The interview process was absurd. Despite the fact that both I, and most of the Castalia office, lived in Washington DC I was interviewed by someone in Australia. I thus had to conduct important interviews late in the evening because the only time interviews could be done was during business hours in Australia. Again - the majority of the staff are in Washington, as was I.
Beyond that, the interview process was prolonged over weeks. I had to take an economics test and was told it had to happen ASAP in order to me to have the chance to proceed to the next round. I was in the midst of a terrible family crisis, but there was not flexibility in taking a 3 hour econ test. After turning it in the Australian HR person spent several weeks not communicating with me only for me to reach out to her to learn that I was allowed to proceed to the next round. The tone of the HR person was rude and condescending at each turn, the urgency with which I was expected to respond to every request and test was frustrating given that Castalia's HR person would pay this effort back with weeks of radio silence, and they generally did not seem interested at all in even having interns. I withdrew my application, took an internships at a different firm that was a pleasure to work for, and told my grad school of the bad experience with Castalia.
