Quantum News

The year is flying past and, once again, you may have noticed a wee gap in the quarterly delivery of the newsletters from Quantum Selection. In keeping with the culture within which we now live, it is imperative that we find someone else to blame for this shortcoming on our part, and we’ll let you know who’s at fault as soon as we find a good reason for blaming them.

TRENDS IN THE RECRUITMENT SCENE

One of our directors, Susan Robertson, recently returned from visiting some of our popular destinations and she reports that the demand for life actuaries is still strong in most areas of the globe.
In the UK large direct offices are recruiting on a number of fronts. Modelling experience is especially sought, but companies are prepared to consider candidates with a strong life background and other relevant skills as they are struggling to find enough candidates with modelling skills. It is also interesting to note that UK companies seem to be have returned to viewing overseas actuaries more favourably, again provided they have a strong life background.

Quantum Selection currently has many life and health openings in the UK, both in direct offices and consultancies, for actuaries from a variety of backgrounds. In particular, we are keen to speak to recently qualified actuaries having an in depth knowledge of embedded value methodologies.
For life actuaries in Asia, the nearly or newly qualified level is still the most sought after level, but there are some requirements at the more senior levels too. As in the UK, a number of large international direct offices are looking to recruit in several areas of the companies and in fact a variety of locations. At the moment we are looking for product development and pricing experience in Singapore and Malaysia and both product and financial reporting experience for Hong Kong. USGAAP and IFRS experience is always marketable. The need for life consulting actuaries in Asia seems to be on the up and currently we have requirements at the recently qualified level in Hong Kong and Beijing and for a life consulting actuary with around five years pqe in Singapore.

Growth on the life side continues in India – one particularly interesting role and a great opportunity to gain international exposure is with a consultancy providing actuarial services to their consultants around the world. Candidates with strong technical backgrounds and able to manage projects from start to finish are ideal.

Traditionally, demand has always mostly been for life actuaries in Asia, but there is a definite spark of interest in other areas and some predict that actuaries with general insurance experience will be in high demand in the region in the years ahead. We’ll need to wait and see, but for the moment we have two different consultancies looking for general insurance consulting actuaries in Singapore. For those on the benefits side, we have international consultancies looking for benefits consulting actuaries in Hong Kong, Greater China and Japan

On the whole, language skills remain crucial, with fluent English an important requirement for most locations in Asia, particularly at the more senior levels. Next in line is Mandarin and we still want to hear from any Korean-speaking actuaries interested in working in Korea.

Actuaries who have spent a bit of time gaining experience in the UK or North America and now want to return to Asia are also enjoying popularity, of course provided they have the right skills and experience!

We have some exciting roles for qualified actuaries in the general insurance sphere in the UK. Leadership skills are a prerequisite for success in these roles, and strong technical knowledge is essential, together with the ability to communicate at all levels. Consulting roles predominate the UK benefits arena, while scheme actuaries, as always, are much sought after.

General trends show an increase in the number of vacancies on offer for those looking to change jobs, but even with this increased demand, it seems that companies are still waiting until they find the right calibre of candidate, usually one with recent relevant experience. This means it is vitally important that the experience you are gaining now improves your marketability to the companies (and in the locations) you most wish to work in future. Students need to pay particular attention to progressing their exams (preferably not at the cost of gaining valuable experience) in order to remain competitive in the tough junior level markets.

So while the job market for actuaries is looking more favourable, it is still important to stand out from the crowd when looking for a new job. This means you need to think carefully before you make any decisions that may impact on your future marketability. At QS we are always happy to chat to you about your current decisions, even if you are not considering an immediate job change, or want advice on a recent internal or external offer.

If you are still in the very early stages of considering your options, you may also like to use www.movingactuary.com to exchange information on the actuarial job markets with other actuaries around the world.

GOOD REASONS TO QUIT YOUR JOB (OR NOT)

Thinking back over all the career moves that I have made, I can cite family reasons for two job changes, and salary, not getting on with the boss and relocation in the other three instances (well it’s been quite a long career). Frequency of changes aside, my reasons for resigning appear to be common to many in the actuarial field.

Resignation, however, is not a solution to all workplace problems and should not be undertaken lightly. No matter how convinced you are that resigning is the only logical course of action in your specific circumstances (perhaps you’ve been offered a new and exciting role in another company, or perhaps you are just fed up with all the corporate politics in your current situation), never underestimate the emotional trauma of leaving one employer for another.

Almost without exception, there is initially a feeling of guilt and of having ‘let the side down’. This is always strongest when you have been fairly happy with your employer, but you deem that a move is in the best interests of your career. Here loyalties are torn and your colleagues may even interpret your move as a rejection of them, which can leave a bitter taste in the mouth.

Settling into a new place of employment is also an extremely stressful experience. At the more senior levels in particular, it can take months, or even years, until you understand the corporate dynamics sufficiently well to enable you to blend and flow comfortably within them.

So the moral of the story is – be absolutely sure, before setting any wheels in motion, that quitting is really and truly what you need to do. Then prepare yourself mentally for the upheaval, take a deep breath, and plunge!

