My son graduated with a math degree in May. He thinks he wants to become an actuary. I have purchased study guides for the 1st two tests, and I’m HOPING they won’t be too difficult for him.
Is it true that for each hour of the test you should study 100 hours?
after the tests, then what? Are jobs easy to get? (I don’t see many entry level jobs advertised)
Do employers typically pay for classes to pass other tests?
He would likely be willing to relocate, if the pay was acceptable. East coast would be best.
Are the other tests hard?
It seems like you can do fairly well financially, but how do entry level actuaries do?
I did a search and didn’t come up with much, but if there are other recent similar threads, feel free to link them.
I know this has been a typical career path for math grads, but has he considered working in informatics/big data? I just got back from a conference of 3400 accounting academics two weeks ago and there were multiple sessions on big data and the organization is now hosting a separate annual conference on big data. While it has a natural tie-in to accounting, that’s not the only path into that field. I don’t know enough to give any real specifics on the area, just enough to know it’s a growing field for the analytically inclined. Lots of buzz!
I think “big data” is a natural fit for him. I’ve suggested he apply for jobs in that area.
But he’s interested in becoming an actuary, and I figure he can pursue both if he’d like. (A J O B in either would be great at this point, but that’s for another thread).
Has he considered the insurance industry? One of my middle son’s good friends just graduated from an actuary program and is working for a health insurer. My company (casualty insurance) hires people for the underwriting department and they train. I suggest looking at insurance company websites under underwriting and see what types of qualifications they want.
I was a math major many years ago and the only job I thought I could get was to become an actuary. I was accepted into an actuary training program. They paid for all classes and gave me time off to study. Back then the test was given every 6 months. Whenever I passed a test I got a raise. I passed 4 and decided it was not for me.
I think Big Data (data science) in insurance is the place to be.
Hiring of entry level actuaries (they are called actuarial students) is usual happens through the university career services. Standard progression is you pass first exam before September of the junior year, you get actuarial internship for the next summer, then you pass another exam or two and in September of senior year you start looking for an entry-level actuarial job. As your son is behind he can start looking at positions in insurance companies in adjacent fields like Catastrophe Modeling (that do not require passed actuarial exams to be hired). If he is lucky he may be able to negotiate to become a part of an actuarial student program at an insurance company and eventually make a lateral move. If he is an actuarial student the company will pay for the exams, test prep materials and time off to prepare for the exams.
In any case he needs to talk to the career services at his former university to find out if they have any insurance companies hiring there. http://www.beanactuary.com https://www.dwsimpson.com/downloads/2015-Actuarial-Salary-Survey-COMPLETE.pdf
I have some knowledge about this. Usually takes 6-10 years to pass the exams which are difficult. Generally 100 hours per exam is usual and many companies will pay employees to study or will send them to courses. Pay raises or bonuses typically follow passing exams. The work is interesting and with several exams finding a job is not difficult. It is harder to find a job with no exams.
People generally think of insurance companies, but consulting firms employ actuaries to do pension plan work, auditing reserves for health companies, pricing for HMOs, in short lots of different things to do.
The federal govt hires in the DOD (pension plan work), OPM, Treasury, Social Security and PBGC to name a few.
Actuaries love their work and make fantastic money. The exams are extremely rigorous and not everyone makes it through. But if you do, you are golden for the rest of your career. There are lots of career options out there. Having worked in employee benefits my entire career, I’ve worked with lots of actuaries. They can specialize in pension, or in health, or in life insurance, or in property and casualty. Lots of work in insurance companies and consulting firms. An actuary who can also explain things in English, besides doing the calculations, is worth his weight in gold.
I have a son who’s a math whiz and I kept pushing actuarial work, but instead he’s chosen hard science.
My H and I are actuaries. It was a great career. We were both in the property/casualty insurance industry for our whole careers, but I did a couple to stints in consulting. I never learned to code, but today, it is almost a necessity. Also, having the programming skills will help in similar positions that are available to kids with no exams (Catastrophe modelling, data analytics).
Back in the old days, we got 15 study days for a “full” exam (many exams are partial exams, now). They would tell us you would need to match the days given to you by the employer with time studying on your own. I wonder whether current study programs are as generous as this. I doubt it.
The exams do change as you “travel” through the exams. The earlier exams are Math/Stats based, and the upper exams start covering things you might be doing in your job. So in some ways, they are more challenging, but also more interesting and relevant. I use the term “travel” because “travel time” is the term they use to measure the length of time from first to last exam. “They” are the actuarial societies that administer the exams. Neither of our kids went into actuarial science, but one is a programmer and the other is going into data analytics.
My daughter is an actuary. She majored in math and actuarial science and had passed 2 of the exams when she graduated. She had several job offers to choose from back in 2009 during the recession. It is a good career for the right person. It pays extremely well and the work seems to be interesting.
I will say that from an outsider (mom) perspective, the exams are brutal. She put countless hours into studying for them and there were several that she failed initially and had to re-take. It was very difficult to get through them all and there were definitely times where I worried that she wouldn’t succeed. I really feel as if she put her life on hold for about 4 years while all of her focus was on work and studying. But she passed the last one in 2015 and has been a full-fledged actuary for over a year now and really enjoys her job.
I would encourage your son to find actuaries to talk with to get a better sense of what the job entails and it would be great if he could find one to shadow. It will be more challenging for him to get a job initially without having passed any exams, he may want to consider finding a position as a data analyst and taking the first couple exams on his own before trying to get hired as an actuarial student (entry level actuary).
