Not getting the experience I need

[Anonymous]

I have been in this profession for 9 years, working at 5 different companies. I have done different things at each: basic entry-level work, sitting around doing nothing, more busy work (routine valuation work), and currently, busy work because the # of new projects has dropped to 0. I have experience in both life and health, but not enough in either to match my exam level (lacking only pt. 7). What does one do in this situation? How would potential employers look at me? I feel like I need to leave where I am, but what kind of situation should I go to? Thanks for any help.

[WinnieThePooh]

Possible solutions:

1)Talk to your manager and get more downloaded work? Or get shifted to a slightly different job in the same company?
2)Go to a consulting firm where you can work on different types of projects.
3)Relax sometimes it is not good to be so busy :smile:

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the reply. I've already switched positions in my company, so I'm not in a position to do it again. It's a small place and I got a lot of grief for doing it the first time. My manager is the one who requested the current busy work and it is not teaching me anything. There are no consulting firms in my area, and I don't mind not being busy sometimes, but I need to learn something. I've spent too much time in my career not learning. Having said that, I'll probably get swamped tomorrow.

Anyone have any other ideas?

[Minerva]

If I can still do basic math, you have at least 4 years of experience in at least one of the life and health areas and have Courses 1-6 and 8 and maybe some PD.

If you have been doing "basic entry-level" work for 9 years you have been at the wrong place(s), worked for the wrong managers, not have sought more challenging assignments (explicitly or implicitly) or have been the unluckiest person in the world, times 5.

Assuming that you have already been working extremely hard and both requesting and seeking out more challenging work and responsibility, it sounds like maybe it's time for a job change.

But - BEWARE! An experienced interviewer is going to probe a lot about 5 companies in 9 years and doing entry-level work in all of them. The perception you will have to overcome is that the fault has not been in the stars, but in yourself, Horatio. [An interviewer who hears you say that all of the people in the last X jobs have been hard to work with is going to conclude that YOU are hard to work with; an interviewer who hears you say that everyone in your last X departments/companies has been really nice will conclude that YOU are really nice/easy to get along with.]

And one last piece of free advice - Don't just drift. Analyze yourself and the various situations over the last 9 years - maybe you have simply been in positions/companies that are incompatible with you. Decide what has been good and what has been bad and WHY. If you find things you think you should change about the way you've managed your career so far, then develop an action plan. If you find ways in which you would like for the company / position to be different, then look for those factors.

GOOD LUCK!

[G. Ringo]

It is normal for large companies not to delegate serious responsiblities to students. Familiarity with actuarial projects counts as experience even if your role was only collating data. However, frequent job changes may look bad on a résumé. Stay where you are for a while, and finish your Fellowship while you are in a position that does not demand too much besides studying. Look for a good job when you are a Fellow.

[Anonymous]

I know what you mean. I'm a jack of all trade, master of none. I feel that at this point in my career(more than 10 years of experience), I should be more specialized. But my job just does not let me do that. I know a little about many things, but not enough of any one thing. Unfortunately, I'm stuck here for now. I'm hoping I will be able to make some changes in a year and a half(keeping my fingers crossed).

[Troy McClure]

On 2002-02-07 19:16, Anonymous wrote:
I've spent too much time in my career not learning. Having said that, I'll probably get swamped tomorrow.


Are you sure that it's not the case that you are learning, but it just doesn't FEEL like you are learning. I usually come into my job and look at what I am going to do today and say "What a bunch of crappy, meaningless tasks." But, at the end of the year, I look back and say "Wow, I did a lot of good stuff, even though it didn't seem like it at the time". Nobody gets as much interesting work as they would like. That's why they pay us to do it, instead of asking us to do it for free.

