Future Actuary Inside Page - February 6, 2009 (Print All Articles)

University Outreach: University of Iowa

Wei Zou Ang

Read about the Society of Actuaries' first University Outreach visit!

The Society of Actuaries’ first University Outreach visit was held at the University of Iowa on Sept. 15, 2008. Mark M. Yu, FSA, an Iowa alumnus and vice president and actuary of Swiss Re Life & Health America and Lisamarie Lukas were on campus as SOA’s featured actuary and Director of Communications respectively.

The program started off with a breakfast meeting for pre-actuarial science majors and other interested students to give them a unique opportunity to ask any questions concerning a career as an actuary. Breakfast was followed by a meet and greet session between the SOA, the actuarial faculty, advising center staff and the office of admissions at the University of Iowa. The attendees were especially happy with the program as it helped Iowa faculty, admission staff and the SOA understand each other’s role in maintaining the quality of actuaries coming out of the University of Iowa’s actuarial science program.

Lunch was especially interesting as Mark Yu related his experiences as a student at Iowa and as an actuary with Swiss Re to students majoring in Finance and Risk Management. Over a meal of pizza at a local diner, Mark explained what it meant to become an actuary and the academic requirements that came with it. He also took the opportunity to introduce SOA’s new Chartered Enterprise Risk Analyst (CERA) credential to students interested in risk management, and urged finance majors to explore career opportunities as an actuary for a stable, challenging and financially rewarding career path. While traditionally actuaries have primarily worked in the insurance industry, new opportunities are on the rise for the actuarial profession in areas like health care, financial services and aviation.

This was followed by a presentation by Professor Jerome Pansera, an actuarial science faculty and an Iowa alumnus, who talked about his experiences working at a hedge fund in Boston for three years prior to becoming a professor. Additionally, Prof. Pansera touched upon how the financial industry was going through a period of drastic changes and explained how actuaries were well-positioned to tackle these new challenges in the broader financial arena.

The program ended with a dinner attended by representatives from the SOA, Iowa’s actuarial science faculty, and several students from both the actuarial science program and the Tippie College of Business. As dinner progressed, excited discussions about the day’s event filled the night. It was clear that everyone was happy with their day’s work and that the SOA’s first University Outreach visit was a success.

Following this event, students and faculty were invited to submit their feedback to shape future visits to other universities. Student and faculty feedback was overwhelmingly positive and the SOA has incorporated feedback for future visits to include more information on the education system, the exam process and procedures.

Actuarial Profession Rated as a Top Job!

Kathryn Wiener

See where Actuaries place amongst the top jobs!

The actuarial profession has consistently been ranked amongst the top jobs for years, but with the recent economic downturn, the job of an actuary is getting more and more coverage in the media as one of the best professions to join. Highlighted below are a few articles that recently featured the profession in articles related to top jobs.

CNN.com ranked the job of Associate Actuary at the number one position on it's list of "Ten Jobs that Pay $80,000 a Year." Read the entire article here.

The Wallstreet Journal recently published an article, "Doing the Math to Find the Good Jobs," in which they reference a study done by CareerCast.com that ranks Actuary as the second best job in the United States--directly sandwiched between Mathematician and Statistician. Check out the article here, and the study can be found here.

Forbes.com recently reported on the top 200 best jobs for new college grads. Actuary was listed in the top 10 jobs, coming in at number eight. The full article can be found here.

How to Get an Internship in Today’s Shrinking Job Market

Wei Zou Ang

Interested in doing an actuarial internship? Wei Zou Ang gives some tips on how to secure your internship in the current job market.

While it is true that this year’s economical turmoil and pending global recession has caused many companies to tighten their purses and cut down on hiring for both full time positions and internships, there is still some hope out there if you do not have an internship offer yet. Companies will still continue to interview and hire interns as their candidates turn down offers and a spot opens up. The difference is that you will be fighting for that one additional spot in a company, compared to the 10 spots that were still open in the fall.

