Morgan Stanley Internship

Morgan Stanley Internship Interview Questions

[Edit] (see also Morgan Stanley Insight Programme)

Candidates should apply for the Morgan Stanley internship online. If successful, you will be invited to an assessment day. The assessment day consists of:

  • Introduction and company presentation
  • First interview
  • Guided tour
  • Question and answer session (with refreshments)
  • Group Exercise
  • Second Interview
  • Aptitude tests
    • Verbal reasoning
    • Numerical reasoning

Introduction

[Edit]

Morgan Stanley will start the assessment day off with a short presentation and discussion about the assessment day as a whole. There are usually 12 candidates in any one assessment day.

First interview

[Edit]

Morgan Stanley standardise all interview by providing interviewers with scripts. You will be asked a set of questions that all other candidates will also be asked. Your questions will include:

  • Tell me about yourself
  • What is state of financial markets
  • Often your job will involve delivering technical and complex information to clients who have varying knowledge of markets and products, how will you ensure that the information is clearly presented so that it is easy for anyone to understand?
  • How will you protect against the possibility of information being misinterpreted.
  • Tell me why you want to work in investment banking?
  • Why do you want to work in "the position you applied for"?
  • Tell me about the non-academic activities you do
  • Tell me about a recent demanding research project you did
  • How do you go about conducting such research?
  • Tell me about your greatest achievement
  • What do you think people do in "the position you applied for"
  • How did you prepare for this interview?
  • What was the share price of MS yesterday?
  • What is Morgan Stanley's market capital?
Specifically for Sales and Trading you should be prepared for:
  • Why Sales and Trading?
  • What area within Sales and Trading interests you most?

At the end of the interview you will be able to ask any questions you may have.

Guided tour

[Edit]

You will be shown around the Morgan Stanley offices in small groups and are able to ask HR questions as your move around the building. At the end of the tour there is a chance for refreshments.

Group Exercise

[Edit]

The group of 12 candidates will be split in to two groups of six and separated for the group exercise.

Your group will then be told that they are committee, appointed by the board of a large company (which may be a pharmaceutical company). Each of the six of you will be representing different departments of this company within the committee.

The board will have decided to allocate a sum of money to be spent on a particular project to enhance the company's performance in line with its mission statement. Since each candidate is representing a different department, you will each have different measures to advocate. The funds available to the committee will not be sufficient to pay for all these measures.

The task requires your group of six to consider 18 different measures, and agree on
a spread of your allocated money within the 40 minutes allowed. Three Morgan Stanley assessors will be taking notes throughout your group discussion. Each candidate will be marked on their personal involvement in the discussion, their individual ideas and the quality of team work skills displayed by the group as a whole.

Second interview

[Edit]

This interview will be very similar in format to the first interview, although your interviewer will be different. Expect similar competency based questions and question such as:

  • Are you a good communicator?
  • What communication skills do you have?
  • How do you get information from your colleagues?
  • Can you handle conflict?
  • Tell me of a time when you worked as part of a team
  • Tell me when you successfully lead a team

Expect questions concerning your CV and application to occur throughout the interview. You interviewer may link competency based questions to experiences they notice on your CV, such as extra-curricula activities, projects or academic qualifications.

Aptitude tests

[Edit]

Morgan Stanley's aptitude tests are fairly straight forward.

Verbal reasoning

[Edit]

This is comprised of 10 short texts, with 4 accompanying questions for each. You will be given 40 minutes to answer all of them. The questions will be statements that relate to the contents of each text. You will have to decide whether or not these statements are true, untrue or impossible to work out.

Numerical reasoning

[Edit]

Your numerical test should be fairly simple and you will even be given a calculator. The
questions will be multiple choice and consist of:

After the aptitude tests you will have a final debrief with other candidates before finishing the day, at around 2:30pm - 3:00pm. You will receive a call within 72 hours if you have been successful.