Morgan Stanley HireVue Mock Interview
Master 30 Morgan Stanley HireVue questions covering behavioral scenarios, technical finance, and video response strategies.
Question 5 of 30
Tell us about a time when you failed in a professional setting.
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Rachelle Enns is an interview coach and job search expert. She works with candidates to perform their best in employment, medical, and post-secondary admission interviews.
The hiring managers at Morgan Stanley are looking for evidence that you can recover from a disappointing outcome in the workplace. The goal of your response is not to focus on the failure. Instead, it's to showcase your ability to recover from the failure. Your answer should highlight your tenacity, dedication, and drive, even when things don't go as planned.
Rachelle Enns is an interview coach and job search expert. She works with candidates to perform their best in employment, medical, and post-secondary admission interviews.
Even the most notable professionals have stumbled, failed, and recovered from professional failure. Being unable to speak about failure will give the hiring managers the impression that you lack self-awareness and have little desire to grow and learn. For this reason, avoid giving a response that sounds as though you have never failed.
Rachelle Enns is an interview coach and job search expert. She works with candidates to perform their best in employment, medical, and post-secondary admission interviews.
We all fail occasionally, and there is no need to be ashamed of defeat. The magic is in the lessons we learn from these situations. Speak about the outcome of a project/task that was not what you wanted it to be, but you were able to recover. Perhaps you were better off in the end or learned a valuable lesson.
Behavioral-based interview questions that begin with "Tell us about a time when..." are best answered using the STAR method (Situation, Task, Action, Result). Organizing your response using this storytelling framework will ensure that you provide the hiring managers with the right amount of information and detail.
Outline the roadblock you faced, and share how you approached the situation to ensure a good recovery. Discuss your level of dedication, even in the face of failure, and how this trait will help you make an impact in this new role with Morgan Stanley.
Rachelle Enns is an interview coach and job search expert. She works with candidates to perform their best in employment, medical, and post-secondary admission interviews.
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.
Rachelle Enns is an interview coach and job search expert. She works with candidates to perform their best in employment, medical, and post-secondary admission interviews.
"(Situation) My former employer put me through a last-minute advanced Excel course that I failed. (Task) I was unprepared for the course's challenging content and should not have agreed to begin with an advanced-level course. (Action) I told my manager that I was not excelling in the class. We discussed this failure together and realized that I was not yet ready for the advanced-level coursework. I was more of an intermediate-level user. To fix the situation, I studied online for a few weeks and then retook the course when I felt more prepared. (Result) This approach worked much better, and I finished with 92% the second time around."
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The most memorable failure I remember is when I received negative feedback after I took over the leadership of my first cross-functional team at ________ - R&D, manufacturing, packaging, fragrance, and advertising - with the task of launching a new product under strict deadlines and high senior management scrutiny. A few weeks into the project, I was summoned into my VP's office and told under no uncertain terms that I needed to be more assertive and exert more pressure on slacking team members to keep the project on track. This conversation jolted me into a new operating mode where
1. I became more diligent at being very specific about what I expected from team members,
2. I made them accountable for timely delivery,
3. I challenged assumptions about what's possible or not,
4. I kept more frequent touchpoints with smaller teams within the larger team,
5. I developed a reputation as a problem-solver.
As a result, I successfully helped launch 2 products for ________, one of which is still a major revenue generator for the brand.
Marcie's Feedback
Make sure to have different examples lined up so you don't have to repeat any more than once during the interview. Otherwise, this is a strong example because it cites a time when you 'failed' but shows that you listened to feedback and adjusted your methods to reach success. Great job!
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