Companies that hire actuarial interns can be generally split into three main groups:

Insurance/Re-insurance Companies
Insurance Companies are the biggest employer of actuaries. Unfortunately, most insurance companies have been hit hard by the turmoil in the stock markets and have been ladled with investment losses. Due to their declining investment income and expectation for insurance registration to slow down next semester, insurance companies are laying off people and cutting back on hiring. However, there are still internship spots available, just fewer of them.
Consulting Companies
These companies include traditional consulting firms such as Mercer, Towers Perrin, Hewitt, and the accounting firms, Deloitte, Ernst and Young and PricewaterhouseCoopers. Actuaries are usually employed for either their Health & Benefits or Retirement practice. Within health & benefits, actuaries design health and benefit plans for companies, while in retirement, actuaries generally deal with pension valuation and design. Both sides are currently rapidly growing as companies are trying to find ways to cut health and benefits costs and are constantly valuing their pension costs in the face of such volatile capital markets. Additionally, companies who have recently acquired other smaller companies will also need consultants to combine their benefit and pension plans.
Financial Institutions
Previously, investment banks and hedge funds have been actively hiring interns from all sorts of backgrounds. However, the economy downturn and trouble within the financial industry has essentially freeze all hiring, whether intern or full time. Nevertheless, it never hurts to apply.
Strategy Consulting Firms
Strategy Consulting firms such as McKinsey, Bain and Boston Consulting Group recruit interns from all disciplines, but they have the toughest interview process of all. They conduct case interviews in addition to asking the regular behavioral questions. Since consultants are the first people companies cut to reduce costs, strategy consultants are still needed to help companies reduce cost and become more efficient. While strategy consulting recruiting might be down, internships spots are still up for grabs. If you use the SOA directory, you will find that there are some actuaries working as strategy consultants whom will be able to give you some insight into the industry.

Here are some tips on how you can still land an internship.

Resumes and Cover Letters
The first step is always to polish your resume and cover letter. Microsoft Word’s spell check can often lead to typos, such as CNA into CAN. With so many resumes to look through in today’s competitive environment, one typo would be enough to land your resume in the thrash can. It is of UTMOST IMPORTANCE that you have friends, colleagues or family look through your resume before sending it out as they are more prone to noticing mistakes you might not have otherwise.
Send your application to the right people
After polishing your resume and cover letter, you need to get these into the hands of the right people. Don’t just apply online, look for the recruiter’s name online and send him/her a personal e-mail with your resume attached. While this information is often not available on their Web site, other resources such as your professor, networking sites such as Linkedin.com, or even Google would probably yield some useful contacts you could leverage into an interview.
Alumni is key!!! Use the SOA directory
Actuarial Science has always been a small profession with roughly only 300 students per program. As such, most programs have a list of program graduates. If not, your program probably has a list of students from your program who have passed SOA exams in the past which would serve the same purpose. Send an e-mail to any alumni you can find and set up a phone meeting. Ask them about their job, what they like or dislike about it, how they got their job in the first place, and where their plans are for the future. If you can’t find anybody’s email, plug that name into the SOA directory. You will find the company they are working in, their position, phone number and their e-mail addresses—a great wealth of information. While some alumni might ignore your e-mails, most alumni would actually automatically forward your resume to recruiters and offer you very helpful job-searching advice. One lesson I learnt the hard way is to treat every interaction with alumni as an informal interview. They will be vouching for your application and you need to assure them that you are up for the job. If you are interested in interning in a non-traditional field, use the SOA directory to search for that specific company you are interested in and send them an e-mail. I have found from experience that these professionals are more than willing to help you out as they want to see more actuaries in their field of work.
Get your story straight! Set yourself apart
So you’ve landed a first round interview, what next? A friend or alumni can only go so far as to grant you an interview. If you cannot speak eloquently and intelligently during the interview, there is nothing they can do about it. Hence, you need to have a solid, comprehensible and interesting story to back your application. If you have something unique, do not be afraid to bring it up and incorporate that into your pitch. Interviewers love nothing more than to hear how you loved math in high school, naturally progressed into majoring in actuarial science, and have since been passing SOA exams while starting your own non-profit or representing your school in a national competition. Every interviewee will most likely have the same credentials, good grades, SOA exams, previous working experience, and you need to have that one thing that will make your interviewer go, “Oh, I remember that kid who trained for the Chicago Marathon!” Find something that will set you apart from everyone else and leverage that.
PANIC!
While this is somewhat of a non-traditional advice, I find that most people are unwilling to pull all stops and go all-out in getting an internship and making the connections they need to until they panic and realize they are way behind the curve. I was guilty of this myself as well until I realized that many companies already had their hiring spots filled before on-campus recruiting even started. However, if you do not have an internship offer yet at this point, you ARE behind the curve and at a disadvantage. Since most of their spots are full already, companies can cherry pick the top candidates they want. So start polishing your resume, pick up the phone and make the necessary connections you need to land an internship.

