Actuarial Employment

Actuarial students looking for a job, whether full-time work, part-time employment, or an internship, should:

• Register with the Career Center.
• Prepare a resume, and place it in the Hire-A-Redbird system, as follows: Log into Hire-A-Redbird. On the left sidebar on the Student’s Homepage, click on “Documents.” On the resume page, click on “Add new”. Label and upload the document.
• Students can also have their résumé posted on the Actuarial Program Web site. Those resumes are often reviewed by actuaries at companies looking to hire students. If you want your résumé posted, send a file with it (Microsoft Word or Adobe Acrobat formats preferred, the file will be posted in the Adobe Acrobat PDF format, named FirstnameLastname.pdf) to Dr. Krzysztof Ostaszewski.
• Send application to as many companies as possible, but of course only to companies that you are interested in working with.

Actuarial students should join the Internet discussion list for ISU actuarial students actuary-l listserv, by sending a subscription request to actuary@ilstu.edu. 

Actuarial students should join Gamma Iota Sigma (student insurance society, actuarial students form our Actuarial Club within this organization).

Remember, however, that passing actuarial examinations opens the doors to actuarial employment more effectively than anything else.

Actuarial students seeking employment should work on developing business communication skills. Several of our actuarial classes allow and encourage making oral and written presentations, do take advantage of such opportunities to enhance your communication skills. Note that some employers may ask you to make some form of presentation or provide a writing sample during interviews.

While one does not have to be a professional programmmer to be an actuary, actuarial students should also work on developing their programming skills. For an entry-level job, it is very helpful to develop skills in Microsoft Excel (including writing macros with Visual Basic for Applications) and Microsoft Access. Risk classification, predictive modeling and statistical analysis in general, are often done in SAS software or R software. Other programming skills may be useful as well, especially Python. We suggest the following resources for developing these skills:

• MAT 283, Introduction to Actuarial Computing, covers Microsoft Excel and Microsoft Access skills in the context of actuarial applications. This class is offered every Fall and Spring, and MAT 280, Financial Mathematics, is a prerequisite for it.
• There is a free non-credit online version of MAT 283, which we make available to study at any time to all Illinois State University students who request access.

All students who are interested in statistical analysis, predictive modeling, and related business applications of statistics, are strongly encouraged to participate in our annual Statistical Project Competition.