 Hello and welcome. I'm here with Ross Mansel who did the Amplify Summer Analyst Training Programme back in 2021. He's joining me from Barcelona where he's currently studying at a Masters at Asade University but is from South Africa but is coming to London because he secured an off-cycle internship at Morgan Stanley. But Ross how's it going? It's going good. Yeah I'm doing my Masters in Finance at Asade. I started in September last year and I'll be finishing in June and then heading off to London for six weeks before I start my internship in August with Morgan Stanley. It's in the Global Capital Markets Division which is exciting. I'm very excited. I'm actually doing my thesis on a topic related to capital markets to kind of just get some of the juices flowing before I start. Let's take this back to the beginning. So did you always have like an ambition to work in finance? Obviously the things that you're studying would indicate that. But did you have an idea of role and stuff when you're at college and so on? Yeah I think at university I think a lot changed. Obviously I study finance and accounting in my undergrad and this passion for finance and this interest I think was more what it started as kind of lent to me pursuing a career in finance and I was particularly interested in the soul side so investment banking. But before then I was very much just 40 persons so I never really had. I had some exposure to commodities and finance in general but it was never I didn't expect to be in this position maybe eight years ago. More so when I started studying my undergrad and then I wanted to kind of pursue that further so I decided to come here and do a masters in finance. I think that was important for me because coming from South Africa wanting to work in the UK was quite difficult in the sense that the job market there is more tailored to hiring Europeans and people from the UK so doing the masters here has helped me kind of tailor my CV better and get some experience in a different country. So yeah. And then how did you come across Amplify initially? I think I mean on LinkedIn I'd always seen stuff on Amplify so PR related things and I knew that they kind of tailored their program to investment banking style and obviously the buy side so pretty much everything Amplify kind of gives you exposure to all sides of finance or financial markets. But I wanted some experience and when I was in the UK last year when I'd moved I couldn't get any internships because of Brexit. So I was in a tough spot where I wanted some work experience before I started my masters but there was nothing really there for me because of the whole work permit situation. So that's when I'd come across Amplify previously to that and then I was like let me reach out to someone at Amplify and then George got back to me and then I literally decided then in there that I was going to do the program and yeah it was a great decision. In the end it really helped me. It gave me some good exposure to what investment banks actually do. I think a lot of the time we don't actually know as students unless you've had that exposure or that experience at a bank previously. So I would say definitely LinkedIn helped me with that and actually knew someone that did Amplify before. He went to Asari as well. Okay yeah he did it his name yeah anyway. Yeah so obviously you and I had had some conversations over recent months kind of prior to you securing the role with Morgan Stanley but I know you've mentioned to me before about the importance of having kind of a peer group a community around you to help support you through that because I assumed that it wasn't just straightforward you applied and got the first job right. Was it what were the challenges that you had going through that application process? Yeah so the application process for banks is rigorous as an undergrad I mean or as a master's student. I think going into an entry level role is tougher maybe than going into a role as a more experienced individual you know. I'll have to find that out but I think having a good support system like friends that have similar ambitions and people that want to get into similar roles even though that's competition at the end of the day there's so many different banks and roles out there for individuals that having people that can check your CV, can check your cover letter and can do mock interviews and all that stuff I think that adds so much value because they can give you the feedback that you need prior to actually doing the interview or helping you. I mean one of the first steps in the process is the assessments the the numeracy things and having access to like maybe practice questions on that also helped me a lot before. So yeah it's all about prepping I think and also going into each stage knowing that it's a toss of I mean you could get the interview could not but you've got to try and put as much effort into the preliminary rounds as possible to make it. What do you think changed for you from the first application to then the eventual successful one? What part do you think was all the most substantial kind of tweak to help? So I mean the applications that I did for this round of of intakes at investment banks I think my approach changed a lot because my CV was a lot better I came to Amplify and you gave us this template for investment banking CVs and that helped me a lot because my CV before that wasn't in the right format and that can really hinder your chances of just even getting through the screening process. So I think that helped me and then the cover letter as well kind of my structure of my cover letter wasn't how it should have been so it's it's those kind of prepping situations where doing more research on the banks doing research on on markets and coming in fully prepared to know that whatever they're going to ask me I can even if I don't have in rehearsed an answer because I don't think you really can I think you just got to be able to think on your feet that's what changed I think it was more of a mindset shift than anything else. And then kind of dealing with the rejections because I'm just kind of sympathetic to the situation of most individuals you know is there any advice that you would give to them and they're kind of in the middle of it at the moment still looking to land that role. I think I got rejected by most banks that you apply to I mean in the screening stage you do get rejections very like often if you don't do one enough in the assessments I think you get that email back a day later and it's like really like I don't get the interview and I think you just got to keep on pushing trying to improve your CV and those are the key things I think the interview stage is up to you I mean if you do the prep then you can get the role. I remember you and I talking a fair bit before a lot of those final round interviews and yeah credit to you for kind of doing your utmost to be as prepared as you possibly could be. Yeah so I think with the rejections it's more about the rejections before you even get the interview those are the disheartening ones when you don't make the cuts based on a test or based on your CV or your cover letter so if there's one piece of advice or anything that I could say is just try and make sure that you do everything that you can to get past that stage because you can't really be upset about yourself if you've done all the prep possible and you just got to keep on applying. And is there people from the kind of cohort from Amplify that you still talk to at the moment? Yeah I speak to Chris quite often I think he might remember Chris he's in Wales but yeah they I do keep in touch with a couple of them but I'm in a different country so meeting up with them is quite difficult I did meet up with with Chris and yeah I mean also he holds me a lot in the process we did mock interviews together so it was always kind of like we've got you come on to Amplify you have 60 different people with pretty much the same ambition as you same kind of idea of what they want to do so you know helping each other definitely is a good idea and it also is satisfying when someone that you're helping gets a role yeah I mean one of my friends that I'm like close friend of mine from school got a role and we were I was helping him with with with his applications and it's really satisfying. Did the people at Morgan Stanley who had done Amplify before did they help you out at all? Yeah they did I reached out to a few of them that was definitely something that I would also say is really important for the interview stage is reaching out to analysts obviously people that have similar backgrounds or similar experiences so Amplify is a good one because they are people there so reaching out to people that are working at Morgan Stanley that have done Amplify are giving you kind of some feedback on their experience is definitely worth it and also it gives you more insight into their experience so yeah I did that with with a few of them I think three of them got back to me and it was really it was really useful so yeah it's amazing I think the Amplify community is the thing I'm most proud of and I hope that you'll do the same for whoever watches this or in years to come when your new touch word I'm sure will go on to smash it when you when you get there but look great to catch up thank you for your for your input and yeah stay in touch and yeah all the best for your off-cycle internship. Awesome thank you Anthony.