Passes or high grades?

Hi all,
what do employers look for when interviewing new candidates? passes or exam rankings (xx/100)?

thanks!

 

Its not so clear as that once you are in an actuarial role.

they look at experience a lot too. ie has what you done in the past given you the skills they are looking for? By skills I mean both technical knowledge and other skills.

Passes will tell them about theoretical knowledge.

If you look at many adverts its will say something about passes but generally that isn't too hard and fast a rule. The caveat is if you have loads more passes than what they expect they may not feel its the job for you but there again, they don't interview based solely on that.

If you are going into an actuarial career for the first time then grades become more significant (not least because of the professions entry requirement), but still its about your potential.

By the way, actuarial exams don't come with a % attached. You either pass or fail and its actually the fails they grade to show how far away you were from the pass standard.

 

Re

well, I am going for a first position as an actuary assistant.
i was studying actuarial science as part of MA degree, and all exams are more or less equivalent to CT1-8. we get % marks for these...

my logic tells me employers should know the kind of person sitting in an interview had passed a serious set of exams and care less for % marks...

I'd really like to work abroad and hope my grades would be acknowledged.

 

Then I think it depends on how much the employer knows about the Ma. I mean I didn't know about the fact you get %s too. Its up to you I guess whether you want to disclose them. I mean is it really important that you got say 69% rather than 70? (Sorry I have know idea whats typical)

Some employers won't care and in fact dislike people with loads of exemptions because your office skills and theoretical knowledge are out of line so salary expectations also can be too high. Others like them.

Another reason some employers don't like the MA route is generally you've gained them whilst studying full time and with more face to face contact than you get with actuarial exams so its not a predictor of success in the real institute papers.

At interview they won't focus on your %. As I said before they have taken as read your academic past its other things they are then interested in.


Can't comment on working abroad but I would have thought it unusual on day 1 unless you are familiar with a given country already.

 

well, i don't think knowing the destination country would've changed anything in the way i approached my studies...i think generally of north america.
thanks for the advice, it was very helpfull

 

Can I just ask where you did your MA and if you managed to get high enough grades to be exempted from all of the CT's? how difficult is it ? I'm thinking about doing Masters in actuarial science myself and I know that it's suppose to offer exemptions from all of the CT's provided you get high enough grades, but I was wondering if people do generally manage to achieve high grades in all of the modules..

 

I had my MA in University of Haifa, Israel.
The University's program is yet to be approved by the UK society of actuaries, and this might be the reason why the exams there are really tough.
i can only speak for myself to say last two years were so far the toughest in my life. I managed to get a 76 average, but a few students from my class got 80-90 averages.
i can say from this experience that attending CT exams can be much easier and more productive..

 

I've limited exposure to people joining this route so can count the number of people I have encountered having done the post gra/MA course in the UK on both hands (no need for fingers/toes!).

One had all the exemptions but as I warned above there was then a year on doing the real exams that saw no passes (then never failed again). So its not always a quick route to qualify.

Others came out with more than half.

Personally I'm not a fan of the get them via an MA route unless you can get sponsorship because of the fact I mentioned below that theoretical knowledge and practical exposure gets out of line. To me its better to have a couple of exemptions from a part relevant degree and work from there.

This is in part because the UK exams are unique from anything in universities generally speaking in that you have to work and study together, there are no choice of questions in the exam.

Plus when you do get all CTs and reach the later exams it is helpful to have worked in the industry for a while because you are moving into more specialist areas of study eg life assurance so it helps to have seen such products day to day and know some of how the businesses work generally. Cts typically are mathematical and/or can be tackled predominantly from memory.

Later exams start applying hence why experience/industry exposure helps even at the ST level.

But many others disagree so its down to your own preferences.

 

I agree, but some parts of the MA gives you theoretical knowledge you'd never get from just attending CT and may help you during your daily work.
for example, courses regarding stock markets, practical data analysis using non-conventional distributions and so forth.
when completing the MA degree, one has to complete at least one year of practice before attending CT-9, let alone the CA/ST series.
like every other area in life, MA has its up and down sides.

 

So you're saying that one must have worked one year in the industry before taking the CA/ST series?
Then how come some universities (City, Heriot-watt) have courses that offer exemptions from them which do not require any experience ?

 

And I know that the programme in the university of Haifa is insane that's part of the reason I have decided to do my MA here and not there (being an Israeli myself..). BTW can you even take the the CA's and ST's here ?

 

well, i don't know the institutes you mentioned and their programme.
from what i know, you can't attend CT-9 without actual experience, i think it's mandatory. As for the CA/ST series, i can't even start to imagine the level of difficulty i'll have to face with them, and i don't think it'd be wise to attend them without actual experience, but again...maybe that's just me.

where do you study if i may ask?

 

For the UK exams there is no experience requirement. You can sit the exams straight away.

CT9 (Business Awareness Module - which is a course rather than exam in the true sense) recommends you have been working for 12-18monthsbut you just need an employer to certify that you are ready. For the real exams, no certification is required. Its up to you.

Hope that helps