Is it worth obtaining a certificate? Will it make me more employable in a consultancy role or otherwise?
May help but not a priority. Particularly early in your career, its unlikely you'll have control of an entire project and in some companies they use specialist business analysts. So for me, if I wanted to train as an actuary, I wouldn't do that.
My gut reaction is it's a lot of effort to do something tangential to your current role. However, investing in yourself is never a bad thing. One of my little hobby horses is software development skills - a lot of actuaries don't have much formal training in software engineering, yet it is a very useful skill for technical roles. I don't know if you might consider this worth looking at. It would also be worth having a chat with your managers about this kind of subject as well.
Actually, I've already done a course in C#, pretty confident with it too. Also dabbled with SQL, Java and VBA. I understood computing skills would help me stand out, so I invested in those pretty early when I realised university wasn't the best route for me. Thanks for the advice, I will try and grab one of my managers or someone in HR who would know about these things. I'm really just trying to give myself the best shot possible when it comes to applying for an actuarial role. I need to make myself more attractive than uni graduates and experience combined with skills, are the only way to accomplish that.
Don't take on too much that it hinders actuarial progress. People skills may be equally impressive and can be done as a one day introductory course. Eg there are such courses in project management, team building etc. You can never gain insight into management too early. It won't make you appear weak. Rather that you realise actuaries need to be equipped with soft skills too. Any internal courses available to you?
It depends. I'm not sure how much it'll help in consultancy field. As a Project Manager, it helped me loads to get PRINCE2 certification. I took a few days off work, got myself certified, then changed jobs! At a much better place in life now. -Gary
