Your international recruitment and jobs for actuaries and actuarial students.

  Introduction for new students


  Advice for new actuarial students
  How do I become an Actuary
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  Get your CV noticed
  Potential Employers
  Interview advice


  Planning your career
  How to get your CV noticed
  Preparing a winning CV
  Step by Step CV
  Interview advice and preparation

Keep your CV honest, concise and interesting, ideally no longer than two pages. Think of your CV as the most important marketing presentation you will ever make.

Presentation is a personal choice, but do keep in mind how you would do a normal report or presentation at work or study. Would you present it in the form of tables? This can get very complicated and is not always very easy to read. CVs with titles down the LHS and text down the RHS of the page are very popular, but would you present a report in this lopsided format?

SPELLING AND GRAMMAR MUST BE METICULOUS. Always use proper, full sentences. Do not rely on software to check your spelling and always set the Language to be correct, otherwise you may have American spelling (the usual MS Word default) in an English CV.

• Assume the reader is going to just glance at the CV. The most important points must jump out at them. This can be done by selectively and sparingly using a bold font.
  
• Assume the reader may not get to the second page. The most important information must be on the first page.
  
• Ruthlessly cut out any duplicate or unnecessary wording. Ask yourself ‘Does this add value?’ to every sentence or word in the CV. For example, to write ‘Employer:’ before the employer name is superfluous.

Use only one simple font, keeping the same font size (between 10 and 12) throughout. Don’t make your margins too thin in order to fit more into a page. This makes the page look too full and when sent via e-mail, some of the text may be cut off printed on different printer settings.

Keep paragraphs short and use bullet points, but do remember to use complete sentences. Don’t use numbering. Use bold to highlight key phrases (rather than headings), but don’t use too much bold or you will defeat the objective. Also avoid too much underlining.

Use spacing uniformly and generously. If you are going to be clever with different spacing before and after each line, do make sure that you are absolutely consistent and the spacing follows a pattern. You may find it easier to use single spacing throughout and simply do an extra return where you need one.

Don’t use abbreviations of any sort, particularly for technical jargon. The meaning may seem obvious to you, but may not be to the reader. Even common abbreviation usage should be avoided, except for months of the year. Abbreviations will not shorten the time that the reader will take the read the CV. Even with months of the year, do be consistent. For example, do not refer January 1998 in one section and Dec 97 in another.

Use full pages if possible. Avoid going partly into a second or third page, but don’t add extra content simply to make up a page. Reformat, change font size, make small changes to the margins, change your spacing – get inventive, but retain a professional presentation.

Now we’ll look at each section in order, but do feel free to use any format that follows the same basic principles.

Use a simple heading

Your name will do fine as the heading, but if you must, you could include ‘Curriculum Vitae’ or ‘CV’ followed by your name. Do NOT have a separate page simply for the heading – this will waste the reader’s time.

Include your contact details in tiny italic font under your name in the format of a letterhead. This saves the reader from wasting precious seconds wading through the contact information at the start of the CV. Remember that agencies will, in any case, take off your contact details before forwarding to a company

Do you really need to include a PROFILE or Summary?

Usually a profile is just a summary of other parts of the CV and duplication should be avoided. Because of its subjective nature, this section is unlikely to be regarded very highly by the reader. However, a profile could be useful if you have been involved in a wide range of different areas of work and now want to focus your core experience, or where your past experience does not reflect your future direction.

Avoid including goals or career intentions in this section as this may exclude you from opportunities that may otherwise have interested you. You should especially keep away from anything that sounds like a personal mission statement.

If you feel compelled to include this section, keep it very short and don’t try to explain too much. Keep it to one or two important points.

Do not clutter the PERSONAL DETAILS section with irrelevant info

Although companies would not discriminate on age, they are still usually interested in your date of birth. Age gives employers a good feel for the timescales in which you have qualified and progressed your career. However, it is not necessary to include this information

You don’t have to include nationality, but it will let companies know whether they will need to secure a work permit for you, which is important from their point of view. Gender is useful if you have a name that is unfamiliar in your intended country.

