Why Are People So Pessimistic About Actuaries On This Board?

Originally Posted by dzdydx

For me, FEM is cause for great concern of the actuarial career in the future.
It is a huge transition, homogenizes/constrains the student population to actsci grads, AND is being forced down the membership's throat by our leaders **Note I'm using present tense as it is alive in Canada, and possibly looking at an implementation schedule of 2011.

So far only the SOA has rejected FEM in its present form, the CAS remains ambivalent, and the CIA is staunchly pro-FEM. It is indeed ironic that on the CIA website, every public communique of the joint FEM committee is publicized in the front page EXCEPT for SOA's rejection. In fact you can't even find any mention of it on the CIA website http://www.actuaries.ca/fem/fem_e.cfm. Huh

Have fun working at Zellers. Didn't Rob Brown send a blast email to the CIA list yesterday about the employment climate? We're quickly getting to the point where the Canadian schools won't matter in the US anymore.

[bdschobel]

Originally Posted by Anonymouse

...Didn't Rob Brown send a blast email to the CIA list yesterday about the employment climate?

Can you share that blast email? I assume it's not exactly confidential if it went to thousands of people already.

Bruce

Originally Posted by bdschobel

Can you share that blast email? I assume it's not exactly confidential if it went to thousands of people already.

Bruce

I didn't get it, but somebody told me about it.

[bdschobel]

Maybe someone here will post it.

Bruce

[dzdydx]

Sry, not a CIA member yet (need Fellow + 3 yr experience). I think the high membership requirements necessarily means that new CIA members are far removed from their examinations and have more work responsibilities so they are less inclined to speak up against the monster that is FEM.

Any Canadians have time to post the CIa email?

[actuarialvoodoo]

Originally Posted by Y2A

There are too many people who got their jobs on here before CBT and before the recession who just don't get what the environment is really like for entry-level candidates. What it is like to spend hundreds of hours of your own time in a cafe doing problems and to have no one care...

Um I hate to burst your bubble, but as a pre-CBT, pre-recession job finding entry-level candidate I still spent (and continue to spend) hundreds of hours of my own time in cafes (I think I'm graduating to bars for Exam 7) and no one cares. (At least not at work. Friends and family care but I didn't think that was what you were getting at.)

On the up side, I've got recruiters beating on my door all the time, so stay the course and continue in your exam prep suffering.

[willel2338]

Originally Posted by Anonymouse

Histrionically the actuarial profession was an easy way to move up into officer level positions at insurance companies. This is not the case any longer, and the trend will probably continue to be the case.

I'm new here, but I've been reading a good bit of posts, and I often see this mentioned. Do you know when this trend started?

I assume it was within the past 10 years, because this excerpt ["The Actuary as CEO" 17 October 1999] is from the SOA's annual meeting in 1999.

Originally Posted by SamChevre

Actuaries do not dominate insurance company risk management and risk policy like they once did. Other credentials will let you do the same work in many cases.

Actuaries are less represented in company leadership than they were, and aren't viewed as a key pool for training company leadership.

And it's a bit of a vicious circle; as actuaries do less of the risk management, and are looked at as a key leadership pool less, they are chosen and trained more and more as really smart clerks, and get less good at risk management and leadership.

I don't disagree with you. My $0.02 and understanding why:

Is there not a glut of mid-level actuaries [those between 3-7 exams] and a relative scarcity of qualified FCAS/FSA??

I don't know from personal experience, but from what I've read and heard, most actuarial students are not all that helpful to the top line in terms of real, actuarial workflows and processes until after they have their letters. In fact, one of the only reasons that junior actuaries are involved in everyday workflows as much as they are is so that they can gain experience to be used later on in their actuarial career. Many students take 10+ years to earn their letters and many fail several exams several times en route. Thus, the societies have been seeking to reduce "travel time" for the past 20 years if I've read correctly.

Perhaps, then, after investing 10+ years and several hundred thousand dollars per FSA/FCAS, companies do not wish to let their "really smart clerks" move into management and, essentially, not do the "real, actuarial" work for which they were trained??


