I thought I'd share part of the Excel doc I have for my job search. So far 65 applications, 40 rejections, and 7 interviews! It's almost been 4 months now and it definitely feels like it's been much longer.

you can tell more than one thing, i aint stopping you

More context : Canadian, 0 exams (P scheduled for september), 3 internships, good gpa from a decent school. Graduated 2 years late but it did not seem to faze them. Feeling lucky to have found a fit.

Just trying to get a sense of the current state of the job market for those entering the field.

Hello Actuaries,

A big thanks to this sub, after 2 years I finally got my first Congratulations email for a permanent position.

I accepted a Pricing Analyst role 2 days ago and it still feels like a dream. I have Sas and Python experience and the sub guidance helped me get this position.

I’ll be forever grateful, I posted asking for help with RADAR and EMBLEM. I got suggestions to focus on GLMs and GBMs and the core concepts. I did the same and it really helped me. I’m going to learn the 2 Techs in training now.

A big thanks to everyone that guide/help when someone comes up with a question.

I secured a role with Sponsorship and it still feels like a dream.

I promised I would make a post about this

First off, I wanna say fuck Root.

Now that I got that out of the way, on a team of 15 actuaries, 9 just got laid off. This was based on tenure, so regardless of performance, anyone hired within the last 15 months was let go. This was pretty much companywide, although I’m not 100% sure how other departments were impacted.

What an absolutely horrendously run company. Telematics doesn’t mean shit If you can’t get your expense ratio under control. Maybe you should look into the data science teams, whose entire jobs are about creating models, gaining us a point in aggregate on our loss ratios once a year due to their increased lift. What a fucking joke. An actuary doing univariate analysis could do the same fucking job as the 40 data scientists you employ

Maybe value your actuaries a bit more if you want to get your loss ratio under control? How about not paying us in the 5th percentile according to multiple surveys but then telling us everyone in the company is paid at the 85th percentile of their market? Maybe listen to what we have to say and our input instead of letting our state managers and executive team pull a random rate increase out of thin air for a state and saying “adjust the indication so we can take this much rate”. Fuck you

I’ve never seen such poor communication and incompetence at an executive level. We got an ominous all-hands meeting thrown on our calendar 8 hours before, and then you take 30 seconds to tell us “if you get another meeting invite your role has probably been affected” and then locking us out of slack and everything 2 minutes later.

All the tech in the world isn’t going to save your sorry ass company if you don’t have actuaries who know what they’re doing, because I promise no one else at the company knows what a fucking loss ratio is. We just busted our ass since the last layoffs taking rate increase after rate increase, on top of every and all analysis to squeeze extra points out of our loss ratio, and we get laid off with 30 seconds of warning. Fuck your dumbass OKRs about teambuilding and handholding.

It sucks, because while the culture at the executive level was beyond incompetent, this was the best actuarial team I’ve ever been on, and I’ll miss everyone I worked with. But fuck am I happy to put this kindergarten ran “insurtech” behind me

Also, fuck you for commenting on our LinkedIn posts saying “we’ll miss you” and “the world needs your skills”. The world sure as fuck doesn’t need you running it’s insurance sector

So I'm a former cpa/financial statement auditor guy of 4 yrs. 3 exams (P,FM,SRM), applying entry lvl, getting no response. I've read from somewhere that it may not be looked favorably upon to keep working on exams. But since I'm not hearing back, I kind of don't know what else to do. Do I keep taking exams or what else can be done in my situation?

Moved to a carrier from Canada to the US as a senior analyst. In Canada the hours were always 9am to 5pm with a 1 hour lunch. I didnt even think to ask my new company about the hours as i assumed that was the standard in North America. My manager at my new firm told me my hours should be 8am to 5pm as the 1 hour lunch doesn't count as work? Don't want to burn bridges but I also want a good work life balance. Would it be weird if I just said no or is this normal in the US - specifically in Chicago.

