If you want to work at Morgan Stanley but haven’t got in on the bank’s 400 person sales and trading hiring fiesta, then all is not lost.

In today’s conference call, Morgan Stanley CFO Colm Kelleher said the bank’s only half way through that hiring programme, and that 22% of its recruitment so far has been in FX and equity derivatives.

Although Kelleher said the addition of all these people isn’t likely to make itself fully felt until 2010, there are already signs of improvement: MS revenues increased quarter on quarter in both fixed income and equities sales and trading, while they fell at Goldman Sachs.

Less promisingly, and despite Kelleher’s claim that Morgan Stanley, “is paying competitively and will continue to pay competitively,” there are indications that the bank will be compensating fairly atrociously this year.

Kelleher said the compensation ratio in the institutional securities division (ie. the investment bank), will be a mere 40% (compared to 50% in the sector historically).

Despite the new hires - many of whom are undoubtedly on guarantees, spending on compensation and benefits in the institutional securities division was down 46% year on year in Q3. The bonus outlook at Morgan Stanley is grey, at best.