and at least rebut the presumption of dishonesty in the face of questions that are less than clear.  None of us is without any "skeletons" in our closet, especially if skeletons are defined down to include a difficult encounter with a boss or a coworker, or a few drunken nights in a frat house, or a significant speeding ticket, or even someone from the past who wishes to do us ill when speaking with a background investigator.  I would like to think that it would be possible to make reasonable adjudications based on the "whole person" concept and that investigators would always make the correct decisions, but experience, especially as regards polygraphy, has convinced me otherwise.  Glad that you are pressing on in a positive direction.

Hello ECBob,

The day starts with an informational briefing about the agency, its component parts, career possibilities and progression, etc.  Then there is a brief about the security process--standard fare.  There are 30 or so others there with you.  Then the interview is 1 on 1 with someone from the office that has expressed an interest in your candidacy.  There is a biographical discussion for about 10 minutes followed by about 20 or so minutes of standard questions--why do you want to work here? what skills and training do you have that would help you succeed here? and so forth.  Then the remainder of the time, in my case, was spent asking questions.  My belief is that as with any other interview you must absolutely have some well-prepared and even -rehearsed answers to the standard questions I cite above.  Then I think it is very important to develop some good questions to pose to your interviewer that demonstrates and reinforces your answers to these questions, and shows that you're not just another butt in a seat.  Although you may not know what office has expressed interest in you, you will know whether you're under consideration as an analyst for example, and in which career field, and based on your own knowledge of your education and training you can probably draw an accurate inference about who might be interested in you.  I would place myself in the mental position of pretending that you were actually going to be starting the job the minute the interview ends--what information would you like to have to be able to do your job well, both now and in 1 year, in 5 years, etc?  Show them that you are eager to learn and that you know enough to frame good questions, and that you have a long-term horizon in terms of your future with the agency.  Help them see you as someone they'd like to mentor, eat lunch with, barbecue with on weekends, etc.  Try to enjoy it--why not?

During my interview, I got the sense that things were going well, although my interviewer was somewhat reserved--I don't know if this was her typical personality.  I was pleasantly surprised to get a call so quickly after my interview--I was expecting to wait as long as 3 weeks, and my hope is that the quick call is the result of such strong interest in my candidacy that the office is willing to exert its influence on the process to assist me should the polygrapher with whom I met decide he wants to sink my candidacy.  After all, the office is an important stakeholder, polygraphy is fundamentally subjective, and perhaps a manifestation of strong interest might condition the result.  Who knows?

My best advice is prepare good questions, be the best version of yourself (good colleague, good listener, etc.) that you can be, make a good judgment as to why they are interested in you and prepare yourself accordingly, and enjoy the process.

Good advice @ AlfredDreyfus.  I hope I get a call soon.  I always ask questions after an interview.  Infact, I would recommend all job-seekers to go online and find a list of the most common asked interview questions, and research the company (by this I mean simply browing through their website when you're not looking at internet porn, just to get a feel for the organization).  Prepare all of your answers before hand, then the interview will be a breeze.  Most interviews are the same in my opinion.  I remember having a few serious technical interviews when I cam out of school, and I did horrible!  Someone should have told me to study for them!  But most interviews are behavior based, questions like "give me an example of a time when you...".  I assume the CIA is like this. 

Thanks for all the help Alfred, really, it's been a big help (and relief!). 

I apologize if you've already said it, but are you still in the BI phase of the process? How long has it been since your interview, and how long after the interview did you complete your polygraph?

Hmmm, you're probably right in what you said about the checking out of our backgrounds before the interview...I can't imagine how they could have gotten any information about me...then again, conspiracy theorists think Facebook is a CIA front, so that could have gained them some info 

Alfred, please keep tabs on this thread, as I may have other questions either before or after the interview...sorry that I'm using you as my personal yahoo answers, but I just feel like you seem like a pretty bright guy. 

Again, thanks for all your help. 

ps - you're completely right about it being on a first name basis so far...it's kind of strange calling these people by their (alleged) first names....but they probably, as you said, aren't even real.

AlfredDreyfus, did you ever hear anything on your status?  Did you get in?  Where does everybody else stand in their process?

They probably did get hired, or the feds came and got them.  lol.  Check out this post that I found on here that describes the CIA polygraph and other processing in detail:
https://antipolygraph.org/cgi-bin/forums/YaBB.pl?num=1289586689/2#2