Becoming an Actuary

Bahh
It's such a sad truth that a warwick graduate with a 2.2 will be rejected ahead of a graduate who is not in the top 20, who got a 2.1.

It really doesn't make sense to me. It never will.

If you're so great why didn't you get a 2:1?

Somewhat amused to find this on the front page (after not visiting this forum in quite some time), since this thread is originally from a good 18 months ago. Someone bumped it simply to complain about Real Analysis - not that I blame 'em, Complex was more my kinda thing.

I have in fact managed to get my foot in the actuarial door, since I got a job covering maternity leave for someone on the Pricing team of a major life insurer. From that I was offered another fixed-term contract on a different team, covering Reserving/Financial Reporting. I've also passed 3 exams, self-supported.

Now I'm gonna be looking for a full-time trainee position elsewhere (having perhaps foolishly turned down an offer at my current place since I'm looking to move closer to friends), so thanks to JonnySPal for the list of agencies, if nothing else.

One thing I would like to know is, are these companies usually just looking to fill individual roles, or is it typically a larger intake, a la a graduate scheme which might take on, say 10 people per year? Also, for these graduate schemes or w/e with the larger intakes - how is it they are able to continuously recruit so many people? The place I'm at at the moment would really have no need to recruit so many people, and the senior management would never authorise the resources to do it.
Am I wrong in assuming these schemes turn out to be fairly dog-eat-dog even after you're hired, with a certain number getting shuffled out the door after some initial time period?

Another thing is, how ruthless do companies tend to be if you do start failing exams? My place seems fairly reasonable, needing an average of 1 CT per exam sitting on a rolling 2 year basis but I noticed one of the Big 4 advertising their average time to qualification was like 1 year lower than the Profession as a whole. Is that figure jigged cos they mercilessly boot out failures, or is their study support just that good?



I never said I was great and my 2:2 was down to a severe lack of effort, discipline and maturity wrt my degree (more time at the pub...). In any case, you don't need to be great to be an actuary (but it helps ).

Cheers,

Kernel

Somewhat amused to find this on the front page (after not visiting this forum in quite some time), since this thread is originally from a good 18 months ago. Someone bumped it simply to complain about Real Analysis - not that I blame 'em, Complex was more my kinda thing.

I have in fact managed to get my foot in the actuarial door, since I got a job covering maternity leave for someone on the Pricing team of a major life insurer. From that I was offered another fixed-term contract on a different team, covering Reserving/Financial Reporting. I've also passed 3 exams, self-supported.

Now I'm gonna be looking for a full-time trainee position elsewhere (having perhaps foolishly turned down an offer at my current place since I'm looking to move closer to friends), so thanks to JonnySPal for the list of agencies, if nothing else.

One thing I would like to know is, are these companies usually just looking to fill individual roles, or is it typically a larger intake, a la a graduate scheme which might take on, say 10 people per year? Also, for these graduate schemes or w/e with the larger intakes - how is it they are able to continuously recruit so many people? The place I'm at at the moment would really have no need to recruit so many people, and the senior management would never authorise the resources to do it.
Am I wrong in assuming these schemes turn out to be fairly dog-eat-dog even after you're hired, with a certain number getting shuffled out the door after some initial time period?

Another thing is, how ruthless do companies tend to be if you do start failing exams? My place seems fairly reasonable, needing an average of 1 CT per exam sitting on a rolling 2 year basis but I noticed one of the Big 4 advertising their average time to qualification was like 1 year lower than the Profession as a whole. Is that figure jigged cos they mercilessly boot out failures, or is their study support just that good?



I never said I was great and my 2:2 was down to a severe lack of effort, discipline and maturity wrt my degree (more time at the pub...). In any case, you don't need to be great to be an actuary (but it helps ).

Cheers,

Kernel

I have not experienced any of this 'booting' you mention. I don't think the actuarial world is particularly cut-throat like that.