Sources checked
Morgan Stanley
Publishes what its own senior interviewers look for rather than a stage list, and the message is blunt: know the deals the firm has done recently, and be able to defend every line of your resume without reading it. Its technicals lean harder on markets and macro than any of its bulge-bracket peers.
The Morgan Stanley process
3 of 5 stages you can practise here
- 01Application
Apply to a specific program through Morgan Stanley careers. The firm frames the path in three parts, explore, apply and interview, and points candidates at its own interview preparation guidance before the first conversation.
- 02
The one-way screen: the standard questions, asked cold, on a timer
motivationcommunicationbackground fit - 03First-round interviews
Live interviews with analysts, associates and VPs. Morgan Stanley says plainly that every interview is different and that interviews could be competency, strengths based, skills based or technical, so the same candidate can get a pure fit conversation in one seat and an accounting drill in the next. Expect a resume walk, why banking and why Morgan Stanley, and analyst-level technicals.
2 rounds you can practise
The live fit seat, where knowing the firm and its deals is the actual test
motivationcommercial awarenessmaturityAnalyst technicals with an unusually heavy markets and macro component
accountingvaluationmarkets - 04
The senior seat: multi-part statement chains, merger math and a running sector case
accountingdcfmerger model - 05Offer
Decisions follow quickly after the final round, and the summer analyst class is the main feeder into full-time seats.
Common questions
- Is there a coding round in the Morgan Stanley investment banking interview?
- No. The investment banking analyst loop is entirely spoken: a recorded video interview, first-round interviews and a superday. Coding assessments belong to the separate technology track.
- What kinds of interviews does Morgan Stanley run?
- Morgan Stanley says every interview is different and that its interviews could be competency, strengths based, skills based or technical, depending on what the job requires. It also says it does not always expect candidates to have the right answer and is interested in seeing how you work through a scenario.
- What is the biggest mistake in a Morgan Stanley interview?
- Its senior interviewers name it directly: going into the interview without having researched what the job involves or what the division does. For an Investment Banking position they expect you to know what deals the firm has done recently and to speak to their highlights.
- How technical is the Morgan Stanley investment banking interview?
- Analyst level in the first round and considerably harder at the superday, where questions arrive in dependent parts. The mix is unusually markets-heavy: market knowledge sits alongside the accounting, so fiscal versus monetary policy, rates and a defensible stock pitch are all in scope.
Sources
Built from what Morgan Stanley publishes about its own process and from real interview data. No leaked question lists. The questions you get are generated against your own resume, so they are not from anyone else's interview.
What Morgan Stanley says it is reading for and the shapes its interviews take: interviews could be competency, strengths based, skills based or technical; the firm does not always expect the right answer and is interested in how you work through a scenario; candidates are told to know their resume without reading from it and to have a compelling reason for the industry, the firm and the division.
The published three-part path (explore, apply, interview). Morgan Stanley does not publish a stage-by-stage interview loop, which is why the video round and the superday below are described as the reported shape rather than a firm-published one.
Morgan Stanley senior interviewers naming the questions they always ask (tell me about yourself, why our firm, why this position), the Investment Banking specific expectation to know what deals the firm has done recently, that everything on the resume is fair game, and that they will always ask whether you have questions.
Vice Chairwoman Carla Harris on the subtext of the standard questions: what tell me about yourself, biggest weakness, why should we hire you and describe a time you failed are actually testing.
Analyst compensation and level context. No interview-process content.
Sources last checked . Hiring loops change, so this date is the honest limit on everything above.