Actuarial Studies - right path for me? (2 Viewers)

[dvse]

the actual pay is not that great...i started doing actuary wanting to be an actuary then i worked at Deutsche Bank and realised so many ppl resigned from their previous actuarial roles because 1) boring and 2) pay wasnt as great as they hyped it up

I think the way to look at it is as following - "business" education is more or less garbage, no exception. It has few difficult concepts and for the most part the "theories" are completely obvious (or grossly unrealistic). Employers realise this and don't really give a damn about what you've studied - what they are looking for as far as "technical" skills go is whether you understand the jargon and not afraid of adding/multiplying a few numbers together in Excel.

There are also "professional qualifications" but they are irrelevant outside insurance/accounting. Finance, actuarial, econometrics - they are all just different takes on what in the end is elementary and useless crap.

 

[§eraphim]

I think the way to look at it is as following - "business" education is more or less garbage, no exception. It has few difficult concepts and for the most part the "theories" are completely obvious (or grossly unrealistic). Employers realise this and don't really give a damn about what you've studied - what they are looking for as far as "technical" skills go is whether you understand the jargon and not afraid of adding/multiplying a few numbers together in Excel.

There are also "professional qualifications" but they are irrelevant outside insurance/accounting. Finance, actuarial, econometrics - they are all just different takes on what in the end is elementary and useless crap.

You are talking shit. How do you know what employers want if you never worked in the industry?

Basically at the moment there is shortage of roles, and you need to make contribute to PnL in some way immediately, so you need to have some business knowledge at hand to maximise the opportunity. I think a combined degree is the idea compromise between specialised business knowledge and general problem solving and writing skills, eg BEc/BSc (Maths).

PS. You need FIAA to be an approved actuary to sign off on liability valuations.

 

[ninjapuppet]

the actual pay is not that great...i started doing actuary wanting to be an actuary then i worked at Deutsche Bank and realised so many ppl resigned from their previous actuarial roles because 1) boring and 2) pay wasnt as great as they hyped it up

any hints on what salary ranges it "actually" was?
I have a cousin that has been an actuary at Rice Warner Actuaries for 4 years. dont know how much he makes, but he needed to borrow money off me for his car... and he did say that actuarial salary is grossly hyped up as you mentioned.

 

[BeeCom]

any hints on what salary ranges it "actually" was?
I have a cousin that has been an actuary at Rice Warner Actuaries for 4 years. dont know how much he makes, but he needed to borrow money off me for his car... and he did say that actuarial salary is grossly hyped up as you mentioned.

I think people do Actuary for the quantitative skills it provides in order to get into banking. AFAIK it is a 'respected' major that shows you are intelligent if you have reasonable marks. As opposed to say accounting/finance although that's not to say these majors aren't respected.

 

[dvse]

You are talking shit. How do you know what employers want if you never worked in the industry?

For what it's worth, I've worked in the "industry" longer than you have. For most jobs in finance you don't need anything beyond the lingo and elementary Excel. It is you who has a distorted view.

Basically at the moment there is shortage of roles, and you need to make contribute to PnL in some way immediately, so you need to have some business knowledge at hand to maximise the opportunity. I think a combined degree is the idea compromise between specialised business knowledge and general problem solving and writing skills, eg BEc/BSc (Maths).

Contribute to P/L? Other than for some very specific roles (e.g. trading/sales) nobody even knows how much whole departments are contributing, let alone individual employees. Oh, and knowing the jargon is the closest to "business knowledge" you would get out of a BCom anyway. I agree about combined degrees btw.

PS. You need FIAA to be an approved actuary to sign off on liability valuations.

Note how I said that "professional qualifications" are irrelevant outside of insurance.

 

[Studentleader]

I think people do Actuary for the quantitative skills it provides in order to get into banking. AFAIK it is a 'respected' major that shows you are intelligent if you have reasonable marks. As opposed to say accounting/finance although that's not to say these majors aren't respected.

Actuarial Sciences is NOT a good major if you want to get high up into banking. It is not a corprately accredited degree.

I don't know much about actuarial syllabuses but if all you do is excel mathematics is a far better option.

 

[EvoRevolution]

You shouldn't do a course which earns you tonnes of cash. Yes it would be could to get a job which gets you 100k+ first year but its really unrealistic. Go for something which you enjoy and will love to do. In the end if your really good at something you will get cash. My dads friends son was a some freak in maths and did a computer course in uni and was hired by google because of his maths skills and now gets 200K+.

 

[BeeCom]

Actuarial Sciences is NOT a good major if you want to get high up into banking. It is not a corprately accredited degree.

I don't know much about actuarial syllabuses but if all you do is excel mathematics is a far better option.

