Hey, there!
I am Hitaansh Shah, a final-year undergraduate student in the MEMS department. I consider myself an avid sleeper and foodie. In terms of interests, I enjoy most non-core activities with the exception of consulting and product management.
I discovered this internship while looking through the previous year’s blog during my summer vacation to get a general idea of what companies I could target. Given my interests, the prospect of working for a large investment bank as my first corporate experience was undoubtedly the most appealing. I was manifesting the song “finance, trust fund, 6’5” haha (I’m nowhere near that tall).
The selection process was fairly transparent. It involved resume filtering, followed by a technical test. Even though MS does not write explicitly, I strongly feel they have a CPI cutoff of at least 8+ while filtering resumes. The technical test contained aptitude questions majorly but also had a section for finance. Most questions here could be solved through common sense. It was the only shortlist I had on Day 1 Non-tech. I had around a day and a half to prepare for it. I made sure I was absolutely thorough with my resume down to the extracurriculars and also read a bit about the fixed income division and the products involved.
The interviews primarily focus on personality and resume. In my opinion, the only requirement is that you have enough topics to discuss. Of course, if you can demonstrate your passion for finance in any way, that’s an added bonus. I would absolutely recommend asking questions at the end of the interview; do some research on the types of questions you want to ask that will pique the interviewer’s interest.
Everyone is assigned to a different onshore (not in India) desk. I was working with the Foreign Exchange team in London. I must say that they did an admirable job of matching skillsets from your resume to assign different desks and projects to everyone. I won’t go into detail about the projects, but they involved a lot of reading and inference. I was also doing simulation trades, and by the end of the internship, the best compliment I received was “You talk like an FX Trader now”.
The office is in Mumbai, and I also live there, so I was slightly disappointed that I did not receive two weeks of Radisson accommodation:(. The culture is fairly laid-back, the division has only recently expanded, and the floor is relatively new. The best part was the meals and food; everything cost less than 20 rupees. In terms of party culture, this may disappoint, primarily because everyone supports a different location and it is difficult to coordinate time zones.
One piece of advice during the internship is to TALK. Reach out to as many people on the floor as possible; this is the only way to gain a thorough understanding of the industry. It’ll also give you an idea of whether you’re truly passionate about continuing a career there as a full-timer.
The internship season can be stressful, and luck may not be on your side on certain days. My advice is to remain calm throughout and treat all rejections as a learning experience. Please don’t overplan and simply trust the process. I wish everyone good luck!!
