How to Get an Actuarial Internship?
Attending actuarial internship is a necessary step in opening doors to the great world of actuaries. As actuary is a very lucrative profession offering great employment opportunities, high salary, job satisfaction, work environment etc, you need to be really skilled in order to stand out from competition.
If you can prove that you have real time working experience, then it will surely add value to your resume. So getting an actuarial internship is very important to gain an edge on actuarial career. But, how to achieve it in today’s attenuating market?
Current economical confusions and remaining global recession has restricted many companies from hiring professionals and even interns. Still, there are chances for actuarial interns to get hired because of many reasons.
First of all, many organizations require actuaries necessarily to operate their business smoothly and profitably.
Secondly, employers get highly qualified, creative and energetic students at very low cost by hiring interns.
Thirdly, organizations identify pipeline for potential candidates. Altogether, actuarial interns really benefit organizations and they become ready to hire actuarial interns regardless of economical and recession issues. But, students should know how to make the best use of this opportunity and achieve actuarial internship.
You should start your preparations to get an internship very early. Many companies fill intern positions even before many other companies start on-campus recruitment’s. So, you should never be behind the curve.
If you are graduating from a reputed college or university, you have chances to locate opportunities making use of campus interviews. Most of the reputed universities have placement cells and responsible placement officers who arrange campus interviews.
Many popular insurance companies do campus interviews for actuarial interns. So, it is a best head start. Another option is directly approaching organizations of interest and contacting the professional who is responsible in hiring interns. If you can impress him, there are more chances for you to get an actuarial internship as you dreamt.
Now, as the first step in landing an internship, you should make your resume and cover letter polished. As there would be hundreds of resumes for an employer to look in before choosing the most efficient actuarial interns, you should avoid mistakes (grammar, typo, clarity) not to make your resume land in trash bin. Resume should be simple at the same time convincing. It should make the employer feel that it will be a loss for his organization if he fails to hire you as an actuarial intern.
Unless there is campus placement system, it is very difficult for organizations or employers reach you. You should select organizations which you wish to work in considering your personal interests. You should now make sure that your application reaches the right people.
Instead of just applying online, send a personal email in the form of an application with your resume attached to the recruiter of your interest, if you could manage to get their email id. It is true that it is very difficult to get such contact details directly from their website.
You can get it using Linkedin.com or from your college seniors who are placed in reputed organizations. Your alumni can even forward your resume to recruiters and also help you with valuable internship-search advice.
Another way to get details of recruiters of your interest is using SOA directory. A great collection of information including their organization, contact details (phone number and email id) etc is available with SOA directory.
SOA professionals are really ready to help actuarial science students as they wish to have many more actuaries with them in their field. Now, once you are invited for the interview, the ball is in your court. You should speak cleverly during the interview and should be able to convince the interview board that you are really unique among other interviewees.
You can also check out our latest Actuary Internships positions.