Castalia Interview Questions
& Process

The interview process was really something. Even though I and most of the Castalia office are based in Washington DC, I was interviewed by someone in Australia. This meant I had to do interviews late at night because they had to be during Australian business hours. It's crazy because most of the staff and I are in Washington. The whole thing dragged on for weeks. They made me take an economics test and said it had to be done ASAP to move on. I was dealing with a major family crisis, but they weren't flexible about me taking a 3-hour econ test. After I submitted it, the Australian HR person went silent for weeks. I had to reach out to find out I could move to the next stage. The HR person was rude and condescending throughout. The urgency for my responses and tests was annoying because Castalia's HR person would take weeks to reply, and they just didn't seem that interested in having interns. I pulled out, took an internship elsewhere that was great, and told my grad school about the bad experience with Castalia.

So there are three main parts to the interview process. First, we have an initial chat. Then there's an assessment where they check your basic knowledge of finance and economics, and also see how well you can think critically. Finally, there's the last interview.

I was interviewed by employees only a few years senior to where I would be hired at Castalia. They asked me mostly questions about economics and infrastructure, with no behavioral questions. They also asked me to speak about my previous work experience in Spanish, a language I indicated I knew on my resume. Midway through the interview they gave me a list of topics (economics, Spanish, energy, ect.) and asked me to rate on a scale of 1 to 10 how much I knew about each. They then asked me questions about the topics I had indicated I knew the best. Overall, I felt it was a positive interview, but I wasn't offered a second round. They emailed within a week to say that they were looking for someone with a little more experience, unsurprising, as I was at the bottom of their experience range. They said I would have done two more interviews and an in-office writing sample.

You'll start with a call with a Director to see if you're a good fit and talk about your background, covering some theoretical stuff. Then, you'll have another chat with a manager where they'll only ask theoretical questions and give you a case study on tariffs. If you do well in those first two parts, there's a written test on accounting, corporate finance, and writing. After you submit that, you'll have an interview with HR about the 6 Cs of Castalia. Lastly, there's a final interview with the CEO, mostly to get acquainted, but they'll also ask about public finance.