Morgan Stanley · Investment banking analyst · Summer Analyst / Analyst

First-round fit interview

The live fit seat, where knowing the firm and its deals is the actual test

What they actually ask

The question shapes this round uses. Larpy does not read these out. It builds each one from your own resume, because the generic version is the one you have already rehearsed.

“Walk me through your resume, and tell me what you actually did.”
“Why Morgan Stanley, and why this division?”
“What deals have we done recently, and what did you make of one of them?”
“Describe a time you failed, and what you did about it.”
“Tell me about a time you worked on a team under real pressure.”
“What questions do you have for me?”

What this round is judged on

Motivation · a specific 'why Morgan Stanley' and 'why this division'
Commercial awareness · real knowledge of recent deals and a view on one
Maturity · ownership and self-awareness, especially in a failure story
Communication · a resume you can defend line by line without reading it

Where this round sits

Morgan Stanley’s published process. Lime marks the stage this round runs.

01
Application
02
Recorded video interview
03
First-round interviewsthis round
04
Superday
05
Offer

What happens in each stage›

Application: 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.
Recorded video interview: A one-way, timed video round reported as the first filter in the banking pipeline. Morgan Stanley does not publish its stage list, so treat the format as the industry norm rather than a firm-published fact: preset behavioral prompts, a short prep window, a capped answer window and nobody to react to. Content is motivation and background, not technicals.
First-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.
Superday: Back-to-back final interviews with senior bankers, reported rather than published. The firm says it does not always expect the right answer and is interested in seeing how you work through a scenario, which is exactly how the technical seat behaves: the opening question is a prompt and the signal comes from how you reason under a changed assumption.
Offer: Decisions follow quickly after the final round, and the summer analyst class is the main feeder into full-time seats.

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.

companyMorgan Stanley Careers, interview preparationmorganstanley.com
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.
companyMorgan Stanley Careers, students and graduatesmorganstanley.com
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.
companyMorgan Stanley, 10 biggest interview mistakesmorganstanley.com
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.
companyMorgan Stanley, common interview questions and how to answer themmorganstanley.com
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.
datalevels.fyi, Morgan Stanleylevels.fyi
Analyst compensation and level context. No interview-process content.

Sources last checked August 12, 2026. Hiring loops change, so this date is the honest limit on everything above.

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