"Corporate accredited degree" - sorry what? I see plenty of actuarial majors getting into banking, and it does give require you to think unlike other business majors. I don't think any particular position discriminates what sort of mathematical discipline you came from when applying for various IB jobs, 95% them basically ask for any quantitatively orientated degree and you have to do their training program regardless of what degree/major you did. My observation is that bankers just want talented people and a good way of showing that is achieving good marks in a 'hard' degree such as actuarial studies.

I might be a bit biased though because I'm planning on doing actuarial studies or quant finance post-grad though

 

[Omnidragon]

For what it's worth, I've worked in the "industry" longer than you have. For most jobs in finance you don't need anything beyond the lingo and elementary Excel. It is you who has a distorted view.



Contribute to P/L? Other than for some very specific roles (e.g. trading/sales) nobody even knows how much whole departments are contributing, let alone individual employees. Oh, and knowing the jargon is the closest to "business knowledge" you would get out of a BCom anyway. I agree about combined degrees btw.



Note how I said that "professional qualifications" are irrelevant outside of insurance.

Well it's pretty easy to know how much people are contributing in most service industry roles. Every parter/md has a set of people under them, and the client fees they bring in minus their employee expenses is more or less than earnings contribution. I'd imagine legal advice, auditing, m&a advisory, ecm etc would all be pretty susceptible to having their earnings traced to teams at the very least.

If business jargon was all that mattered, all you need to do is surf some forums and learn the language. Won't even need a degree. But even at this stage of my career, all my friends in recruitment agency roles are still telling me how my marks in particular finance subjects are going to differentiate me etc, and how other friends might stand lesser chances for other roles because they were had weaker marks in some finance subjects.

Now I'm not trying to say employers value what you 'learnt' out of those subjects. For the life of me I couldn't remember how to do Black Scholes because I don't need to. But clearly what you did is still looked at.

 

[Studentleader]

"Corporate accredited degree" - sorry what? I see plenty of actuarial majors getting into banking, and it does give require you to think unlike other business majors. I don't think any particular position discriminates what sort of mathematical discipline you came from when applying for various IB jobs, 95% them basically ask for any quantitatively orientated degree and you have to do their training program regardless of what degree/major you did. My observation is that bankers just want talented people and a good way of showing that is achieving good marks in a 'hard' degree such as actuarial studies.

I might be a bit biased though because I'm planning on doing actuarial studies or quant finance post-grad though

It is not a degree that is viewed to get you up into the corprate ladder.

 

[BeeCom]

It is not a degree that is viewed to get you up into the corprate ladder.

Ok? I don't understand your point then. You said Actuarial Studies wasn't a corporately accredited degree (what ever that means) but now you say it doesn't matter what degree you do in order to climb the corporate ladder (which I was never referring to at any point anyway).

 

[dvse]

Well it's pretty easy to know how much people are contributing in most service industry roles.

If it is consulting / front office IB of course, sure as hell ain't easy for most corporate jobs. Note how the former measure the fees they've charged, rather than the value created for the clients.

If business jargon was all that mattered, all you need to do is surf some forums and learn the language. Won't even need a degree.

Jargon and perhaps some vague understanding of how things work. One could indeed learn this from reading various forums.

But even at this stage of my career, all my friends in recruitment agency roles are still telling me how my marks in particular finance subjects are going to differentiate me etc, and how other friends might stand lesser chances for other roles because they were had weaker marks in some finance subjects.

Think of your degree as an extended IQ/work ethic test. I claim that business "education" has no other value. The reason people prefer to hire commerce grads? Well, they don't want to spend any more time explaining things/terms than they must / some indication of interest / good old groupthink etc.

Now I'm not trying to say employers value what you 'learnt' out of those subjects. For the life of me I couldn't remember how to do Black Scholes because I don't need to. But clearly what you did is still looked at.

I think we agree!

 

[Studentleader]

Ok? I don't understand your point then. You said Actuarial Studies wasn't a corporately accredited degree (what ever that means) but now you say it doesn't matter what degree you do in order to climb the corporate ladder (which I was never referring to at any point anyway).

I'd define a corprately acredited degree as one that would would get you up into middle management and beyond. It does matter - I never said that it didn't.

It (Actuarial Sciences) is not a degree that is viewed to get you up into the corprate ladder.

 

[BeeCom]

I'd define a corprately acredited degree as one that would would get you up into middle management and beyond. It does matter - I never said that it didn't.

Can you clarify why an actuarial major would put someone at a disadvantage versus a finance or accounting major when trying to climb the corporate ladder? I am talking about banking roles btw, not insurance or actual acturial work for an insurance company.

 

[Studentleader]

Can you clarify why an actuarial major would put someone at a disadvantage versus a finance or accounting major when trying to climb the corporate ladder? I am talking about banking roles btw, not insurance or actual acturial work for an insurance company.

