I applied for the role of Spring Analyst in Morgan Stanley through their career page in the month of September 2021. By the end of the month, I got the response from their side that my application has been shortlisted for the online test round and the process could be moved further. So, here is my experience of the whole process.
The process consisted majorly of 3 rounds :
- Online Test
- Technical Interview
- Managerial Round
Online test (90 mins) :
The online test consisted of 3 sections :
- Aptitude : This section had around 10–15 questions which had to be solved in around 10 minutes. The questions were mostly easy except 1–2 which were a little bit tricky.
- Debugging : This section had 7 questions, and 20 minutes time was given for solving these.The questions were easy and could be solved by just observing and doing a little change in the code provided.
- Coding: This section consisted of 3 questions. 2 of them were easy-medium level questions and 1 was medium-hard level.The time given was 60 minutes.
After the test, I got the call for the interview within a few days.
For the interview preparation I referred to the GFG interview experience archives which helped me to understand how their interviews are conducted and what type of questions are asked and then I practiced the questions accordingly on leetcode and interviewbit.
Technical Interview (90 minutes) :
The interview was conducted on zoom where I had to share my screen. It started with a brief introduction, and then interviewer proceeded with the questions.
The first question was pretty much simple:
You are given a doubly linked list and given the pointer to the head of the list, return the head after reversing the list.
I was told to code the function, and then we did a dry run of the code.Then he proceeded to the next coding question:
You are given a directed graph, and a reference node. Return a deep copy of the graph.
The question was similar to this https://leetcode.com/problems/clone-graph/. Here the graph was directed and contained loops along with self loops.
I had to code the required function, and then we did a dry run with 2–3 different test cases.
The next part of the interview started with subjective questions. He asked me questions related to exception handling, upcasting and downcasting in Java. For this he gave me some lines of the code and I had to decide whether the code will run without any error or not. Then he shifted to questions related to Operating Systems where he asked in detail about kernel, process and threads.
Towards the end of the interview , he asked me if I had any doubts. It is a good practice if one prepares some questions beforehand for this part.
After this interview, I got a call in the evening on the same day for the next round which was a managerial interview. I looked upon some of the most frequently asked questions and prepared and practiced my answers accordingly.
Managerial Round (90 minutes):
The interview started with greetings and a brief introduction where I mentioned my interest in co-curricular activities, along with academics, during college. He asked me more about the learning from that experience I had. Then he shifted to questions majorly focusing upon leadership qualities.Once these questions were done, he pointed out a project from my resume where I had to pitch the idea to him(he acted as a customer for the product) which was followed by a discussion about the use cases and how the data collected could be used in determining various factors that could help other related departments. As the company believed in creating a diverse environment, I was asked my viewpoint on this topic.
At the end. He asked me if I had any questions for him.
After a few days, I got the email that the interview result was positive and I have been offered the role of spring analyst.
Takeaways:
- Stay Calm during the whole process, the interviewer will help you throughout the interview.
- Ask doubts to the interviewer and don’t assume anything by yourself.
- While coding, try to cover all the test cases including the edge cases.
- Don’t jump to conclusions directly. Think if the solution is feasible for all the cases or not.
- Think out loud, let the interviewer know how you are approaching the solution.
- Practice coding questions and try to solve them in a given time frame.
- Before the HR round, read most frequently asked questions which will help in understanding how those questions could be answered during the interview.
- Have a quick overview of the description of the company: what the company does, year of establishment etc.
Overall, this whole experience was filled with a lot of learning.
Best of Luck!
