haha, yeah, although the reason the CA3 pass rate went down to 20% was just that loads of people like me realised it was the last exam sitting, so thought they'd try their luck without really preparing properly. I do really think there could be significantly increased numbers of actuarial students over the next 5-10 years, so if they don't make it more difficult, there will be increased numbers of qualified actuaries, and so, unless demand increases similarly (which I'd say is quite possible) there will be a reduction in real salary levels. So I vote they make it harder - but wait a year or two first . But since the profession has an in-built incentive to keep standards high, I doubt things will change too much. I think there are already a relatively large number of students in the pipeline, so maybe they're already raising the bar a bit.
tables turned on actuaries Tables have turned! A lot of Qualified Actuaries on the dole for 1 year +...Pensions in constant decline! Life on a cliff edge..only GI showing some activity!! mass lay-offs of actuaries across the insurance industry! Is this the darkest hour for the Actuaries! Seems the boom-bust cycle is much smaller for the Actuarial profession! Hope 2014 is better for everyone!
Redundancies Are there really a lot of qualifieds on the dole? I know that the market is tough cos of the flood of contractors (many of whom are qualifieds) looking for ANY job after the mass cull when Solvency II was suspended, but I didn't think that those in permanent roles were affected. Any goss on that? I know that there's a company in Birmingham planning to ditch some students, but not actuaries, as far as I know.
It is a great time to be an actuary. Lots of jobs and opportunities still around. I don't think there are any good actuaries on the dole Some companies are cutting people - but people usually find places soon after. Best advice is ignore all of that, it is wasted energy to think about it. Instead work on improving your skill set. Think of yourself as an entrepreneur in your job and keep thinking of skills you can refine/add - communication, technical, presentation etc.
On redundancies.....a significant part of the actuarial department (including chief actuary) was made redundant following a merger/acquisition at one insurance company which I will not name. The purpose of redundancy was to de-duplicate positions...so essentially they picked one chief actuary from amongst the two and so on. I dont know how the people who were made redundant coped after.
I'm sorry but this is nonsense. It is a terrible time to be an Actuary. I'm aware of two companies to the North of London who've advertised for Actuarial Analysts in the £33-50k salary range. One received 70 applications, the other 49. Terrible odds for getting a job. Actuarial jobs in London get even more applications, which is why some =focus on applying for jobs outside London.
This is what I'm seeing too. I have said these kind of things on the forum for a while but some are clearly in denial. Maybe they should apply for a job, get rejected and ask how many people applied. Companies get so many applications they can be ridiculously fussy about matching CV's to the role. They basically want someone who's done the job before. This means, contrary to the naive person who posted previously, that it's impossible for anyone to gain any new skills since companies only want people who've already got e.g. Prophet or Moses skills to a deep level, so no chance for anyone to get a post and develop.
Yes, also please appreciate that multiple agencies will advertise for the same role too, in addition to some agencies placing rolling adverts where it is doubtful the actual role still exists, in order to hoover up CV's
Also what I'm seeing from rejections received is that it looks like it is Human Resources not actual Actuaries who are performing the initial rejections. If they get 70 applications they need to somehow discard 60 CV's and their reasons for discarding get ever more comical. Personally I think they should save money by discarding with 75% of their HR departments and put CV's into some kind of lottery process.
Not the same ones recruiting Actuarial Analysts for £40k, perhaps? Well the adverts say up to £40k which probably means they will actually recruit for £30k. Makes sense really - why bother funding students through loads of expensive exams on £25-30k salary when you get get someone with 12-14 exams and more experience for £30k anyway.
Final thoughts- the mentality overwhelmingly is they try and match CV so precisely to the job description, as they want someone who's done the job before. The flaw with this is that they may well end up with someone who's done exactly the same job before... that doesn't mean they're any good at it. None of this makes the Actuarial career look very good. It seems to render the Actuary exams worthless since so many people have them and you require the precise prior experience to go along with them, otherwise you won't get work. If you have good Actuarial experience but no precise match to these job adverts in terms of experience then you can struggle for a long time to get work.
I'd just like to point out that I know someone working in pensions who recently received an offer for a role in GI which required on the spec "substantial experience working in a GI company". So there are still opportunities for cross overs even in these dark times.
That just adds to mistrust in recruitment methods, when so many demand perfect CV experience match to the job specification i.e. basically having done the job previously, while others are able to bypass these requirements. It begs the question: is GI experience essential to work in GI? In your friend's case the answer is no, for others it is yes. It doesn't look therefore that there is anything that special or mystical in GI that requires someone with a perfect match GI background. I would say that perpetuating such myths about GI aids some to employ those without GI experience on lower salaries, given how grateful they'll be to move to GI. The list of frivolous excuses people get when their applications are rejected are getting more comical. It's understandable that when a company gets 50+ applications for one Actuarial Analyst role they need to pretend they have some serious reasons for throwing 49 applications in the bin. Just a pity they take themselves so seriously trying to invent frivolous reasons. Instead they should be informing the seemingly ill-informed Actuary Profession, who claimed not so long ago a 'shortage' of Actuaries, that they were completely wrong to be claiming this to the Home Office, which led to the Govt allowing non-EU competition for Actuary roles. Charming.
Everybody wants a perfect candidate these days, as there is a lot of choices out there and loads of applications for each role. The job specs are demanding and seems to me that the employers do not need to compromise any more.
Its not just possible to increase standards to ridiculous levels and make everyone fail just because there's over supply. The issue is over-reliance of the profession on the insurance and pensions market and the inability of actuaries to use their skill set and expand into other roles like analytics, investments and general management. They aren't very highly regarded outside insurance companies. Unless we create more jobs in new areas and start competing with other similar qualifications, we're pretty doomed. On a local note, I found the work ethic amongst entry level Indian candidates quite appaling. Most of them are happy with clearing a few papers, want a relaxed lifestyle and lack basic sense of application and drive.
On top of this, I find that hands on application/usages of the most of concets are absent in this profession, as well as in the industry at large. Most of the companies are happy to employ people making progress in actuarial to work on reporting or MIS, and so many students are content with the same. The bigger problem is of orientation. Companies are not very interested in using the ideas and applications because many at the helm of affairs hail from background which has little exposure to this field. Investing into the resources then are looked at with suspicion, rather hire a consultant to do the sophisticated work for them. No wonder the consultanices are having a field day ....
I think at some point the profession has to address the fact that increasing automation of routine actuarial work means that the day-to-day technical requirements of the role are decreasing. It's not exactly a crisis but I think it is a problem. For example, at one time premiums were calculated one by one by actuaries, using tables, formulae, and a good understanding of the mathematics that the formulae were derived from. Now we just build a cashflow model in a spreadsheet and apply a discount rate and calculate monthly transition probabilities. It's easier to understand and you build it once and forget about it. The generation of actuaries who grew up doing manual calculation and moved into large scale automation had the best of both worlds with the productivity gain these tools provided combined with the deeper technical insight from the manual work. I find in my own work that if I want that theoretical insight and understanding, it comes from my own work on the side and not from what I do day to day.
