Actuary jobs?

Kadiv wrote: »

Hi guys I was wondering how does employment and life compare of an actuary and that of a doc. Not sure between the 2 am applying to cao this year so don't know what do go for really but I really love math and app.math. Is it really that hard to get a job as an actuary after you graduate and does it have a bad employment perspective compared to a doc's

It's a course that needs work. Youd need to be used to working on studies in secondary rather than coasting. I got into actuary with virtually no study and the work is pretty intense. a large number of people use it as a top drawer financial qualification more than anything else.

Same as Donnielighto, I coasted through secondary school and the difficulty of Actuary overwhelmed me.
That said, it's an excellent degree to have. There's 100% employment if you graduate with a B.Afs degree from UCD as far as I know.
Also, between pay, working hours and workload, it's meant to be one of the best careers you can have.

Either way works.
Some big companies will come in and headhunt the most promising of BAFS students.
Also, the school finds us work placements in 3rd year and many of those companies would like to hire you if you do a good job.
If you go applying for a job yourself, a BAFS degree will stand out and will make finding employment much easier.

They're very different fields. Pick what you'll enjoy more, employment shouldn't be hard to find with either degree.

There are 13 exams I think and you can get 9 exemptions from UCD.
It will take 2-3 years more of exams while you are a trainee actuary to complete the rest.

I work in insurance and in my experience, you will have zero, I mean zero, difficulty getting a job with any kind of decent BAFS qualification. Either you'll go on and continue training and doing the exams to become an actuary, with an insurance company or consulting actuarial firm or big 4 audit practice, or you'll get a highly paid non-actuarial job with an investment bank or hedge fund in London who will be in the market for people (not just actuaries- maths grads, engineers etc) who have good quant skills.

Medicine and actuarial science are very different disciplines. I might be wrong, and I apologise if I am, but it sounds like you're making a career choice now based exclusively on your ability to get a job immediately after graduation in 4-5 years time. My advice to you is to think of the bigger picture- what do you think you'll enjoy doing, both in university and as a career, and choose that path.

I've just finished the BAFS degree in May just gone.

I got my job offer in April, and started with the companys grad programme in August, and I'm just outside London.

The consultancies will start their recruitment drives pretty much as soon as final year begins, the likes of Deloitte, PWC, etc, along with London insurers.

Dublin insurers are later, normally around March-April time.

Out of the class of 2013, I believe there are only 5 or 6 that don't have jobs yet, and a few of them are travelling. Just under half had jobs secured before the end of our exams. There were only around 10 that didn't have jobs by graduation in early September.

There is a certain amount of having to look for your own job, but there are actuarial recruiters that will circulate all the grad jobs to anyone registered with them.

There really isn't anything to worry about getting a job with an actuarial degree.

If you want to be an actuary, don't let that hold you back, and tell your parents the same - it's a non-issue!

There is no shortage of jobs for people with quantitative skills and the range of jobs and shortage of qualified graduates is only increasing.

Apart from the BAFS, the BSc Economics and Finance and the new BSc Business Analytics lead into these careers.

But really the OP needs to think carefully about what he or she wants to do, medicine is quite different from these careers. The issue is not job shortage, it is what type of work does the OP want to do?