CA3, the market and censorship

It's funny how the IFoA insist people need to pass a ridiculous CA3 exam to be qualified actuaries while people with NO actuarial qualifications whatsoever get hired by insurance companies for up to £800/day to document Solvency 2 processes and so on.

I also know people on £40-50k salaries working in actuarial departments with zero actuarial qualifications. Not a single actuary exam to their name. Perhaps a past life as a business analyst or IT type. No frustrating nights studying for them. Bet they're laughing at the rest of us sacrificing social lives to study and ending up in the same place.

All this shows to me that the actuarial qualifications are in crisis and are lacking credibility not just in my eyes but by the actuarial employers.

I can't post these comments in the CA3 discussion thread as forum moderators have somehow prohibited me from commenting any further there.

Discuss.

 

The problem is in people's belief of entitlement once they qualify.

Have you ever been to a executive meeting where you try to sell your model? They have little time to hear what you have to say and are mostly uninterested - so what you say has to be concise while fully briefing the importance of your work at the same time. I've seen several instances where technical people bombard their slides with formulas and equations and finally end up questioning each other why funding for their project was rejected.

There is no reason why a non-actuary should not earn more than an actuary. It comes down to the question of value addition to the company - those with higher value additions earn more. Being an actuary puts you at a higher probability of being at the top of the value chain but does not naturally entitle you to go and stay at the top.

The qualifications give a person the confidence to build up technical skills to be successful. The problem lies in the belief of students entering the profession who think passing a few exams will instantly make them be worshiped by everyone without realizing clearing exams is just the start.

 

Nothing wrong with that. What's the point going to all that trouble to qualify if it brings you nothing more than someone who is not?

 

"Nothing wrong with that. What's the point going to all that trouble to qualify if it brings you nothing more than someone who is not?"

You will have an actuarial qualification that they don't. This does not mean you have more though we need to consider the sum of the parts - but thats one part you will have that they won't.
I don't understand all this b*tching about exams - the cost, the time, what they mean. No one is forcing anyone to sit any exam it's that persons choice. It is an exam do the work pass it and forget about it - and as for the cost sure in the short term its £800 but in the long term its free - sum of the parts, sum of the parts

 

It's good to hear that Admin, thanks.

Oxymoron- perhaps you're not that familiar with the ways of the UK actuary market. The qualification, at least in the past, was seen as rather mandatory to become a manager in an actuary department and progress up from there.

Nowadays I've observed more people working in actuary departments without ever having been student members of the IFoA or have any exams behind them.

I don't think the IFoA have a grip on that and are papering over the cracks by going abroad to recruit more student members to keep the cash coming in. There's a danger they are becoming even more irrelevant at home.

Again I blame some of this on the stupid HR agenda within companies. Your interview or application form for an actuary job is not much different from any other job in their company.

Who actually gets quizzed about interesting actuarial matters in interviews anymore? You're far more likely to face those childish 'competency' type interviews, where you're asked to give examples of when you worked in a team.

Actuaries working in a team, fancy that...! I don't know a single actuary who has not worked in a team in every single actuary job they've been in. It's not a job that can be performed in complete isolation so I find these kind of interview questions utterly ridiculous and irrelevant.

It's become very unclear to me from the interviews actuaries get and from the IFoA education system what an actuary is supposed to be able to do different from any other desk job in an insurance company.

 

I think the complaints are more to do with all that time and effort and people not seeing the rewards of it, perhaps finding they work alongside people who haven't bothered who are not really worse off much, if at all.

 

I have CA2 and CA3 left. I'll be in a better position to comment after sitting them. I must confess I am not naturally good at explaining things - its one thing to understand something but another to translate your understanding. In fact I can say that this point is a reason why it took me a lot longer to pass the final exams than it should - after any course i fully studied i would think to myself i know this stuff inside out why am i not passing. It took me a few fails to accept that yes i know the material but no i am not particularly strong at communicating what i know. I worked on this weakness - i passed the exams.
I think i would benefit from CA3. Maybe not as much as i would have before i got my ST and SA exams - i learnt the hard way though
Granted my scenario is actuarial audience to actuarial audience whereas CA3 is actuarial to non - it is still relevant i think.