Entry-level actuarial jobs and internships

How we help

All activities of actuarial recruiting, actuarial job hunting, and actuarial internship hunting are located in the Natural Sciences Career Services operation (NSCS) in the College of Natural Sciences. All actuarial students should sign up for this system and upload (or update) their résumés. To get information from recent interns about their internship experience, contact people on the list of recent interns. For encouragement about permanent jobs, take a look at the list of recent graduates' first jobs.

Employers: here's a sketch of how the NSCS operates and some "guesstimates" at entry-level salaries.

Student participation
All actuarial students will be eligible to participate in this system, as follows:
1) All undergraduate students having at least one advising code identifying them as having a major in the College of Natural Sciences only need to go to the NSCS in PAI 5.03 to sign up for the eRecruiting system.
2) All other actuarial students (undergraduates not majoring within the College of Natural Sciences, and graduate students) must first see Jim Daniel in RLM11.174 so that he can verify their status, approve their participation, and then forward their UTEID to the NSCS. After that step, approved students should go to the NSCS in PAI 5.03 to sign up for the eRecruiting system; at present, there will be no fee for such students to use eRecruiting through the NSCS.

Once students have signed up for eRecruiting, they can post and update résumés, apply for jobs and internships, et cetera, by accessing eRecruiting on the web.


IMPORTANT NOTE: Some employers have commented that some actuarial résumés seem “less professional” than those from Business College students here and elsewhere. The NSCS can help you develop and polish your résumé-but remember to make it easy for an employer to find your actuarial exam record.

Wise students will also launch their own job-seeking campaign, sending letters and resumés to companies in whom they are interested.

Who finds actuarial jobs

No one can predict what the future job market will be. But here is a historical fact: Since the actuarial program moved to Mathematics in 1989, of those 360 or so students that, by the time of job interviews,

1. had passed at least the equivalent of one current actuarial exam,
2. had completed by the end of that semester four or five of the equivalent of the current ACF329 (=M389F), M339U (=389U), 339V (= 389V), 339W (= 389W), 339J (= 389J), and 349P (= 389P) classes, and
3. were eligible to work permanently in the United States (that is, were U.S. Citizens or Permanent Residents),

all but about 25 (most in the bleak spring 2003, 2004, and 2005 hirings) found entry-level actuarial jobs. For some examples of first jobs, see the list of first jobs for recent graduates. Although most students have accepted job offers in Texas, many receive offers from outside the state as well. In some years students with fewer exams or without those crucial classes have found actuarial jobs; on average, however, only a small fraction of those students are that lucky. The cautious student will aim at having two or three exams passed prior to having job interviews. But remember: a strong record as described here will get you interviews, but it is interviews that get you jobs.

International students. Students that are not U.S. Citizens or U.S. Permanent Residents usually have a much more difficult time finding actuarial jobs in the United States. Some employers simply do not want to be involved in any manner in visa issues and therefore will not even interview international students. At the other extreme, however, are some companies that will have their corporate attorneys assist with the visas of any international students they might hire. Since communication skills are crucial in all areas of actuarial employment, complete fluency in written and spoken English is a necessity. Although many well-qualified international students with excellent English skills have found actuarial jobs, they have all had a far harder time and fewer opportunities than less-qualified individuals eligible to work permanently in the United States.