It really is a quantitative role as opposed to a management role - I can't recall the source of where it says it isn't a way to get up into the corprate ladder though it might have been in an investment banking career guide, an actuary job guide, Wilmott forums or Mark Joshi's forums.

If you assume an actuary would work as a 'Quant' within a banking institution there is Mark's reply to this thread I posted Quant Finance books forum • View topic - Undergraduate courses for intended career in Quant Finance particually

Re cv, well, not appearing totally boring has some use, but quants tend to dislike management consultant types who are into all this stuff.

Also there is this - I'd assume that people who complete finance degrees would do atleast first year management units however I may be wrong - actuarial I believe wouldn't do any as such.

Article: Actuaries eye risk roles.(Risk Management) | AccessMyLibrary - Promoting library advocacy
Actuaries are ready to shed their "green eyeshades"(1) image for a shot at the brass ring--moving up the corporate ladder to become enterprise risk managers and chief risk officers, both inside the insurance industry and outside in the wider world. To do that, they'll have to move beyond their old comfort zone.
Here's an idea that will make your head spin: Actuaries ascending to the top spot of enterprise risk management and taking on the role of chief risk officer. For those managers now holding the risk leader's seat, whether they're corporate insurance risk managers, auditors, accountants, treasury executives or running risk trading operations at energy ...


1 Wikipedia:
The term "green eye-shades" can be applied derogatorily to individuals who are excessively concerned with pecuniary matters or small and insignificant details.

Its a shame I can't find the original source of that proclamation - when you see job adverts on sites such as seek which want Risk Managers who have a CPA as opposed to a MSc/FIAA it must be to some extent true.

 

[BeeCom]

It really is a quantitative role as opposed to a management role - I can't recall the source of where it says it isn't a way to get up into the corprate ladder though it might have been in an investment banking career guide, an actuary job guide, Wilmott forums or Mark Joshi's forums.

If you assume an actuary would work as a 'Quant' within a banking institution there is Mark's reply to this thread I posted Quant Finance books forum • View topic - Undergraduate courses for intended career in Quant Finance particually

Also there is this - I'd assume that people who complete finance degrees would do atleast first year management units however I may be wrong - actuarial I believe wouldn't do any as such.



Its a shame I can't find the original source of that proclamation - when you see job adverts on sites such as seek which want Risk Managers who have a CPA as opposed to a MSc/FIAA it must be to some extent true.

Ok there may be a miscommunication - I'm talking about the many varied positions within investment banking, not specifically quant analyst or anything else. Two grad IB'ers (whether M&A, Corp Fin, Trading, Sales, structuring what ever), one with a major in actuarial studies and the other with a major in commerce/law will start off on exactly the same level, irrespective of degree, when trying to move up the corporate ladder. No one is going to have a comprehensive business learning from doing an undergrad degree, no matter which one it is.

I think the point Mark Joshi makes is that actuaries/quant analysts rarely move into upper management, because the skills they learn are not management orientated. That is not to say a major in actuarial studies will lead you down this path, it's whether you use your major to get into a role that has this inherent feature (which is common because actuarial is a quant orientated major and naturally leads to these roles).

You know that 'Risk Manager' is very broad - risk mgmt within a bank has many sub-divisions. Those jobs would probably involve doing compliance work, not market risk modelling or anything. Who cares. That doesn't prove anything about how Accounting/Finance/(other majors) > Actuarial Studies/(Quant majors).

 

[Omnidragon]

Finance and accounting are not very management oriented either. Although there is a subject called managerial accounting, it's just numbers again and silly concepts.

Anyway moving up the corporate ladder comes down to a few things including:
- your motivation (can you even be bothered)
- your endurance (can you seriously do this for 10 years?)
- your cunning and how much you scheme (trying to one-up others)

Has less to do with how clever you are. There's a floor requirement in this regard obviously, but a lot of clever people I know (perhaps myself included) just really can't be fcked with corporate.

 

[BeeCom]

Finance and accounting are not very management oriented either. Although there is a subject called managerial accounting, it's just numbers again and silly concepts.

Anyway moving up the corporate ladder comes down to a few things including:
- your motivation (can you even be bothered)
- your endurance (can you seriously do this for 10 years?)
- your cunning and how much you scheme (trying to one-up others)

Has less to do with how clever you are. There's a floor requirement in this regard obviously, but a lot of clever people I know (perhaps myself included) just really can't be fcked with corporate.

I agree with you, I don't think your undergrad would matter at all, although the employment stream you start off may hinder your way into upper management, which is what Mark Joshi mentions about quant analysts/actuaries or w/e studentleader is referring to.