I had my interview on April 16. A lot of people have been sending me PMs asking for details about the interview, so here it goes:
For your reference, I work in the IT industry and so does my wife. Our interview was in New York City.
We arrived to the interview really early, but they didn't let us go up until exactly 30 minutes before our 9:30 appointment. At 9:00 they finally let us in and we waited in the lobby of the Quebec Government office until an immigration agent called our name. He lead us to his office and once there he started the interview speaking French. And his first question was: "What would you say is your level of French: beginner, intermediate or advanced?". We answered intermediate.
"Do you prefer to have this interview in French or English?". We answered French.
"Where did you study French and have you taken a French certification exam?". We answered no, and explained how we learned French.
Then he said, "Ok, now I'll switch back to English as I need to ask you some questions about your documents, and we'll continue in French a bit later". This surprised me, I was 100% prepared to have the whole interview in French.
He checked our US immigration forms (i797s), our university diplomas, our passports...and that was it.
When he finished checking those he asked in English: "Why do you want to move to Quebec?". I answered.
Next, he finally made the switch to French and asked my wife what is her profession, and she explained. Even though he didn't request them, at this point I gave him our updated resumes in French. And he liked that and asked if he could keep them. Our resumes in the original application were in English.
Next question was for me, in French: "Do you know how are you going to find a job in Montreal?". The company where I work has a branch in Montreal, and I had a list of all our customers based there, so I brought that up. We also attended a Quebec job fair which was organized by the French-American chamber of commerce in DC a couple months ago, so I also showed him the business cards and brochures we collected there.
He then started explaining (in French) that Quebec is almost completely francophone, and that while Quebec is not violent there is a constant struggle between the anglophone culture and the francophone culture, and he then asked us if we were aware and prepared for this?
I said yes, and talked a little bit about the history of Quebec and the history of that cultural struggle between French and English. He was very happy with my answer.
He finally asked: "Are you planning to continue studying French?". We said yes, and showed him a receipt from a course we are signed up for and that starts in May. I also showed him some books I've read in French (a book about the history of Quebec, and two other hockey books). He was happy with the book about Quebec.
And that was it, he approved our CSQ.
It took exactly 18 minutes from the moment the immigration officer came to get us from the lobby to the moment he approved our CSQ.
The best two pieces of advise I have are really nothing you don't already know: be prepared to have the interview in French (even if you end up having some or most of it in English) and research and plan what you intend to do once you land in Quebec as much as possible.
A lot of people use Quebec as a back door to get into Canada. Immigration officers know it and part of their job is to determine if you are amongst them. For me, Quebec has always been my dream and I have every intention of settling there, I have been preparing for it for years. And I think that's why our interview was so quick.
If you meet the selection criteria and you are really planning to go to Quebec and you have been planning and preparing to do so, there is no need to worry, you will succeed.