Careers and the current climate

Hello,

Are there any forum members out there who arrived into the industry later than 'fresh out of uni' ? I would like to hear your stories of how you got into industry, did you apply for trainee positions, move in from another department etc ?

The reason for my asking is that about a year ago I decided to make the move to become an actuary. Due to my age (29) and my less than exemperlary qualifictions (not a 2:1 + degree and 'ok' a levels) I joined the institute and got my first exams (ct1 and ct3) in april.

The issue for me now is I need find out the best way to get a firm to take interest in me. Sadly the stongest hand I have at the moment is really the two exams I passed.

I spoke to an acturial recruitment agency today and was told I would find it difficult getting a training position due to my age and my lacklustre a levels / degree. Although the conversation was mainly based on the large institutions which I know is not the only way to enter industry.

Did any of secure your trainee positions, through other channels other than typical graduate recruitment programs?

Any other advice would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance!

 

I am assuming you are based in the UK, where if I understand correctly there is laws that prevent discrimination based on age for employment.

 

Thanks for that CapitalH,

With regards to the age law, sadly age discrimination does exist when applying for jobs, and is very difficult to prove.

 

Have you tried other non-traditional actuarial employers?

I have no idea what the UK job market looks like at the moment but I would guess that it would be fairly competitive right now in Financial Services. Have you considered the regulatory side (FSA probably has more work now than ever). Also consider auditing firms, which will give you a great opportunity to network.

Also,

1) Do you apply and not get an interview - Beef up your CV
2) Do you get the interview and not the job - beef up interview skills

I assume from your statements that (1) is your problem.

• Try adding non-education things to your CV if you believe your education portion is not strong enough - you cannot go back and change it.
• Try different recruitment channels - I have found recruitment agencies to be fairly useless in entry level positions especially if you do not have a vanilla CV.
• Produce your own CV, lots of templates on the web, or get professional help (don't know if it is worth it - never made use of it). Most recruitment agencies make a bit of a hack job forcing your CV into a standard template. If you do produce your own, give it to someone to read, ask for suggestions to improve. Most helpful would be someone already in the industry, who knows what CVs look like that catches his eye.
• Network - send your CV to people you know, never underestimate the power of familiarity!
• If you use a recruitment agency, ask for a copy of your CV as they will send it out, and suggest improvements - most agencies welcome this
• When using direct channels - follow up. Most HR managers get inundated with CVs and throw away most.
• Go as direct as possible. Recruitment Agency -> HR -> Actuarial department gives you three chances to fall out, try to cut out the middle men (without making a nuisance of yourself). This is especially true if you have a non-vanilla CV - HR will tend to look for key information to the exclusion of everything else (e.g. if 6 CT subjects is required, they may junk a CV a Ph.D in Math just because he does not have the 6 CT subjects).

This is just a few things I thought of, use at your own risk!


PS.

I seem to be taking a go at recruitment agencies, but this is solely based on my own experience for an entry level position. I understand from other people's experience that at higher positions they tend to be much more helpful, but have heard similar stories w.r.t. entry level positions. I suspect that for entry level positions, you need to be the vanilla ideal candidate, and that for recruiters this is more a numbers game. Nevertheless, I would encourage you to diversify the channels that you apply for.

 

Forget applying to ANY company where the application is an online process. I.e. all the big companies.

Instead pay a company to help write your cv. Then look for jobs that accept cv's or have a basic application procdure.

Stay away from actuarial recruitment agencies they will only tell you negative things. If you come across a non-actuarial agency advertising an actuarial job then give it a go!

I had similar difficulties getting my first job.

 

Have to agree with this as well. Most companies have online applications for filtering applications with some algorithm - good for letting vanilla CVs through. Also it takes an insane amount of time to fill in a single companies online application - time that can be better spent on creating your CV, or even adding to your 2 CTs.

 

It will be hard but not impossible.

Think about your skill set. What do you have that will be useful to an actuarial career? Older can mean far better communication skills and business awareness for example.

Are there any regional actuarial socities nearby? If so, are there any topics you are interested in. Go along, there's usually a chance to mingle either before or after and you never know your luck. Showing initiative like this can be really helpful.

Definitely keep the exams up.

Be reday for the 'why now?' questions whne you get to interview. That is how you must think... when not if.

Good luck

 

I have no first hand experience of entering at an older age but my feeling is...

- Start with going through agencies. At the very least they will give you good advice about CVs etc. If this fails, take what they say on board and sell yourself. Phone the switchboard and ask for the HR dept etc.

- Carry on with the exams while undertaking work. You don't have to be clever to pass the exams, just determined. Proving this determination shows a lot.

- Apply direct to smaller companies that do not have graduate schemes, but occasionally need graduates, as the CV will go through fewer filters before reaching the actuary responsible for recruitment. (The HR department is your gateway and enemy!). They will be under more pressure to recruit withing a certain time frame and you are more likely to get lucky with the arrival of your CV coinciding with their need to recruit. You can find employers by searching the actuarial directory and looking at the employer listed by members in your geographic location.

- Get some IT skills as this will make you an asset from day 1, even when you don't know much about the field you are entering. You can show that you know what your are talking about in surprisingly little space. EG Dont say I know excel. Say I can use Excel inc pivot tables, array formulas, VBA, and have used them to... etc.. (you could give an example of where you have used these to implement a solution to an excercise in a CT module?)

