Actuarial student’s pseudo struggles to get a job.

Actuarial students often complain that they are not able to find jobs. They say they often apply to companies but they don’t receive calls. Sometimes they even claim that they are looking for a job since more than 1 year but no luck. I am not saying this is all not true but this is not enough to prove that there are no jobs.

As a teacher I get to meet so many students randomly in different cities across India wherever I visit and I feel bad about the state of the profession today looking at the attitude of so many students who come to me to seek advice or placements. This story belong to majority of Non SMONK Students. SMONK Students have been fed from day one the importance of various things which are not taught to students in general.

So students, this article is meant to offend you a bit and that too is for your own good. So read, appreciate if you understand and relate, follow if you believe in my words and share if you feel this may be helpful for others.

I used the harsh word in the headline “pseudo” struggle because you are making wrong effort and your claims of struggle are false. Sending random mails from your bedroom without any efforts won’t reap fruits. By no ways I want to belittle you or your goals but just trying to bring to your notice your mistakes which makes your struggle pointless.

Mistake no. 1 - YOU ARE LAZY!

You don’t read. You don’t keep updates about the profession. I am sure some of you don’t even know what GCA is, some of you don’t know what IFRS 17 is about. Some of you don’t even understand what kind of job you are applying for. Many of you never read Job description but just apply. You don’t change your resume based on companies you apply to. You don’t change your cover letter or mail body based on whom you are talking to.

You don’t read newspapers and have no updates of what’s happening in the world around. How can someone work with such a mediocre person who knows nothing about current affairs and many relevant things about the profession? At age of 22, what have you done to your life? “Stories” won’t feed you, knowledge and meaningful job will. Most of you have LinkedIn Profile (just because someone told you that you will get a job there) and you spend hours and hours scrolling the wall in quest to find a job and only ends up watching random videos and liking random posts and photos. There is a better way to use LinkedIn to find jobs apart from scrolling the wall.

Mistake No. 2 - YOU DON’T LEARN

I am sure, many of you hate programming. You guys did not select Actuarial because of programming but because of maths and stats. It would have been a shock for most of you when you realised you need to learn bit of programming when you started looking for jobs and recently because of syllabus change. Many people who usually give counselling ignore the fact that it is important to tell you about the programming requirement part but then this would have hurt the sale of many. So best is not to inform you first, pull you in the profession and bank upon your fear by selling you the courses later. While all this happened to you, why were you not smart enough to find out how will you be doing maths all your life in office? Which software will be used? This question should have crossed your mind. I am sure you are mature enough to understand these things when you joined Actuarial science. If you were not mature enough to think about it, this is Mistake no. 3! Now having realised the mistake, either learn languages to be in profession or probably start looking for alternatives.

Mistake no. 4- Blaming others for your fortunes!

Don’t blame your coaching centre for not informing you about the job prospects in the profession. Probably you would not have been in a position to talk such shit if they had not taught you! You committed mistake no. 3! They were doing their job!

Mistake no. 5- Finding job in Insurance Industry

Apart from Actuarial coaching, I am running 7 more business which has nothing to do with Actuarial science directly but my thoughts, my ideas, my analysis of my own ideas, my attitude towards risk, my thinking capabilities, etc all of them became great just because I was doing Actuarial science. Just reading books made me so much smarter that I am able to work on my own. I appreciate the inclusive syllabus and this will surely make you smart iffffffffffff and only ifffffffffffff you read the books to understand the concept and not to solve just a few sums. Start looking for areas where your knowledge can be applied. Start working in any profile which utilise your knowledge and energy in sync, build your career immediately, and don’t wait for insurance companies to get investors and customers to score a job for yourself! Insurance companies don’t have infinite capacity to hire freshers. Even if they do, they will hire someone who reads newspaper daily! Someone who just talk alpha lambda gamma all the day will be a boring person to work with.

Mistake no. 6- Read this article, think for two minutes, find my faults in this article, debate with me and never follow and start crying again that you have no job! Read, think, learn, make decisions, implement, and follow up!

Have a great 2019! I hope you find your dream job this year! Reach out to me anytime 24*7 for any help!

Do read about Actuarial Career Festival on our website www.smonk.in, news and events page.

It’s my sincere efforts to help you reach your destination!

Thanks for reading,

Signing off

Ravi Vyas