Help me with my very first internship interview. 17 y/o ^^

[iwakura42]

Next week I have an interview for an internship position with a prominent reinsurance firm in NYC. I’m a high school student, entering my senior year, and taking the calculus next year (so I obviously have no exams); however, the company is taking about two hours to interview me, including time with a senior actuary and others in the actuarial department, so it seems that they are taking me seriously, as I them. This is a very exciting opportunity for me—but I’ve never had a formal interview before. So, a couple of questions:

-What sort of responsibilities do first-level interns hold; in essence, what do they do?
-While most interns are hired with one or two exams, but is the specific knowledge on the exams necessary to do intern-level work? E.g., is sophisticated knowledge of probability and statistics (beyond that of an introductory college / AP course, say) necessary to do work? I imagine there is a lot of data out there that needs simply to be plugged into the existing formulas and tables.
-Any other tips about the interview process? It seems to me the most important part of this is the company figuring out where, exactly, they can use me. I feel I should have some ideas/suggestions on hand with regard to this.

I’m especially interested in comments from P/C and/or reinsurance actuaries, but others, please respond as well.

Thanks, RFers; this may be my first post, but I’ve been lurking for a while. I have this great opportunity very few my age ever get, and I want to make the absolute most of it.

My advice, don't sweat the interview of the details of the job. You'll be doing grunt work in some form.Exactly what is probably irrelevant.

Concentrate on investigating the company. Find out the structure, products, sales, etc (tour the website). Act enthusiastic. Between acting enthusastic and being able to drop something like "well I know you sell product XYZ, does that mean yada yada yada" to show you've done your homework, I don't think they would expect more than that.

Oh, and congrats BTW. That's a pretty big accomplishment, just getting the interview. Shave. Dust off the prom suit and shine your shoes .

[Dharma bum]

Wow, that's impressive! Good luck on your interview!

I have one more year of college left and am in the middle of a P&C internship for the summer. At my company, and I'm sure several others, there is no difference between an intern and a new full-time hire except that one is sticking around come August. We do the exact same work. You're right when you say you don't need the calculus and probability, per se. We've been doing rate level indications for certain states, rewriting some policies, etc...so yes, there's a lot of data and a lot of computer calculation, but it's good to have the intuition of where the trending and modeling comes from. The one thing I worry about, not to question your abilities, is that we actually file our results with a state's Dept of Insurance and the new rates are implemented, and I don't know how apt a Dept would be to accept the rates that a high schooler wrote.

How are your computer skills? Excel, Access, etc? During your interview, since you're so young you'll probably also want to emphasize that you have at least similar skills to college interns--have examples of of leadership, team work, ability to learn and learn from mistakes, business sense, things like that, ready to explain.

Good luck again!

[TiderInsider]

Originally Posted by Dharma bum

The one thing I worry about, not to question your abilities, is that we actually file our results with a state's Dept of Insurance and the new rates are implemented, and I don't know how apt a Dept would be to accept the rates that a high schooler wrote.

On the other hand, rates written by a seasoned college junior would be A OK. Especially if this is your second internship.

[twig93]

An eagerness to learn is what would impress me the most if I was the interviewer. They know that you don't know much, so they're going to be looking for someone that can and will learn quickly.

Also, as Dharma mentioned, highlight any computer skills that you have, particularly experience with Excel or Access.

[Ailing Factuary]

You are taking the calculus next year and have an interview now?? Sheesh, I know people that have had years of the calculus and can't even get an internship interview.

[iwakura42]

Yes, Ailing, indeed. I'm hoping to learn from this thread whether this might be a "real" actuarial internship or not--if someone of my limited experience could handle such work.

[paranoid]

It might be a real interview. It might be a recruiting tactic for the future. Use it to your advantage. Ask lots of questions about the field, the company, exams, the type of work they do. At a minimum, you have the opportunity to gather great information.

We have had college freshman as interns. If you do get the internship, don't sweat it. If you can handle yourself on the computer, work hard, and are eager to learn, you'll be okay. They know how old you are and how much experience you have, they won't likely throw you in the deep end. But you will have a chance to gain valuable experience is you observe other people and talk to them.

BTW, our official stance is that interns do the same work as full time hires. That's a big lie, at least here. Some of what we do is real drudge work. In the beginning, you spend a pretty good portion of your time on that type of work. We do expose interns to day to day type work, but the percentage of the time they spend on 'exciting' projects is much higher than a new hire.

Don't get me wrong, there is some logic to it. We are trying to show them a broad range of work in a short amount of time. But the internship is a recruiting event. We are putting our best foot forward.

Anyway, I digress. Best of luck with your meeting. Interview or not, it's great to get to talk to people in the field at this stage to learn more for the future.

[Ailing Factuary]

Originally Posted by iwakura42

Yes, Ailing, indeed. I'm hoping to learn from this thread whether this might be a "real" actuarial internship or not--if someone of my limited experience could handle such work.

I had a couple of internships in the past. One of them, I have a guy feeling that it would be too hard to handle as it was pretty programming heavy. The other one....I think any fairly intelligent person could have handled it, regardless of their experience up to that point.