When I read through your post, it would seem you have thought through the situation pretty clearly, and my paragraph above is all wrong, but it's worth at least thinking about. Maybe the only reason you think your job is bad is because everybody else's LOOKS better. Or maybe not.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Troy McClure on 2002-02-07 21:26 ]</font>

[Enough Exams Already]

You've said that the tasks you do are fairly routine at this point; you know them well and you've done them repeatedly. Maybe you could try streamlining or improving them on your own. (They surely can't all be in an optimal state.) Start with a few nips and tucks, and you might eventually see places for significant overhauls. This might indicate to your employer not only that you're bored, but that you are willing to take initiative, can think creatively and have something to offer the company besides a pair of hands. If they are impressed, you'll get better tasks. If they're not impressed, you've got a way to put a better spin on this job at your next interview.

Just a thought.

[Anonymous]

I sometimes wonder what my future holds, too. I'm one exam short of ASA and I have 5 years experience in 3 different positions (at the same company). I feel like I'm continuing to learn a great deal and I'm getting increasing levels of responsibility. But I'm a little concerned about the amount of time I've spent in "rotations." Most of the other students here landed in their chosen coverage after about 6 months of training. I landed in this coverage (which is a good fit) only about a year ago. I feel like I benefited from my two other "rotations" but the coverage I'm in already has two ASAs above me and we have more people than the other coverages. Once they get their FSAs and I get my ASA in the next year or so, I'm a bit concerned that it may be too crowded here. I feel a little bit like the odd man out, but I don't know what to do about it, or if I should do anything. I do good work, get very good reviews, have strong analytical skills, but I don't know if that's enough in my situation.

[Incredible Hulctuary]

On 2002-02-07 19:48, Gregor Grub wrote:
However, frequent job changes may look bad on a résumé.


Just out of interest, how did you type the "é" in résumé? (the accented e's in my question were cut-and-pasted from yours.)

I can do it by embedding ASCII codes in HTML (like this é ã µ), but apparently that's not how you did it.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: techguy on 2002-02-08 09:14 ]</font>

[Anonymous]

alt 130 - é
alt 135 - ç
alt 136 -ê

and so on....or perhaps he has a French keyboard

[Anonymous]

From original poster: Thank you all for your responses. Minerva, I think all of the situations you have suggested have been true to some degree. I have worked for some bad managers and in some sweatshops (“the wrong places”). I appreciate your “make a plan” suggestion also. I have done just that and will implement it as soon as possible. I have been at my current job for 4 ½ yrs, so that should count for some stability to a future employer. Troy, you’re right on when you say that often our jobs look meaningless, but as I think about it, I have picked up some knowledge along the way. This was made clear yesterday when talking to a student who was asking what the variable “GAAP” stood for. At least I could explain that to him. I have streamlined what I do as much as is possible, but that doesn’t seem to carry a lot of weight with my boss, who frankly seems to prefer the other person in our dept. Other “Anonymous”: I believe that a lot of the work environment and the assignments you get are personality-based, so you may be having the same problem I am with that.

Thank you all again. It’s nice to know I’m not the only one who feels this way.

[Minerva]

I had one other thought about you - it may be that the 5 companies you worked for are all the same one (very similar in the ways that are most important to you), and not the right fit for you. Step back a little and look at that - if that's the case, include a different type of company (culture, size, orientation, etc.) in your action plan.

BTW - IMO 4 1/2 years at this most recent position should definitely do a lot for the stability factor.

[Troy McClure]

On 2002-02-09 13:27, Anonymous wrote:
From original poster


For future anon posts, this is very helpful - if you post a second anon post in a thread, it would be nice to know which previous anon poster it is coming from, so as to understand the viewpoint. I think this should be adopted as standard netiquette.

[Incredible Hulctuary]

On 2002-02-08 09:19, Anonymous wrote:
alt 130 - é
alt 135 - ç
alt 136 -ê

and so on....or perhaps he has a French keyboard


Hold down Alt and type 1-3-0? Doesn't work for me.:???:

But given the many Canadians on this site, he probably does have a french keyboard. Or a different operating system (I have Windows, but planning to get Linux).