As for international students, the limited number of H-1B visas issued by the United States government has caused many actuarial firms to not consider international students for either their internship or full time positions. A list of companies who sponsor or do not sponsor can be found on www.actuarialoutpost.com. Consider looking for an internship back home or ask your professors to see if you could do research for them.

While it is a tough market out there, getting an internship is by no means impossible. I cannot stress enough how important it is to network with recruiters and working professionals to get a better understanding of the industry and to increase your chances of getting an internship. With a never-say-die attitude, a couple of solid alumni connections and a dash of luck, I am sure that you will find yourself in a good spot by March.

Advice from a Role Model

Claire Bilodeau

We continue our series of advice with Denis Ricard, FSA, FCIA, Senior Vice President and Chief Actuary at Industrial Alliance Insurance and Financial Services.

Here is advice from someone who was my lecturer in Life Contingencies early on in his career with Industrial Alliance Insurance and Financial Services Inc., a large Canadian life and health insurance company headquartered in Québec City. He has assumed various positions over the years and now serves as Senior Vice President and Chief Actuary. I asked him for some golden nuggets he would like to share with budding actuaries. Here is what he offered.

Here are three humble tips :

Work hard on your credibility. That means making sure you acquire in depth knowledge of what you are responsible for. There are different ways to do this, it may mean more readings. It may mean you build long term relationship with industry stakeholders and consult and share information with them. It may mean experimenting new ways of doing things. It certainly means long hours…

Surprise others. Do more than what is expected from you. There are no limits as to what you can do. The more important thing is to think about it. When I suggested this tip to my children, they looked at me as if I was an alien. But they tried it and they got noticed. Why don’t you try it?

Set up annual personal objectives. Start with only one but DO IT. Then, go for two the next year. You’ll be amazed as to what you can achieve.

The last thing I would say is that it is important to stay HUMBLE because you never know what tomorrow will bring into your life.

Given how well it has worked for him, you may want to test drive those as well!

Do you know an influential actuary who would like to share some words of wisdom? E-mail Kathryn Wiener, SOA Senior Communications Associate at kwiener@soa.org and we may be able to feature them in an upcoming issue of The Future Actuary!

Exam Superstitions

We got some very interesting responses to our Inquiring Minds question! See what your fellow candidates' superstitions are!

Thank you to the readers who answered our inquiring minds question from the last issue!

"After every passed exam, I take my box of a dozen pencils that I used for all my studying/practice exams/real exam and I snap all of the used (and new) pencils in half, throw them away and make sure that I use brand new box of a dozen pencils when I start out studying for the next exam."

"In Montreal, Canada, the exam center is in a church basement, so before each exam, I go to the church, not really to pray, but to focus on the exam and find a little bit of serenity! And yes, I always wear my lucky boxers on the exam day."

"I ALWAYS drink a bottle of essence of chicken before exams. It’s good stuff."

