Avoid giving a general answer regarding your initiative. For instance, stay away from vague statements like, "I always take the initiative in life; it's just who I am." Taking the initiative could mean that you take on responsibilities independently without being asked or continually coached by your manager. It could also mean that you are the type of person who jumps in and assumes the lead before others do or before you are asked.

Behavioral-based interview questions like this, where the hiring managers are looking for a story example, are best answered using the STAR method. STAR is an acronym for Situation, Task, Action, Result. Organizing your answer using this framework will help you provide an effective story-based response.

Start by telling the hiring managers at Morgan Stanley about a specific time when you showed initiative at work. Outline the situation, describe the task, and explain the actions you took to take the initiative. Give as much detail as you can regarding the positive results of your actions. At the end of your response, describe how your high level of initiative will benefit Morgan Stanley when they hire you.

The average HireVue interview takes approximately 30 minutes to complete. This one-way video interview typically includes 3-5 questions. Depending on the HireVue parameters set by Morgan Stanley, the asynchronous interview platform will generally give you 30 seconds to prepare a response and up to 2 minutes to answer each question. It's important to note that HireVue stops recording as soon as your time limit is up, so it's better to run under time than overtime.

"(Situation) Last month, I realized that many of our staff training manuals had outdated information. Most notably, the company recently changed from Zoho CRM to Salesforce CRM. This change meant that the entire team had obsolete instructions on inputting important customer data into the system. (Task) As the administrative lead, it wasn't my responsibility to ensure this update was complete; however, I knew that the administrative manager was already overwhelmed with other deadlines. (Action) So, I decided to draft the training manual updates myself. The update took me about one week since I worked on it between other high-priority tasks. Once I finished the draft, I asked the admin manager to review and approve the changes. (Result) They were very impressed that I noticed the issue and took the initiative to make updates. The sales and customer service teams were also thrilled that I cared and took the time to streamline their work. Should I be hired for this role with Morgan Stanley, I will be sure to embrace the firm's core values by driving innovation and being vigilant about what we can do better."