Financial Planning Product Specialist

The interview process I went on was for an analyst position at MS in their Wealth Management Division. The sub-department was Investment Products & Services and the role I had applied for was a Financial Planning Product Specialist. I was first contacted by an HR recruiter over the phone from Morgan Stanley to get a feel for why I had applied for the position, what my background was, as well as to walk her through my resume. She then stated she would forward my information to the hiring manager to see if I was a potential fit for the next step. I had previously interned for MS so that helped my case in getting invited for the next round of interviews. The following day, I was called back from HR after they did some due diligence in seeing if I had actually interned at the firm. They invited me up to Purchase, NY, the MS Wealth MGMT headquarters, and I was interviewed by two VPs, and one ED. The 3 interviews were all 1 to 1 interviews, back to back and took about 2 hours of my time. These were mostly behavioral and fit type interviews. No technical questions were asked. I was also grilled on my internship experience at the firm. Overall the questions were not too hard and they gave much detail about the position and my potential responsibilities.

Following this interview, about 3-4 days later, I was contacted by HR to join the last round of interviews with my hiring manager, the AVP I was to report to, as well as another Associate level individual at my office that I would potentially be working at in New York City. This round of interviews was the easiest of the two. Again, these were mostly fit type questions and they did not ask me any type of technical questions. They were trying to see if I would be a fit with the team I'd be on, as well as my experience in the wealth management industry, and what types of financial planning software I've worked with in the past. The perception I received was that the work culture is at MS is very conservative, very similar to the other BB firms (Citi, JP Morgan). The environment was more laid back at the location I would possibly be working at.

I received an offer from HR about a week later after my final round interview. My hiring manager, during my interview, had advised me that he didn't see any problem with me getting the job, but they needed to clear some red tape first as they had some other candidates being interviewed, but that I was the leading guy for the job. I appreciated the honesty, as they did not keep me in the dark waiting and were able to let me know what was going on during my final round and let me know where I stood in the interview process. I accepted the offer once I received the call from HR on the spot.