"I have a lucky shirt I wear for exams (even VEE exams!). Doesn't matter that my pass record is 6/9, nowhere near perfect! I still wear the same shirt every exam. And I don't wear it at any other time, So it isn't going to wear out until I get my FSA!"

"I don’t personally have any superstitions. However, my roommate always eats one pound of chocolate before the exam and eats at the same Italian restaurant before results come out. Sounds really unhealthy, but she’s an ACAS at 23, so I can’t hate on it too much."

"I have to say that I have absolutely none! How boring, I know! (Maybe being a lecturer helps realize that an exam is nothing else than an piece of paper, and that if you are prepared, nothing silly can happen!)"

Reading Syllabus Material—in the Original

Shira L. Jacobson, FCAS, Candidate Liaison Committee

Many candidates find study guides to be a valuable addition to their arsenals as they prepare for exams. The guides, however, are a complement to, rather than a substitute for, reading the syllabus material itself.

Editor’s Note: This article originally appeared in the December 2008 issue of Future Fellows.

With any piece of literature, reading in translation presents the risk of missing overall themes and key details. While you might take issue with the characterization of the actuarial exam syllabus as literature, the same principle holds true for exam preparation.

Examination Committee officers who review exam surveys are concerned that candidates are relying too heavily on third-party study guides. On some topics, they note common blind spots among candidates. In addition, some candidates submit exam survey comments that erroneously list study guides in response to the question, “What (syllabus) readings were of questionable value?”

Many candidates find study guides to be a valuable addition to their arsenals as they prepare for exams. The guides, however, are a complement to, rather than a substitute for, reading the syllabus material itself. Study guides, by necessity, highlight certain topics and paraphrase others, according to the authors’ understanding and interpretation of the syllabus material. Many offer sample questions only if the question has appeared on a prior exam, which can artificially narrow a candidate’s idea of what is “testable.” As a result, relying solely on study guides could leave you at a disadvantage when sitting for the exam.

While the syllabus readings may not be scintillating page-turners, taking the time to read them means that you’ll have a basic understanding of the range and scope of the subject matter. Specific terminology, examples, and figures in the readings can be important in successful exam preparation. Particularly when new material is introduced on the syllabus, developing your own independent understanding can help you be ready for the exam. Reading the source material will also enable you to make educated choices about what additional materials you need for adequate preparation.

Please take the time to read the syllabus material in the original. Compared to the total time you dedicate to exam preparation, it’s a small investment in your success. And while you may not see syllabus papers in your favorite anthology of non-fiction for 2008, there’s always hope for the future.

SOA Board Approves Code of Conduct for Candidates

SOA

The Society of Actuaries' (SOA) has recently implemented a Code of Conduct for Candidates. Find out more about the code here.

The Society of Actuaries’ (SOA) Board of Directors has taken steps to maintain the value of its credentials by approving the implementation of a Code of Conduct for Candidates at its October 2008 board meeting. The code requires that actuarial candidates who are not yet members of the SOA adhere to the high standards of conduct of the actuarial profession.

The impetus for the candidate code arose following recent examples of candidates falsely representing exam status and results to employers. While rules governing a candidate’s behavior within the SOA’s education system are already in place and members must adhere to the Code of Professional Conduct, a non-member candidate was not specifically bound by an actuarial code for ethical behavior within professional relationships.

Other actuarial organizations also provide professional guidelines for actuarial candidates. The Institute of Actuaries and the Institute of Actuaries of Australia require that candidates apply for student membership before sitting for any exams. Student members are charged a membership fee and are then bound by the membership rules of the organization as they begin to take exams. While the CAS maintains a membership structure very similar to the SOA, they also implemented a code of professional ethics for candidates in January of 2008.

The SOA Code of Conduct for Candidates became effective Dec. 1, 2008. SOA candidates are required to agree to adhere to the code when registering for any of the components of the Education system. It is believed that this new policy will help to further support the fine reputation of the profession.

Grading Timeframe Shortened

Get your SOA exam results quicker! See how we've reduced grading timeframe.

