Moore Stephens

Moore Stephens Recruitment Process:

Hey guys I got an offer from Moore Stephens to join as an ACA trainee so I thought it might be worth putting a post about their selection process, since I can't find any particularly detailed run through of it anywhere ...

Application form: For the questions I kept it brief (single paragraph answers) and really to the point.

Selection day: 1. All candidates (there were about 10 of us) were given a talk by one of the partners about what makes MS different, what they specialize in, their growth plans etc. Try to remember the points they make (which are all on their website anyway) so if needed you can talk about them later on. Then their head of training spoke to us all about what the ACA involves and what they provide (Kaplan training, same as the big 4 & most of the big firms as far as i'm aware).

2. One-on-one interview with a partner. For me this was the toughest part - it sounds really obvious but what he basically wanted to know was (a) why was i interested in his particular business area and (b) did I know what i was letting myself in for in terms of hard work/studying etc. For this I would definitely make sure I had prepared several convincing reasons why I wanted to work in this particular business stream. Otherwise, when asked - eg 'why shipping?' there's a risk (i know there is for me) of sitting there like a goldfish and having to quickly blag something, which they will spot straight away, because with 'niche' areas like shipping/energy/public sector it helps to be very specific about why you're interested. It also distinguishes you from candidates who give more generic answers like 'i'm looking for a challenge' or 'i'm interested in how businesses work' etc. Also I was ready to explain what the ACA involved in detail (could reel off how many exams, content of modules etc) so he would realize i had done my research. So nothing mysterious if you actually prepare for it. Another tip - make sure you are able to talk about their competitors e.g. other top 10 or top 15 mid tier firms.

3. Written exercise: I was given a real piece of documentation pertaining to the business stream I was interviewing for. Was about 5 pages long with blocks of text, and a few graphs and tables of data. Was then given a pen & paper and asked to 'summarize' the document in 20 mins, i.e. imagining I had to present a compressed version of the report to a partner that captured all the important info. I think this is just to check that you are actually literate and can summarize some information in a neat and clear way, and stick in any relevant data from grpahs etc to support what you're saying - not tricky in itself, just time-pressured.

4. Group exercise: I dread these but it was ok looking back. The group were given a scenario about a business. This one was a graduate jobs website that made it's money by selling ads to grad employers. Were given data about staff, costs, revenue etc and asked - what are the short, medium and long term challenges faced by the biz and how would you face them? First you write your own answers (which they check after you've left) then you discuss as a group and present to the interviewer who pretends to be the business owner. I think the idea behind this excercise is more to see how you get on with other people rather than for your dazzling business insights, so basically think of a few ideas then make sure you pitch in a couple as early as possible, listen to other people and generally just get stuck into the discussion without being an overbearing psycho. If you're super polite or quite shy, then force yourself to make at least one or two points even though you find it excruciating - if you say nothing, then they have nothing on which to asses you.

5. Office-tour /lunch with associates. Made sure i had some questions to ask them about the firm etc.

To summarize: to prepare, just be 100% ready to talk in DETAIL about why ACA, why MS and why you're interested in that particular business area. They probably won't be convinced if you say 'ever since I was four years old I have wanted to audit shipping companies' but they won't find too much of a problem with 'I'm interviewing for a number of audit jobs, some in X area, some in Y area, but I'm particularly interested in working on shipping companies because of reasons XYZ, so if I had the luxury of choosing, this would be my favorite'.

Personally I found everyone there extremely friendly and easy to get on with, certainly compared with a couple of other top 10 firms who were a bit more aggressive and aloof- in the end, everyone who passes ends up with the same ACA on paper so I reckoned I might as well get the training and work experience with nice people!

Hope that's helpful for someone.

Hey Auditwannabe, how long was it before you got a reply from Moore Stephens. And did they ring you? I went to selection morning last week on 23rd July and still haven't heard anything. But mine was for an AAT Trainee position.

Hi AAT trainee, have you heard anything back from MS yet??

Would it be possible for you to give details on how the selection morning went (is it a lot different from auditwannabee's ) and what was required.

Thank you

Hi, I still haven't heard anything from them. I've rang several times and they're still saying they haven't reached a decision yet, I don't know whether that's true or not?

The selection morning just entailed a light breakfast with partners from the firm, it was quite informal, them just asking questions on what you've been doing and what research you've done on them.

Then it was a presentation on MS. After that, one of their current trainees took us for an office tour and straight after that I was interviewed by a partner, it was quite relaxed, the questions were based on workplace scenarios and what would you do in that instance.

That lasted for about 40 mins and then we had to a business case study which was a group exercise.

A couple of trainees then took us out for lunch and that was it.

Thanks for that. Maybe you should try calling them by end of next week as they do have another selection morning mid next week. The position is for 2 trainees right? so they might be picking one from each morning.

Good Luck

Hey guys, has any one recently had an interview/assessmetn day at Moore Stephens for graduates starting in 2010? If yes, what was it like? What did the group exercise involve? Did they ask to do any tests?