Morgan Stanley · Primly Community

Morgan Stanley new grad / entry level interview, how to prep when you have zero finance experience

bootcamp_bri · 4 replies

I'm a CS junior and just got a recruiter email from Morgan Stanley for their Technology Analyst program. I've been prepping for FAANG-style roles and honestly I have no idea if that prep transfers here or if I'm going to walk in completely lost.

After doing some research and talking to one person who went through it last cycle, here's what I've pieced together. posting in case it helps others.

The coding part

From what I understand, the technical rounds are still LeetCode-style but the difficulty is medium, not hard. They care about clean code and that you can explain your reasoning. Graphs, trees, dynamic programming at medium difficulty seems to be the range. No system design for entry level, which is a relief.

They also sometimes throw in a short written/logic question or brainteaser, which is more common in the quant-adjacent teams. If you're applying to a pure software team, probably not but I can't confirm.

The behavioral component

This is bigger than you'd expect for an entry level role. They ask about teamwork, handling ambiguity, and leadership even for new grads. Think internship projects, group projects, anything where you made a decision or had a conflict. STAR format, have 4-5 stories ready.

Do I need to know finance

Basic literacy helps. Know what a stock is, what trading means, what a bank actually does with software (processing trades, risk, client portals, internal tools). You don't need to know options Greeks. But if you can answer "why do you want to work in financial services software" with something more specific than "i like money", you're ahead of most candidates.

What I'm still unsure about

Does the team placement happen before or after the loop? The recruiter was vague about whether the team is decided or if it's more of a pool offer. If anyone's been through this recently please drop a reply.

4 replies

pivot_pat

For the pool vs. specific-team question: when I interviewed for their grad program (a couple years back) it was a pool offer. You get placed after the offer based on headcount and team needs. You might get some say in domain preference but not always. Probably still the same model.

recruiter_rita

The 'why financial services software' question is one they actually care about. I've placed people there and the feedback I've gotten is that candidates who say generic things about impact lose points compared to people who show some curiosity about what's technically interesting about the domain. Even something like 'low-latency requirements' or 'the scale of real-time data' shows you thought about it.

sec_sasha

That's really helpful. I can talk about low-latency distributed systems from a CS angle, I just didn't know if that would land. Good to know it's relevant.

ae_andre

Medium LC and behavioral is accurate from what I remember hearing from people who came in from campus. The difference from FAANG is the behavioral bar is genuinely high for entry level there. At some FAANG the behavioral round for new grads is almost a formality. At MS it's a real filter.