Development economics research assistantship selection practice interview
Economic reasoning, survey data quality, empirical analysis and dependable support for development research. Practise the 6 questions admissions panels ask with follow-ups. Paid plans add scored feedback on every answer.
Free with an Intaviu account: 320 credits a month, at 10 credits a minute of practice. Private: interview creators never see them.
- 20 minutes
- 6 questions
- Scored feedback on paid plans
About the programme
This interview assesses whether you can support careful empirical work on poverty, education, health, labour or markets. The team is looking for sound economic reasoning, disciplined treatment of survey data and honest communication about uncertainty. Strong candidates can explain technical choices clearly and leave an analysis that another researcher can reproduce.
How to prepare
- Review a development policy question and map the incentives, constraints and likely unintended effects.
- Practise checking a survey dataset for duplicates, missing values, outliers and inconsistent codes.
- Refresh the difference between descriptive association and a credible causal estimate.
- Prepare to explain an analysis workflow from raw data through checks to a final table.
- Think of a time you found an error, documented it and communicated its effect on the result.
Common mistakes
- Starting modelling before checking how the survey data was collected and coded.
- Claiming causation from a simple difference between groups.
- Deleting unusual observations without investigating or recording the decision.
- Producing a table without code, notes or a traceable record of data changes.
What to expect
A real admissions interview
6 questions the way admissions panels ask, with follow-ups when an answer needs more.
Spoken, like the real thing
Speak your answers in your browser or the free desktop app, with live captions. You can ask the interviewer to repeat anything.
Scored on 4 areas
The things this interview weighs most. With a paid plan, your report shows how you did on each one.
A private report
On Plus, Pro and Premium: every answer scored, your strongest lines quoted and what to say differently next time. Interview creators never see it.
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