Pros
Because of its global reach, Morgan Stanley offers exposure to the happenings in the world wide market. It was great to get emails from all around the world asking for presentation pages or research, and to see what kind of deals other people were working on. As an integrated investment bank, we had the resources of banking, capital markets, and research at our disposal. The corporate resources were also great. We had full support staff to help us with formatting and printing books. The benefits package was full and comprehensive. Because Morgan Stanley needs to compete for talent with the European labor market, which has stronger quality of life requirements than the US, Morgan Stanley gave us four weeks of vacation. However, they tried to keep us so busy that we couldn't take all four weeks.
Cons
They bonus is not performance-based, but based on a formula of how long you've worked there and how well your group does that year. This removes any incentive to excel at your job, since they aren't going to pay you any more if you put in extra hours. Management tends to be dismissive of analysts and has a hard time integrating new ideas or doing anything different from the way that the industry has already been doing for decades. I have an economics degree from the University of Chicago, but most of my VPs and MDs had degrees from state schools or local colleges. They simply weren't able to communicate concepts on the same plane that I was on. This led to failure of communication and lack of mutual respect. Morgan Stanley's Chicago office also lacks the vibrant diversity that you would expect from a global firm. Most employees are white graduates of large midwestern schools such as Michigan, Notre Dame, Wisconsin Madison, Illinois, and Ohio State. The bland culture means deal teams have a hard time understanding the global marketplace they are working in.