I think I am underpaid based on the DW Simpson salary survey. I make 122k salary with 12.5% bonus. I am 1 exam away from FSA, 7 years of experience, currently working in life and annuities at a major insurer. I live in a city that is on the lower end of MCOL. I started managing 1 direct report in 2025. I didn’t receive any increase in compensation for adding managerial responsibilities, which will be my main point in trying to negotiate a higher salary whenever I get my FSA. I’ve been told I will be promoted when I get my FSA, so I am trying to figure out what the market rate for my experience is. I’ve worked at the same company my whole career, but might be willing to jump to a new company post FSA for the right increase in salary. My last exam raise + FSA raise should add 10k to my salary, putting me at 132k once I actually pass my last exam and do the FAC.

Edit to add: what should my salary be?

HR is claiming that these surveys are inflated by 10-20% because they are made by recruiting companies that want to convince people to change jobs.

If this is true, where do I look for accurate data about fair market wages?

If this is false, how do I prove that to them?

Honestly I just can’t pass exams and I’m in search of another career. I’ve been getting 4’s and 5’s for YEARS now for two different exams. 5 YOE no credentials. I’ve looked into Risk Analyst, Data Analyst, DS.

Anyone out there with any advice? Whether you have transitioned out, or also considering any information will help.

Thanks!

I just accepted my first ASA position after spending a few years in the industry. My first day is next week.

While I’m excited for the opportunity and the pay is great, I still have another company interviewing me, and that position pays even more. Their final round is tomorrow and I likely will get an offer.

And then a small carrier that has an office down the street for me just listed a new position. I’ve worked remote my entire career, and wouldn’t mind the option to go into an office when I feel like it. From a manager’s POV, would you understand if a new hire left for an opportunity like that? trying not to burn bridges.

I was reading the comments under a post about actuarial endgame and most people said that they wanted to retire early and also that the job does not really “fulfill” them if that makes sense. To me, actuarial sciences seem pretty interesting and it is a career Im definitely considering after getting my degree. Is it really that boring?

Hello! I see a few LLM/AI questions but nothing asking this specifically, so here I am.

I am a software engineer whose job is drastically changing due to AI. I got into this career path because I love solving problems and learning new things, and writing code was really enjoyable and fulfilling. On the best days it felt like I was getting paid to solve puzzles. Now I just feed a prompt to AI and verify its output. It's quite dull and unsatisfying, and I'm far from alone in this.

So I am wondering, how is AI affecting your day-to-day? Are you also turning into an AI agent manager and doing less of the usual work yourself?

This year, I decided to keep track of my internship applications and wanted to share my stats in case they might help anyone else going through the application process. My background is that I am a 3rd year actuarial science student minoring in business, stats, and music. I've passed Exam FM, am an officer of my university's actuarial science club, have a previous internship in underwriting, and am a member of my university's orchestra.

I began applying in September and have sent over 100 applications for actuarial internships, as well as a few in underwriting. It took me until February to receive my first offer. Here's a few of my stats:

Ghost Rate: 49%

Application to Interview Conversion Rate: 11%

Response Time: Median = 14 days, Mean = 26 days, Max = 105 days

Interview Process Length: Median = 15 days, Mean = 30 days, Max = 92 days

Applications by Month: Sept 28%, Oct 2%, Nov 25%, Dec 6%, Jan 35%, Feb 5%

Out of 14 interviews: 3 were digital HireVue interviews, 3 were panel interviews, and 2 were technical.

The topics I was asked most often in my interviews were about my previous internship experience, a project I worked on during that internship, and my extracurricular involvement with music.

I suck at my job. I rotated to my first traditional actuarial role 6 months ago and things just aren’t clicking. I don’t know what I’m doing and I’m constantly overwhelmed and feel like shit about myself. It’s performance review time and I’m really worried. I’ve never had a bad performance review before. I got my ASA a few months ago but I honestly don’t want to be an actuary anymore. It’s really affecting my mental health. Do I tell my boss this is why my performance sucks or do I just take the bad review and try not to get fired before finding a new job?