[Anonymous]

Original poster again: Try holding alt, then type 1-3-0, then release alt. Should work. My keyboard at work only does this with the right alt key for some reason, but home will work with either. Try both.

Minerva -- I think my companies have been at least somewhat varied: a med. size mutual, a very small stock co., a BC/BS plan, and 2 med-large stock cos. (one is my current co.). Your idea makes me wonder if consulting might work for me. I know that's a good way to get a lot of knowledge and experience.
Wasn't Minerva born from the head of Zeus? If so, I would guess she's a goddess, but I don't know her specialty.

[openminded]

...

[G. Ringo]

You have to hold down Alt and type 130 on the numerical pad, not on the main keyboard. Does that work for you?

[Maine-iac]

Minerva - Roman Goddess of Wisdom, of course! Thus, born from the head of Jove. (Greek equivalent = Athena)

[Minerva]

Wow - I'm the subject of a tangent?!

Minerva - Goddess of Wisdom :???:
Prim Professor of Transfiguration :emb:
Middle Aged Minnie Mouse :wink:

Depends on the day

[Marshall_Mathers]

I've had five jobs in the last twelve years. The next time that I interview and I am asked about my previous employers, I am going to tell the interviewer that the biggest problem that I have had with my prior jobs is that I didn't get enough information during the interview process to make a good decision. I'm going to tell the interviewer that I have a lot of questions to ask and that I would prefer to get these out of the way first so that I can be better informed. My list of questions will be long enough to take at least an hour or more.

I am tired of having the interview process take up so much time on why you left previous employers. The interview should focus on my qualifications and the responsibilities of the position being offered. I believe that a diservice is done both to the candidate and the employer by focusing on what I would term as tabloid type questions. No job is perfect and you are always going to have personality issues with anyone you work with. I am going to tell the next interviewer flat out that I am not going to make a bad decision by not having the infomation that I need. Basically, I am going to let the interviewer tactfully and professionally know that what happened at prior jobs is none of his or her business. I want to know about the job at hand and not spend time on prior mistakes.

Any comments about this approach?

[NO1UNO]

Marshall, I don't think you will get many offers with that approach. I think that a better way to approach it, is to say that you left for a better opportunity. Make each job that you've had sound like it was great, even if it wasn't. The positions that you would be looking at, with 12 years of experience, are going to be high enough on the company ladder that interviewers will be looking for people who "fit in." If you appear hostile, you will be turned away. Of course, you want to get as much info about the job as you can, so do bring your list of questions, but approach it in a positive way.

Is it job stress or exam stress that is getting to you these days? The last few posts that I've seen from you have been hostile.

[Marshall_Mathers]

Sorry for the hostility. It's not the exams (I passed one last sitting) but my current job sucks. I'm just tired of the corporate B.S. and the lack of challenging work. I'm tired of working for someone who just wants to get what they can out of you instead of caring about job satisfaction and career advancement. Ever work for a place that wiped out any viable actuarial function? If so, you will understand what I mean.

Sorry, I'm being negative again. =)

[NO1UNO]

I think I understand. Hang in there.

[Anonymous]

MM-
While you are certainly entitled to getting the info you need to make your decision, the company is entitled to get the info they need to make their decision as well. Whether you are a job-hopper, are perpetually dissatisfied, are impossible to get along with, etc, are certainly relevant to the prospective employer.

[Anonymous]

On 2002-02-12 11:51, Marshall_Mathers wrote:
Sorry for the hostility. It's not the exams (I passed one last sitting) but my current job sucks. I'm just tired of the corporate B.S. and the lack of challenging work. I'm tired of working for someone who just wants to get what they can out of you instead of caring about job satisfaction and career advancement. Ever work for a place that wiped out any viable actuarial function? If so, you will understand what I mean.



Amen, bro'. I know what you mean. In the same situation right now. I thouhgt I was the only one!

