Meet eight new MBA recruits at Morgan Stanley. How did they get the job?

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Getting a job as a newly-minted MBA in an investment banking associate programme in London is no easy task these days. While banks in the US continue to hire the best and brightest business school graduates, European firms are tending to bring in more analysts through graduate programmes for in-house training Share on twitter, or are simply laterally recruiting MBAs rather than indulging in formal associate programmes.

Two banks that remain active on campus in Europe, according to the MBA careers officers we speak to, are Deutsche Bank and Morgan Stanley. The latter has just registered its new associate class on the Financial Conduct Authority website. What do these recruits tell us about what investment banks look for in their MBA recruits?

1. Arturo Rueda Ávila

Arturo is an associate in Morgan Stanley’s investment banking division, and graduated this year from a two-year course at Columbia Business School. Interestingly, despite studying in the US, his summer internship was at J.P. Morgan in London and this follows seven years’ work experience in Spain and Panama. This is not financial services related, however. Having spent a brief stint working for holiday company Butlins, most Arturo’s professional experience was gained at Spanish construction firm Sacyr Vallehermoso, where he was latterly a quantity surveyor. His Masters in Civil Engineering from Universidad de Granada no doubt also helped bolster his credentials with financial services companies.

2. Raphael Bihler

Raphael is a graduate from INSEAD in France/Singapore and has just joined Morgan Stanley’s IBD. He worked for Morgan Stanley for two years before undertaken his MBA last year and rejoining as an associate, suggesting that the bank could have taken the now unusual step of funding his degree. Raphael also has numerous internships under his belt at both Morgan Stanley, Deutsche Bank, Dresdner Kleinwort and Lincoln International, which shows the lengths students need to go to in order to get their foot in the door of a top investment bank. He also claims to have been given a medal for the “best degree” while studying at Napier University in Edinburgh Share on twitter.

3. Alejandro Calvo

Alejandro is also an associate in the investment banking division at Morgan Stanley and joins having completed his MBA at Columbia Business School. He interned on the bank’s summer associate programme last year, but before undertaking his MBA has a background in consulting. He worked for Bain in Madrid for nearly four years and also interned at PwC.

4. Adrien Chevallier

Adrien is an associate in Morgan Stanley’s investment banking division, having just completed his MBA from NYU Stern School of Business, with a specialisation in corporate finance. He interned at Morgan Stanley before getting the job, but has a military background – never a bad thing when applying for a strategy role in finance. He was latterly an ‘infantry company executive officer’ in the French army, where he led a team of 150 men and was the ‘company operations officer’. Despite an atypical background, all this military experience impresses banks’ recruiters Share on twitter.

5. Mathieu Gattaz

Mathieu is an IBD associate at Morgan Stanley, but does not have an MBA and instead has made the move from a Continental European banking job to London. He was latterly an analyst at ABN Amro, but has previously worked in RBS’s investment bank and has both private equity and structured products sales experience. He also has a Masters in Finance, which as we’ve pointed to on many occasions, does your prospects no harm when applying for your first investment banking job and has passed the CFA level one.