The SOA has reduced the grading timeframe for FSA written answer exams to 9 weeks, down from 11 weeks. This change became effective with the Fall 2008 grade release.

Reducing the grading time will allow candidates to begin studying for their next exam sooner. Exam results and exam information, including registration, transcripts and the Candidate Code of Conduct, can be found on the SOA’s newly redesigned Education web pages at www.soa.org/education.

The SOA e-Learning System

Learn more about the SOA e-Learning System or share with an actuary-to-be!

As an actuarial candidate you know that e-Learning is now a universal part of most adult education programs offered today by colleges, universities and executive education courses. Launched in 2006 with the release of the Fundamentals of Actuarial Practice’s (FAP) Module 1 , the SOA e-Learning system provides an interactive experience, stresses education, focuses on the business environment, preps candidates for exams and will introduce users to real world business situations.

The SOA has now made e-Learning trial accounts available for anyone considering becoming an actuary or simply curious to learn more about the profession. A limited number of trial accounts are available and will give access to a portion of FAP Module 1 for 30 days. If you would like to learn more about FAP and register for a Trial Account, click here.

Doctoral Stipend Program Announced

Learn more about the Doctoral Stipend program and the application process.

The Society of Actuaries (SOA) has introduced a new Doctoral Stipend program established to increase the number of academic actuaries in North America who hold a PhD and an actuarial designation. Stipends will be provided to doctoral candidates who through their studies address the research and education needs of the profession, including both the theoretical and practical aspects.

The amount of each stipend will be generally $20,000 per academic year, renewable up to four times upon evidence of satisfactory progress on both the doctorate and an actuarial credential. Applications are due to the SOA office by March 15, 2009.

Learn more about the Doctoral Stipend program and the application process.

Foundation Scholarships Available

Debbie McCormac

The Actuarial Foundation has three scholarships available. Get more details here!

Diversity Scholarship

The Actuarial Diversity Scholarship was formed in 1977 as a joint effort by the Casualty Actuarial Society and the Society of Actuaries. This scholarship program was designed to promote diversity through an annual scholarship that encouraged the pursuit of careers in the actuarial profession for Black/African American, Hispanic and Native American Indian students. Through the years, this scholarship has opened the door to the actuarial profession for hundreds of minority students. In 2008, the Scholarship program transferred to The Actuarial Foundation to further strengthen, increase and to assure the continuation of a diverse and high quality actuarial candidate pool. We are pleased to announce that the Foundation will be awarding its first scholarships in 2009.

To find out more about this scholarship opportunity, please visit the Foundation’s Web site at http://www.actuarialfoundation.org/research_edu/prize_award.htm#diversity

John Culver Wooddy Scholarship

The John Culver Wooddy Scholarship was established in 1996 by the estate of John Culver Wooddy, a distinguished actuary who set aside funds to provide scholarships to actuarial students.

Applicants must be receiving their undergraduate degree by August 31, 2010; rank in the top quartile of their class; have successfully completed one actuarial examination; and be recommended by a professor from their school. (Limit one application per school)

For more information go to:
http://www.actuarialfoundation.org/research_edu/prize_award.htm#wooddy

Actuary of Tomorrow-Stuart A. Robertson Memorial Scholarship

The Actuary of Tomorrow-Stuart A. Robertson Memorial Scholarship was established in 2006 in Stuart Robertson’s name to honor his dedication to excellence and to recognize his tremendously positive influence on the professional lives of many colleagues.

Applicants must be a full-time undergraduate student entering as a sophomore, junior or senior in the fall 2009/2010 term; must have a minimum cumulative GPA of 3.0 (on 4.0 scale); and have successfully completed two actuarial exams.

For more information go to:
http://www.actuarialfoundation.org/research_edu/prize_award.htm#robertson

CERA

Become an ERM expert!

The CERA credential is the most rigorous and comprehensive training available in enterprise risk management. For more information on obtaining the CERA credential, visit www.CERAnalyst.org/CERA-Link.