[42]

MM - a few observations: I assume you meant that there will always be somebody that you work with that you don't get along with. If it's more than one or two people on a regular basis, this may be a red flag to interviewers. No matter how tactfully or diplomatically you do it, if you are evasive and stingy with information at an interview, the interviewer is likely to conclude (rightly or not) that you have something to hide. Can you clarify what you mean by "wiping out any viable actuarial function"? Do you mean that the actuarial department has been reduced to being not much more than number crunchers? If so, there's the place to start. Explain that your reason for leaving is that you feel actuaries have much more to offer than just number-crunching, and you want a chance to show off your ability to make business decisions.Good luck.

[Marshall_Mathers]

I'll give you hard to get along with, but job hopping and perpetual dissatisfaction are created by companies that poorly manage their staffs. Unfortunately, you can't find out about a poor employer in the interviewing process. They are trying to sell themselves as well in an interview and they are not going to say something bad about themselves. What is wrong with moving from job to job until you find the right one? This is a free society and we have the right to change jobs if we want to. We shouldn't have to be indentured servants when we take a job. When I take a job, I don't want to feel that I have signed away several years of my life with a company because I will be viewed negatively because I left after a short time. I have never seen anyone leave a company because they were a bad employee. People leave because of the company. Job hopping is a negative stereotype with no basis of fact. It's been put out there to control our freedoms. Employers have a selfish reason to keep employees tied to a job and they created these unwritten rules against us.

[42]

<font size=-1>OK, the little voice inside my head is screaming "DON'T FEED THE TROLL", but I've gotta give him the benefit of the doubt on the off chance that he's actually serious.</font>

MM, your first two sentences seem contradictory. Is job hopping and perpetual dissatisfaction prevalant at these companies, or is it just you? If it's prevalent, then you should have been able to ascertain this at an interview. Did you ask the employer what the turnover rate was like? Did you ask the interviewers (or other employees of the company) questions like "If you could change one thing about the company, what would it be?" They will either have to show you part of the negative side of the company, or BS you, and you can spot a BS answer to this type of question a mile away.

As for job-hopping, you're free to do it as often as you like. Just as the companies doing the hiring are free to view this as a sign that you might not tend to stick around very long. Couple that with an attitude that it's always "the other guy's fault", and you may be taking yourself out of the running for a number of good jobs.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: 42 on 2002-02-12 15:54 ]</font>

[openminded]

...

[Incredible Hulctuary]

On 2002-02-11 12:10, Gregor Grub wrote:
You have to hold down Alt and type 130 on the numerical pad, not on the main keyboard. Does that work for you?


Ok, now it works. Before I was using the numbers on the top.<:)

Anytime I needed special characters, I would always use a hexadecimal editor or otherwise supply the ASCII codes. But still, it is embarassing :emb: that I've been programming for so many years and didn't know this simple way. This looks like a real sign that I need to change careers.

[Anonymous]

(I'm the poster from the end of page 1)
Yes, job-hopping and perpetual dissatisfaction CAN be a function of the company, but they most definitely can also be a function of the individual employee. I've known people who always think the grass is greener on the other side of the fence, whose expectations of the job, how fast they'll be promoted, what kind of salary increases they'll get, etc, are unrealistic. They are job-hoppers who are perpetually unhappy BECAUSE OF THEIR OWN PERSONALITY, ATTITUDE, EXPECTATIONS, ETC. In that case, it is not a function of the company. The company must try to assess whether the interviewee is that kind of person because it is not in their best interests to hire such a person.

[Marshall_Mathers]

FYI - I have never been a Troll.

The underlying problem I have with asking questions about prior employers is the perception that there are no bad companies, only bad employees. The whole interviewing process is so imperfect that it seems like a "search and destroy" mission. Interviewers focus on the negative things and disqualify you if it can find one. No one is perfect and everyone has made mistakes. This applies to both companies and workers. The problem is a question of being honest. If anyone was truely honest in the interviewing proccess, you wouldn't be able to fill or find a job. The interviewing process is a process of misinformation and deception on both sides. It's this kind of BS that I hate about the corporate setting.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Marshall_Mathers on 2002-02-13 12:51 ]</font>

[openminded]

...

