Fixed Income Summer Analyst Program

I went through their diversity program, networked with people from my university and that definitely helped me get a first round phone interview in mid-December. On the phone they asked why MS, why FID, how do you keep up with current events, what's the current inflation rate/interest rate, and then a couple brain teasers/easy math q's: how to get to square root of 4000 without a calculator, the lily pad doubling in a pond, and carnival game where it costs $3 to roll a dice and you earn however many dollars you roll.

At the diversity event, I had a super day with three half hour interviews back to back: one technical (what would you trade given $100k/what if you were trading for my grandmother, how are the 5 year and 10 year yield doing, how do you divide a clock into three equal pieces so that added up the numbers inside each section are equal, etc), one behavioral (leadership questions, tell me about a time you dealt with adversity, how do you respond to feedback), and one that was half behavioral/half about Morgan Stanley (what is unique about MS, who's the CEO, who's the head of ISG, etc).

I really liked my interviewers, felt comfortable with them and like they were being generous with my answers and helping me succeed. I was not prepared for the "what would you trade with $100k" question and butchered it, but tried my best and made an argument for buying Exxon bonds because of their recent Pioneer acquisition. It seemed like the interviewers cared a lot more about being personable and bright than necessarily having all the answers. He noticed that I was fumbling the technical trading q's and switched tacks to less intense technicals. During the brain teaser, the interviewer encouraged me when I was on the right track and suggested I try different tacks when I wasn't. I wasn't even sure I wanted to do FID but truly enjoyed speaking with all of them about their careers and why they'd stayed at MS for so long.