Graduating Senior Lands Job at Morgan Stanley
Caz Crane, a graduating senior in the House of Ronald Reagan, recently landed a job at Morgan Stanley, and explains how King's set him up for his career.
Like other top schools, King’s offers a rigorous Christian education with a focus on critical thinking and persuasiveness. But education at King’s is different. What happens in the classroom quickly bleeds out into the many opportunities available in New York City. Caz Crane, a graduating senior in the House of Ronald Reagan, recently landed a job at Morgan Stanley. In the Q&A below, he describes his journey and how his education at King’s contributed to him landing the job
Q. Where are you from?
A. I was born and raised in the beautiful city of Tampa, FL, and I went to a small Classical Christian School that has since closed down called Berean Academy. Besides our terrible sports program, it was an absolutely incredible school.
Q. What brought you to King’s?
A. King’s reached out to me and offered a great scholarship that initially captured my interest. Once I visited, experienced the academic culture, and researched the PPE program, I decided I wanted to come here. It was a very easy decision. I came because I actually wanted to be a journalist. But after an intro to Econ class with Prof. Brenberg, I realized how interesting business was. I declared PPE, took some business courses, and went from there.
Q. Tell us a little bit about the job. When did you get the job offer, and what will your responsibilities be?
A. At Morgan Stanley, I’ll be supporting three financial advisors, working as a client associate. I will take my series 7 and 66 tests immediately. They plan to train me from the ground up and consistently give me more responsibility and eventually share their businesses with me. It is the ideal way to learn the wealth management business, and eventually become a financial advisor.
I’ve been interning at a similar wire house firm where I received an initial offer. But for some reason, they dragged their feet to discuss the salary and seal the deal. So I asked a friend to submit my résumé at Morgan Stanley. The day I submitted the résumé, I got a call from MS and we scheduled an interview for the next day. About a third of the way through the interview I was asked 3 consecutive questions: What do you do for the firm you work at now? Have they made you an offer? And, for how much? When I told her the ball-park entry level salary that I had been offered a few weeks before, she raised it significantly and offered me the job. I then asked all kinds of questions about the role, requested to meet the advisors, and told her I’d give her an answer by the end of the week.
I then took this info to the other firm where I had been interning to try to spur on their hiring process. It worked. However, they couldn’t match the salary, and couldn’t offer as great of a role as what MS offered me. MS was looking for someone with resume, but not a lot of professional experience, and was willing to give me plenty of time to graduate and take a break before coming on board. On Friday I accepted the offer from Morgan Stanley.
Q. Do you have any plans for the long term future?
A. I plan to get certified, learn everything I can about the business, build a strong professional network, and eventually become a financial advisor myself. Someday, I’d like to partner up with my dad’s accounting practice back home in Tampa and/or build and manage a business in real estate development. But for now, I’m just pumped to pay my dues.
Q. What components of the King’s education were most important to you getting this opportunity?
A. Being forced to take the intro to Econ class was extremely critical to making me who I am today. My House, the House of Reagan, has probably been the most significant aspect of my college years. I couldn’t have asked for a better group of guys to go through college and life with. I’ll miss every one of them when I graduate.