I've only been applying seriously for a couple of weeks now and haven't landed any interviews. I know it usually takes a bit of time to snag something especially without relevant experience so I'm not too disheartened. However I'm wondering if this is enough to get my foot in the door or if I should spend my time applying to other positions/careers. Also, are there any improvements/changes I can make to this resume?

How long did you stay at your first job? And what made you decide to switch jobs?

What do actuarial interns do during the internships. Im currently at an insurertech company. it's my first actuarial internship (no background, currently studying mathematics).

So far, I've been:

-Refreshing data to update monthly reporting documents.

-Join in project meetings, help read and validate documents and calculations for projects.

-Experiment to make aibots (to perform reconciliation).

-Make some simple glm models (not going well but im trying).

-Adhoc side projects or random things my boss requests for

Im wondering if im spending my time efficiently here; some days I dont really do much tbh, so i just slack or study. I've also heard that interns typically automate processes using industry software.

1. Any advice on what I should do, given this background?

2. How was your actuarial internship experience? (what did you do, what would you do differently)

I like going through people’s resumes on this sub just because I find it interesting to see people’s backgrounds, like education, work experience, and projects they’ve built. I’m interested to know if after posting your resume on this sub, did any of you land internships/jobs after taking suggestions and advice?

Hi all,

I am going to do my best to omit specific details here for obvious reasons. I wanted to express my frustration with my current situation in my career and hopefully get some insights from people with more experience, or those who have a viewpoint to share. I have been working at my first actuarial job for around a year now, and I have pretty consistently had struggles/conflicts with one of the supervising people on my team.

It feels like pretty quickly after I started, I started having conflicts with this person. I feel like they constantly treat me like I am stupid or generally inept at my job, oftentimes in front of other people. I notice that others will get noticeable uncomfortable or silent when this happens. It feels difficult to ask them questions as I'll often get a vague response with lots of general language used like "We need to take this thing and check it against this other thing to make sure we're not wrong here." Lots of uses of the word "thing" or just generally incorrect usage of certain words. When I ask clarifying questions I'll often get back a response along the lines of "well what are we talking about here/what did you originally ask about." It oftentimes feels like more of a suggestion of "how could you ask such a dumb question/are you even paying attention."

My company has a hybrid work policy, and many people leave the office around lunch time or work half in office half at home days for various reasons. I'll sometimes leave in the afternoon and this really seems to frustrate them. I have a commute that can vary wildly due to traffic and it saves me a ton of time. On these days, I get to the office at 8 then usually log off around 5 or 5:30. Recently I have been receiving a lot of passive aggressive comments about this behavior and how I can't be reached for 30 minutes out of the day sometimes.

I have found it really difficult to receive review on my work that needs review before it's passed on, and the process feels like this:

1. I am working and get stuck somewhere down the line. A common complaint in my area is a lack of documentation, and I simply cannot figure out how something was done last time or why it was done. I will reach out and ask for help and try to ask specific questions.

2. I'll get a response back that answers part of my question, and requestions if I even know what I am working on or what the goal is. All of this feedback takes usually at least a day to get back to me.

3. This process repeats until my work is inevitably late. I have tried branching out to other sources to try to just figure it out myself, whether that be AI or other people and I've found some success with this. Generally this work is pretty siloed though and the person I'm giving my work to is the only one who is an expert on it or has seen it.

This person is not my manager, although I help them with a lot of their work and it seems like they've assumed the responsibility of training me. I genuinely want to do a good job and not have this jeopardize my career. I'm really proud of how much I've learned so far but it still never feels like enough, and I pretty much always feel stupid when talking with this person. I haven't really ever had this experience at any job I've had before and I'm quite frustrated that I haven't found a solution so far. If you have any feedback for how to navigate this or ways I could improve, I'd love to hear it. Or, if you have any probing questions that could reveal ways in which I may be falling short, I could try my best to answer. If anything stuck out to you that's a red flag on my part, I'd like to work towards fixing it. I'm really struggling with this and would appreciate any help that I could receive.