Supporting career advancement
Actuaries are highly regarded and the actuarial qualification is a prestigious achievement.
But our work doesn’t start with the qualification. Ensuring the sustainability of the profession means that we need to make certain there is a healthy pipeline of actuarial students.
That’s why we work with schools and universities to promote the profession to young people with an interest in mathematics, as well as doing outreach work with under-represented groups, in support of our diversity, equity and inclusion work.
An impressive career
During 2022 we continued to promote the actuarial profession as a career to school and university students. Our work alongside our partners at Success at School reached over 4,000 schools and colleges across the UK via email, web and print.
We also continued to reach out to careers advisers through events such as the annual Conference for Teachers and Advisers, enabling us to reach a greater number of schools, particularly those in lower socio-economic areas.
Research from High Fliers (specialists in student and graduate recruitment research) indicates there has been an increase in graduates from top universities applying for actuarial roles, up from 2.4% to 3.3% – one of only seven industries to see a growth in graduate applications.
We also work closely with the IFoA Foundation to align our goals and to complement the Foundation’s work and aims. We’re expanding our network of DEI partners to reach an even broader demographic and inspire students to continue with maths – and ultimately a career as an actuary.
Count Me In
Count Me In provides students from under-represented groups in the actuarial profession with an introduction to actuarial careers and access to employers, and is a key element of our school and university outreach work.
In December we were delighted to run our first ever online Count Me In event. Our Careers Team worked alongside Aon, one of our employer partners, and our school outreach partners at Success at School, to reach more schools and students in the UK than ever before.
We targeted school students from a variety of backgrounds, including schools in lower socio-economic areas, and achieved over 1,000 sign ups and 270 event attendees. Event data indicates that we were successful in reaching our target groups of students, with 53% of attendees coming from ethnic minority backgrounds (compared to the national average of 15%) and 8% of attendees eligible for free school meals.
The online event format also means that students unable to attend at the time now have access to a recording of it.
We received excellent feedback from the students, careers advisers and parents who attended:
rated the webinar as good, very good or excellent
said the event helped them understand more about actuarial opportunities
said the event helped them understand more about the application process
Showcasing the actuarial career
As part of our flagship GIRO conference last year, we invited 20 first- and second-year university students to attend, in order to learn more about the incredible opportunities a career as an actuary can offer.
Three of the biggest actuarial employers – Mercer, WTW and Aon – attended the session to network with the students and share details of the exciting career opportunities available to those with an actuarial skill set.
This event demonstrates our desire to become more active in connecting our employers and universities, ensuring a continued strong pipeline of actuarial talent.
Qualifications
Our global members tell us that one of the most important things they value about their IFoA membership is our two professional qualifications and, increasingly, the international recognition of our Associateship as a qualified actuary. Members and their employers also told us that our qualifications need to address the most contemporary aspects of actuarial practice.
Over the past year we’ve been developing both our Associate and Fellowship qualifications, and have carried out a review of our Associate curriculum. This has ensured that the future core curriculum is focused on relevant aspects, and that there is flexibility for candidates to take greater ownership of their studies.
We’ll be introducing optionality into the Associate curriculum, enabling candidates to focus some of their study on areas that are important to their individual actuarial careers and the business of their employers.
Employers and recruiters have told us that they’ve not always been clear on the skills and competencies that they can expect from a qualified Associate. As part of our work, we will shortly be publishing a new Competency Framework explicitly defining the skills and competences – technical knowledge, skills and wider transferable skills – that can be expected of an Associate actuary.
For those candidates whose career goal is not to qualify fully as an Associate, we will be reintroducing new intermediate credentials to allow them to have some formal recognition of their successful studies.
Our career-long learning courses
Learning doesn’t stop after qualification, which is why part of our role is to support members in continuing to learn and upskill. We currently offer three courses to our members to assist them in developing their skill set and learning.
Climate and Sustainability course
Our members told us they wanted to understand more about the challenges that climate risk poses to actuaries and how to apply this to the workplace. We listened and developed our Climate and Sustainability course in response.
The first course took place in March 2022 and was so successful that we doubled the capacity of the course to meet member demand.
In 2022 we ran three sessions of the course and a total of 155 members attended and 148 Certificates were awarded. We’ve welcomed members from 19 different countries, adding a truly global dimension to the seminars.
Banking Fellowship
As part of our commitment to open up less-established employment domains to actuaries, we introduced the first of a number of planned new pre-Fellowship study pathways. In partnership with the Actuarial Society of South Africa, we have accredited their International Banking study modules, enabling successful IFoA candidates on these modules to be exempted from most of their pre-Fellowship study.
Data Science course
Our Certificate in Data Science course was developed at a time when the use of data science was increasing, and the technological developments were moving quickly, as they still are. Members sought help with navigating the myriad of courses and information available, seeking something that was more specific to actuarial work.
In the three years since the course launched, 598 members have participated in the course and 516 have successfully passed and been awarded the Certificate in Data Science.
Engaging with employers
Over the past year our Employer Team has been strengthening relationships with the employers of our members. We’ve been working together to create clear plans of collaboration, including partnering on recruitment, CPD, conferences and diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.
In 2022 we ran our first study support survey, with over 140 employers globally taking part. This helped us to better understand the levels of support our employers provide our members, showing them how they benchmark against similar organisations, and enabling the IFoA to showcase best practice to help influence a positive outcome for all our members.
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