You may like to include other personal information that paints a pleasing picture, but if it is going to go into too much detail, then perhaps better to move this whole section to the end.

EDUCATION AND QUALIFICATIONS – a very important section

Structure your education in reverse chronological order so your actuarial qualification or exam progress, one of the most important parts of your CV, is not buried at the bottom of the page. If your education section is very long and pushes your most recent relevant work experience into the second page, consider using a Qualifications section here for your actuarial and any other professional qualifications and an Education section at some point after your work experience to include the rest of your academic qualifications.

Do not mention actuarial passes on the old system - always translate these into the new system and don’t go into too much detail. It is not necessary to include the date of every exam pass, unless perhaps you have only been passing occasionally over a period of years.

Format the qualifications in bold, not the institution where the qualification was gained. Remember the glancing eye of the reader wants to know first and foremost what you did, not where you did it!

WORKING EXPERIENCE – the other important section

Remember, the key words here are ‘relevant actuarial experience’ and this is what companies are seeking. Along with technical expertise, it is important that actuaries and actuarial students have commercial ability and awareness. Employers are seeking actuaries who can communicate with clients and non-actuarial colleagues, who can identify business opportunities and provide solutions and who can drive their business forward. If you want an employer to be impressed, you need to demonstrate through your working experience that you have developed and ‘proven’ technical and non-technical skills.

Don’t have a separate SKILLS section. This is subjective at best and may not even be skimmed over by the reader. Incorporate your skills into the working experience, by demonstrating areas of work where these skills have been applied.

It is usually best to start with your most recent experience, as this is often most relevant. However, if earlier experience was more relevant and your most recent role has been something totally irrelevant to what you want to do, then start with the earlier jobs. Unless you don’t have a lot of experience, don’t include all your temporary vacation work while studying. That deserves a brief mention at the end, possibly expanding a little more on transferable skills if you are a junior student or new graduate.

Bullet points are useful, but do compile complete and meaningful sentences. Short phrases such ‘defined benefit scheme valuations’ do not add a lot of value. However, you also don’t want to go to the other extreme of explaining in detail how such a valuation is carried out.

Use descriptive job titles, rather than the official job title you had at the time, which may be meaningless to a different employer. Format the title in bold, not the employer’s name and the dates of employment. Remember the glancing eye of the reader wants to know first and foremost what you did, not where you did it! If you feel that the employers name is important (for example, it adds to the job title in providing more information about your job such as Marketing Analyst, XYZ Reinsurance) and you want to emphasise this, then perhaps underline it so that the bold job title still stands out.

List all your strengths and skills on a piece of paper. Add all those achievements in your life that make you feel proud. Now make an honest appraisal of which of these you feel can add value to the type of role you want. Consider the experience that helped you to develop this skill and work out a concise way to fit this into a bullet point in your working experience. If the event occurred during your studies for example at university, then there is no reason not to include a bullet point or two under your university section (e.g. successfully captaining university cricket team and boosting morale to increase attendance and performance)

It is extremely important to include achievements, not just regular tasks in your working experience section. You could even quantify achievements in financial terms where possible.

OTHER SKILLS AND ACHIEVEMENTS – a catch all for anything else relevant

If you have special software or language skills, you may want to include them here. You may want to mention any special achievements that did not fit well in another section.

This is also the place to mention any special courses that you have attended, or professional memberships not previously mentioned.

INTERESTS – a chance to paint a personality picture

List your hobbies and interests in no more than three lines, including special achievements. Any voluntary or charity work or external posts you hold are worth including.

REFERENCES – detail not necessary at this stage

You don’t need to include names and dates at this stage. It is not prudent to give out your references’ contact details to all and sundry, as you want to keep them well disposed towards you. Employers do not usually need references until later, at which point you can call up your chosen references and advise them that you have given their name to XYZ company and explain your reasons for doing so. Not only will they be in a better frame of mind to give the reference, but they will also be prepared and not taken up surprise.

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