Cialfo Interview Questions
& Process

It was great. Really great. They offered tea, coffee, chole bhature, loved it, amazing experience, simple asked how much do you expect? Nice company everyone should go. Then they asked me why do you wanna join this company?

I interviewed for a Product Management role. They first gave me a case study assignment without any initial manager discussions. The assignment involved building features for an ed-tech startup, similar to their industry. After submitting the assignment, I wasn't contacted for further interviews, even though I thought I did well on it. It felt like they were just looking for ideas. Only interview if you're okay with spending your free time on this, as they don't seem serious about hiring and don't give feedback on the assignment. It was a waste of my time, and I wouldn't recommend it to others.

The interview process had 4 rounds with a reporting lead, co-worker, CEO/founder, and another co-worker, plus an initial recruiter call. The recruiter call was fine, though they seemed a bit too keen on selling the company. They initially said there would be 3 rounds: 2 culture and 1 technical with the reporting manager. The first two rounds were good, meeting smart people. The third round was a bit off; the interviewer seemed confused about the company's sector (calling it Tech instead of Edtech). They asked about company culture and values, which weren't readily available online. Because it didn't go well, they added another round with a different stakeholder. I later saw reviews that confirmed my concerns about the culture and hiring process. Not meeting a founder but someone reporting to a previous interviewer made it feel like the decision was already made. The rejection wasn't a surprise. It's a good company with a good product, but the hiring approach made me realize the culture wouldn't fit.

So I had this initial Zoom interview with their HR person in Singapore. It was pretty straightforward and only took about half an hour. Looking back, I probably should have seen it coming, based on other reviews, that there'd be long silences from the company after this. I sent a thank you note and followed up a couple of weeks later, but eventually, I figured they'd moved on and I wasn't getting the job. They never actually sent me a rejection notice, though. I tried one last time to get some feedback on my interview, ask for advice, and what skills they look for in this kind of role so I could set some goals. Still no reply. I was pretty surprised by the lack of communication after the interview; it seemed really unprofessional.