A common reason for wanting to resign (but one that I don’t wholeheartedly recommend) is that of changing your area of work within the actuarial sphere. Many actuarial students start their career in a certain area of actuarial work simply because it’s their first (or perhaps only) job offer. A couple of years down the line as they learn more about the actuarial world, the feeling starts to nag that perhaps the grass would have been greener on the other side. If you find yourself in this position after, say, three years in a pensions role, is it wise to resign in order to switch into a general insurance role?

Wise maybe, but feasible, maybe not. There seem to be very few people who actually manage to get it right in this manner. This doesn’t mean that it’s impossible to switch from pensions to GI, just that there are few people who actually resign from their employer in order to do this.

By far the more common route would be to pursue the switch within the company for which you are already working (assuming that they operate in both fields). Because they know and value you, they are far more likely to entertain your request to switch fields than would be a new employer who has little feel for your true capabilities. If you are in the unfortunate position of working for a company that specialises in one area of actuarial work only (and you really, really, really want to change fields), then you will, in all likelihood, have to make the move in two stages. The first stage would be to resign and move into a larger company that does both pensions and general insurance business, using your pensions experience to gain you an entry into the pensions area of the new company. Once you have proved your worth and established a reputation for yourself (which doesn’t happen overnight), you could then broach the subject of an internal move to GI.

Another interesting reason for quitting work that seems to be becoming more common these days is ‘studies’. Our experience is that an increasing number of students in the UK are considering stopping work in order to pursue their studies on a full time basis. The logic, obviously, is that it is easier to succeed in the exams if you don’t have the pressures of work to contend with. The hope also, is that you can return to work fully qualified and a step higher up the career ladder.

Whether this works in practice is entirely dependent both on your gaining adequate experience prior to taking the study break, as well as on market conditions at the time of your return. This is partially, but not fully, under your control. Too little experience prior to resigning will leave you barely better off than a new entrant to the job market. Great qualifications and limited experience make very uncomfortable bedfellows and are likely to hinder your return to the job market rather than benefit it.

On the other hand, good solid experience, teamed with a short break to clinch that final exam, will probably not do you any great harm. In this instance the market conditions prevailing at the time of your return would have the greatest impact. In an employer’s market you may find moments when you question the wisdom of your decision. Under current conditions, however, you probably wouldn’t regret it unduly (particularly not if your experience was in life modelling).

A word of caution – more often than not, full time study doesn’t turn out to be as easy as expected and results are very often not as good as hoped. You could then be in the unfortunate position of taking time out of the job market and not progressing very much (or at all!) with the exams. This, coupled with the fact that some of the more senior recruiting actuaries might prefer to see candidates who can pass exams while working (as was the case in their time), is unlikely to work to your advantage.

I also found myself wondering whether it is becoming any less common for actuaries to resign for ‘family reasons’, given that I have used this twice myself as an excuse for change. There are strong pressures on employers (both actuarial and other) to provide a healthy working environment in which staff members are able to achieve a satisfactory work life balance. I know, however, that some actuarial environments (particularly in the consulting world) still make huge demands on the time of their employees. Do the mums and dads of the actuarial clan manage to walk the career vs. family tightrope successfully, or have they fallen off one or other side?

The actuarial profession does appear to be one in which resources are definitely channelled into staff retention and, on the whole, staff turnover is relatively low when compared with many other fields. However, it would be very interesting to obtain an overview of the reasons given by actuaries for changing jobs, as well as the frequency of these changes. If you’d like to participate in a survey of this nature, please go to http://www.movingactuary.com/viewtopic.php?t=97 and click on your choice (you’ll need to register if you haven’t already). We’ll let you have the results in our next newsletter.

MOVINGACTUARY.COM

On the subject of the Moving Actuary forum (yes, we have mentioned it quite a bit in this issue), a reminder that the www.movingactuary.com forum is up and running. After an initial flurry, things have quietened down and we are quite keen to gain some momentum here, so if all of our newsletter recipients could take a few minutes to perhaps post one ‘query’ and one ‘answer’ this could make a huge difference to the early success of this forum. We can also start thinking about going ahead with location specific salary surveys once we have enough participation. Thanks (in anticipation) for your time!

PARTING SHOT

An actuary, two accountants and a hippie were flying in a four seat plane when the actuary calculated it was highly probable they would run out of fuel and crash over the sea if they did not parachute to safety over land soon. The accountants found the parachutes and after several minutes of calculations came back together to announce there were only three parachutes, but four people. One of the accountants sarcastically looked at the actuary and said, "You actuaries are supposed to be so smart - why don't you figure out how 3 can equal 4?" The actuary seriously replied, "The proof would be a waste of time; the most logical way to decide this is to have the person with the smallest remaining life expectancy stay on the plane." When the actuary did the calculations, he decided that the 54-year-old smoking hippie was the one who had to stay. With this decided, the actuary promptly grabbed a parachute and jumped out. The accountants looked at the hippie with a great deal of guilt since they hadn't comprehended the calculations or the logic behind the decision. The hippie looked at them and said, "Man, that really sucks! I wish I could have gotten my pot out of my backpack before that actuary jumped out with it." (Courtesy of members.aol.com/fcas/jokes.html).

UPDATE

We would really appreciate your keeping us up to date on new exam passes, recent work experience and any other changes in the details we hold on file for you. If we have not heard from you for some time, please take the time to update us, either by using the link below, or by contacting your recruitment consultant directly.
Email: update@quantumselection.com

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