Also, I think one should operate under the correct assumption that good companies are always looking for superstar talent [especially in executive management] and then go from there.

Having said that, the fact that a disproportionate number of CPA's have been promoted to upper management within the last few years is potentially more a function of basic economics and maybe less a function of management's viewpoint that actuaries are only "really smart clerks"??

After Enron, there was significant stock market demand that companies have qualified and competent CPA's be more closely involved with the Board of Directors. Consequently, a lot of superstar talent [with management aspirations] studied Accounting and the cycle perpetuated itself.


Also, most CEO's, when being interviewed about their career path, typically state they just wanted to excel in their field and they had no grandiose plans of becoming the top executive. That is, their impetus was to master their profession and not to quickly rise to management. By most accounts, claiming any type of senior management position [since there are so few] is likely a function of luck as much as it is skill.

-Will

PS, this is my first post.

Originally Posted by willel2338

I'm new here, but I've been reading a good bit of posts, and I often see this mentioned. Do you know when this trend started?

I assume it was within the past 10 years, because this excerpt ["The Actuary as CEO" 17 October 1999] is from the SOA's annual meeting in 1999.

That's probably about right. There are dwindling numbers of insurance company CEOs and even CFOs who are actuaries.

Also, I think one should operate under the correct assumption that good companies are always looking for superstar talent [especially in executive management] and then go from there.

That's very true. The superstar talent they keep their eye out for these days however possesses a skill set that hasn't historically been the strong suit of the actuarial set.

EDIT: Of course, it hasn't historically historically been the strong suit of the actuarial set because it didn't have to be, and consequently most actuaries probably didn't develop those skills. Now that they are necessary, I'd expect more people to work on developing them.

Also, most CEO's, when being interviewed about their career path, typically state they just wanted to excel in their field and they had no grandiose plans of becoming the top executive. That is, their impetus was to master their profession and not to quickly rise to management. By most accounts, claiming any type of senior management position [since there are so few] is likely a function of luck as much as it is skill.

I'd be surprised if many would say otherwise, even if it were true. We once more or less had domain over the opportunities where one could realize such luck, but now face much more competition.

[bdschobel]

Originally Posted by Anonymouse

...Didn't Rob Brown send a blast email to the CIA list yesterday about the employment climate? We're quickly getting to the point where the Canadian schools won't matter in the US anymore.

Yes, he did. Here it is:

From: "Robert L. Brown" [rlbrown@uwaterloo.ca]
Sent: 12/15/2009 03:35 PM EST
To: <general@lists.actuaries.ca>
Subject: Missing Cohorts of Actuaries

As you know, this is a pretty tough job market for many entry-level actuarial candidates.

The last time things were this bad was in 1992/93 when we almost went for two years without hiring (well maybe some Co-op students).

I have heard stories from colleagues over the years that the impact of that missing cohort of actuaries (the classes of 1992 and 1993) was felt for years to come. If, a few years later, you were looking for new Associates, the pool was missing. Even later, new Fellows were hard to come by. And, on and on.

I would like to put together something about 1992/93 that is more than just my fading memories.

If you have felt the impact of the missing 1992/93 cohort, could you drop me a line and document the impact it had on you and your company.

Just a couple of lines will do. Not a whole evening's work, for sure.

And, thanks in advance,

Rob Brown

[plim5]

Originally Posted by actuarialvoodoo

Um I hate to burst your bubble, but as a pre-CBT, pre-recession job finding entry-level candidate I still spent (and continue to spend) hundreds of hours of my own time in cafes (I think I'm graduating to bars for Exam 7) and no one cares. (At least not at work. Friends and family care but I didn't think that was what you were getting at.)

On the up side, I've got recruiters beating on my door all the time, so stay the course and continue in your exam prep suffering.

Hi Actuarialvoodoo,
It sounds like you have passed many exams. Does passing more exams help you get interviews easier? Have you ever worked as an actuary before? Thank you