[Anonymous]

Yeah, there's some BS involved, but what system would be better?

[Dr T Non-Fan]

I prefer honesty. I don't want to work for anyone who cannot accept me for who I am. (Already having a job makes this pretty easy.)
And I never interview with Human Resources as part of a prescreening process. They never like who I am, and I won't ever be working for them.

[Marshall_Mathers]

The biggest problem with the whole corporate setting is that it doesn't allow people to be who they are unless it fits the stereotypes. I come from a blue collar upbringing. I was forced into a white collar world to make a decent living. My future would have been in the steel mills of Gary, Indiana if that would not have dried up in the early 80's. I prefer being around blue collar people. They are generally honest people who work very hard (physical labor) and are very down to earth.

[openminded]

...

[NO1UNO]

[tan] I grew up in Griffith.[tan]

[Anonymous]

Me again.
Maybe I work for an extraordinary company or maybe the sound of my own drum just drowns out trivial noises, but I don't get the "stereotypes" thing. I don't schmooze and I don't golf, but I have never felt like I'm not fitting into some pre-defined mold, or that I'm getting passed over or something. I'm not trying to be thick here, but what exactly are you talking about?

[Anonymous]

(Me again.)
I, too, grew up with blue collar types, am from blue collar family, etc. I, too, think they tend to be more down to earth, less pretentious. Maybe that's why I'm so tuned out to the "stereotypes" thing.

[Marshall_Mathers]

Wow! We should start a post for people from Da Region. =)

[davespencer]

To the original poster, I've dealt with many people with circumstances similar to yours over the years. Assuming you are a capable actuary, then consulting should be given serious consideration. You may just not be a "company" guy. I know I'm not, which is why I work for myself.

[42]

{soap box = on} Sorry about the "troll" comment - your post seemed so extreme that it was hard to tell if you were serious or if you were just baiting me. My family could not have been more dirt-poor blue-collar, so I know what you mean about it being hard to make the transition, but I don't think it has ever hurt me on an interview. And, to some degree, if you want the perqs of a white-collar job, you have to live with the negative side of it. You can't have it both ways.

I'm sorry you've had such bad experiences on interviews. All I can say is that not all companies are like that. At my previous company, we put an exceptional amount of work into the interview process. We understand that problems in the past could be caused by the employee, the company, or both. And believe it or not, most companies actually want to fill their open positions, so they're actually looking for reasons why they SHOULD hire you, but they're also not going to ignore clear red flags that indicate they SHOULDN'T.

We took great pains to make sure that each interviewer asked exactly as many "positive" questions as "negative" ones. (A positive question was one that allows the candidate to tell us about his accomplishments; a negative one inquires about past problems.) With the negative questions, we understand that everybody makes mistakes and everybody has weak points. We just wanted to see what those mistakes/weaknesses were (and are they ones that can be corrected with training/maturity/whatever, that don't matter for this particular job, or that our particular company can live with), what did you learn from past mistakes, did you accept some responsibility for the problem or did you always blame the other person or the company, etc.

We strived to make candidates as comfortable as possible in order to make it easier for them to be honest. I agree completely with DTNF's comments. We want the candidate to know exactly what he's getting into, and we want to know everything about him - warts and all. We don't like surprises for either side after we've hired somebody. And DTNF, amen to not letting HR run the process!

MM, in my opinion, the biggest challenge you are facing is that you have had some very bad interviewing experiences in the past that have left you so bitter and jaded about interviewing that you stand a good chance of sabotaging future interviews because of your attitude. I know it's hard to let go of all the crap from the past, but you need to do it if you want to break out of the vicious cycle of being weeded out by the good companies and settling for the ones that you only want to leave a few years later. Good luck. {OK, way overdue for soapbox = off}