Areas that are certainly useful ( in order of importance):
Excel
VBA
Access (inc SQL language)
MS SQL Server (or similar)

These four bits of software make up a surprisingly large amount of actuarial systems.

I recommend you start with Excel 200X formulas by Walkenbach, which is any easy read and packed with information.

Once you've got to grips with the above the following may be useful (probably more in GI than life or pensions?):

R (there is a package call actuar)
SPSS

- Along with the above make sure your CV shows that you are not an agoraphobic shoe staring whisperer. Actuaries have meetings (grrr) and you have to be comfortable addressing different audiences.

Hope that helps..

 

Can I say a huge thank you to you all for spending some of your (valuable) time in advising me in this matter. I certainly feel that I can use some of the ideas you have put forward.

CapitalH - you hit the nail on the head about the CV, it really needs work, I composed a tentative CV just to see what an agency would say, and the response was pretty negative. But you have given a bit more of an insight into the recruitment process, and some options available to me.

I plan to keep ploughing through the CTs, sadly I only am sitting one this time round. I ran out of time in the exams, had no idea how well they went, waiting over 2 months (!) for results) so I erred on the side of caution regarding work load for september sitting (actuaries should err on the side on cauton right? ), but it will be 2 every sitting moving forward.

Elroy, very good advice about excel, VBA etc, because at the moment, cannot truthfully write down on my CV that I have necessary experience in the computer programs that are used frequently. Yes, I can use excel, but not much beyond formulae. With regards to the shoegazing, my old job involved a lot of face to face meetings with clients, so this isn't a concern.

Thanks again for the advice, if anyone feels they want to contribute anymore..... keep it coming!

 

Hi Intension
A question for you - what sort of work have you been doing up until now?
As bystander said above a key part will showing what skills you already have. I'd suggest thinking a lot about what works skills you have already learnt and how they would transfer to an actuarial role (things like communication, projcet management, etc.).

 

Just another thought?

Have you got your dob on your cv? If so, definitely take it off. Likewise your actual A level grades don't need to be there. Just the number will suffice. After all, this is history and you have clearly made the Institute membership criteria.

Yes they can deduce age from work experience history, but don't draw attention to your age. More bring out the fact that you are mature, determined and committed to the new field you are entering.

 

I have to agree with bystander. Your CV should highlight your strengths - which is why a custom CV is the most viable route. Also consider the order you of your CV, it does not have to be chronological. Remember the average person spends less than 2 minutes on a CV so if your strengths is at the end, they will not even see them. Start with your strongest areas.

Also education for a graduate is critical since it is all they got. You have some other work experience (we assume) so it becomes less critical.

 

Up until this month I worked for an IFA as a paraplanner (some would say the position that does all the IFAs hard work ), so I have a sound knowledge of financial products. Sadly the extent of analysis would involve say comparing charges from 2 PPs to see if one was more favourable than the other, or to see if it was worthwhile for a client to transfer out of an OPS. I have also researched performance of various investment funds.

Communication was a fundamental part of my job both in talking to clients face to face about their financial situation, and to IFAs and product providers.
I feel this is one of my strengths.

With regards to project management, I did implement our 'pension transfer review proceedure, which involved getting this side of the business up and running, and it was a big responsibility. I suppose each IFA client could be viewed as a project.

At the moment I have a temporary role with an enhanced annuity company, which I started this month after relocating to london. They do have an actuarial department, but going about discussing a move their would be difficult without questions being asked.

Definitly a good idea to take off my DoB, and my A-Levels.

I am FIA student 2009, so that says enough.

Having thought about your replies, I feel that I need to boost my skills in the areas that actuaries are involved in day today - I guess that markov jump processes are not a day to day occurence (but I could be wrong)?

Further to what Elroy has written, what in your minds make up the bulk of what you do day to day? In excel for example, or VBA

Thanks again

 

I am in a similar situation to you - partly because of timing issues, and the fact that moving to any sort of trainee actuary position would require a massive cut in salary for me in the short term, I'm doing a part time degree at the OU with a view to getting a class that better reflects my abilities.

 

I think with your background you would make a very good candidate for a life company. You've shown determination to pass some exams, have an understanding of the business and are keen. I don't think you should under estimate the knowledge you have acquired already. I think there is a good chance you may be able to slip in to the actuarial department at some point, should they need someone. Like you, I'm not sure how/when you should communicate your hope for this.

Low level positions are not likely to be technically demanding, as with everything there is a lot of boring work to do and someone has to do it. I'd say that most actuaries have forgotten their Markov jump processes. Like everything it's use it or lose it and I'd say most don't use it.

In my experience, almost everything is done excel and one of the specialist actuarial software packages. The other bits of software ( you can pretty much ignore the stats packages as you are clearly looking at life/pensions, which has little day to day statistics) are the glue that holds different systems/sources of data together. Data manipulation can be a fairly important part of the job, hence the access and sql. You by no means have to be an expert in these, but an awareness of the basic principles should stand you out from the crowds.

The same goes for VBA. I'd say that most VBA is just used to loop through policies/different input parameters in excel spreadsheets, though it can do anything you like. The good thing about VBA (for you) is that it is not used in undergraduate courses. It's a language used to implement quick and dirty solutions to problems as they arise where it would be impractical/not cost effective to specify a solution to give to a pro programmer A little knowledge will go a long way with this.

Good luck!