experience vs popular advice and expert advice

Doubleme

A long time ago a very long time ago in fact, when I had only just started to win at micro stakes sit and goes I remember thinking maybe calling with the best hand and ignoring ICM actually made sense because it got you a bigger stack for when it was down to two or three players depending on if you are playing six man or 9 man sngs. Whilst not entirely without merit I was wrong to think I knew more then the majority of expert opinion and I soon discovered that and why.

On looking for a decent job for when I finish my degree I specifically want to target a job as an actuary for a few reasons, job security one I get it, good pay structured clear progression and working with statistics.

So far it has been an un mitigated disaster in applying for the job, I have had unanimous rejections, apart from clear scams.

So first scam I woke up the next day to multiple missed calls and voice males the situation was literally akin to this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwlAik0HyyE
which seemed odd because everyone else had flat out rejected me but I returned the call and they said their were multiple candidates and their was urgency to get me in for a telephone interview the next day. on the phone call they told me straight out my CV was brilliant. (actually apparently it was god awful will comment on that next paragraph). Everything so far had my guard up expecting it to be a scam they mentioned a course which was vital to getting work and asked me to sign up to their website which had multiple attractive jobs all mentioning this course, I mentioned I had never heard of this course. They replied it was a very recent course, I replied I had been looking at jobs yesterday and the day before and had seen nothing, they mentioned that it is vital and not everyone has added yet but every employer will be wanting this course and many students are already doing it at university, I mentioned there were references about their organisation and this course going back five years. They mentioned ok well get back to us if you change your mind.
Next scam was heading in a similar direction but they got me to do an online assessment first which was a complete joke firstly the maths test was literally so basic that if anyone on here could not get full marks I would say they should be banned or abstain from all forms of gambling for their own good. I am not joking or been hyperbolic when I say I would expect your average 10 year old to be able to pass this. Then there was the python test which I do not exaggerate when I say you could google the coding and code right within five minutes for their questions. So I was suspicious again and went on a search and yes again scammy.
Some may argue they are just aggressive sales tactics and not a scam, well I am not sure on the exact legal definition of scam but put it this way I could design a course which is applicable to actuaries, accounts, finance or data analysts the course would be basic copying content areas from my degrees and some basic software stuff it technically would be relevant to the fields but would not be accredited or taken seriously this is effectively what the courses were. If I then aggressively marketed these courses with manipulated misleading truths and threw in some outright lies is that fraud/scam? if so these were fraud and scams if not then not.

Anyway feeling demotivated I went to a local Careers fair which did not have much relevant companies to see if I could get lucky and ask a firm with an actuarial role about my chances. None were there but I did find the national careers service or whatever they were called I made an appointment and they asked for my CV. I sent my CV in and effectively they said that my CV was god awful (not their exact words but they did say it was my CV hurting me and it needed a big changes) They said that actually I should have a very competitive application because I got both degrees they ask for despite the bad A level. I phoned a few actuarial firms who were looking for qualified actuaries not entry level to ask of my chances mentioning the A level and degrees etc they said I should be fine, I phoned the institute and faculty of actuaries and asked them and they said I should be good. I contacted two people in HR I know who handle recruitment for different roles and they reckon I would be fine. I also was randomly invited to a big company dinner at a company I used to work at and asked a director and the head of finance there (this company does not have actuarial roles) and they said I should have a competitive application.

At this point everyone has told me not to worry about the A level or gaps in my CV that I should have a competitive application I have shown the reworked CV to a number of people and they all say it now looks good much better then the old one.
So now once again I am questioning whether I am right that I will just continue to get rejected time and time again or if everyone else is right and I should get somewhere.

I guess its just my accounting and finance degree got a 2.1 nothing came of it. 10 years later I got told by one recruitment agency (I am not saying they speak for the entire planet but they are somewhat representative) that my accounting and finance degree is pretty much void now as It was over ten years ago and most people would assume I have forgotten all of it. I fear the same thing happening for the Mathematics and statistics degree. Am I right to be worried?

Bean81

Some thoughts:

1. If you do nothing relevant with your degree, there's not a huge amount of value in your degree ten years later, but it's not zero value. It really depends on what you did in that ten-year period. With your maths degree, you typically have 2-3 years maximum to find a relevant job post-qualification. That could be something very junior in a field that interests you, rather than a well-paid grad job. For example, I started in a basic marketing data analysis role, then tried an accounts payable role and started moving up through the accounting roles and qualification from there.

2. Graduate actuary jobs are very competitive. Your CV and application are the one thing that will distinguish you from the rest. ChatGPT is very helpful here: put your draft answer in and type "make this more professional" and you'll return something decent. Attending grad job fairs and making a good impression will also help.

3. There are TONS of jobs if you enjoy working with data. Some examples at my place of work in London (where most people work fully from home) include:
- Sales and Marketing data analyst roles. Start at £30k, go up to £75k with experience and some line management. Low six figures with greater responsibility.
--Data Scientist roles. Easily six figures in London within five years if you're good at it. I would recommend this to you if actuary doesn't work out.
- Data roles within IT: curating and engineering data sets, working with analysts to resolve business problems, working on data literacy for organisations. Six figures for very technical roles like data engineers, architects and developers.

For all of these jobs, you may need to pick up something very junior (even temporary) to get on the right path. The benefit of your degree here is that it acts as a signal to employers that you have enough intellectual horsepower to build a career.

Doubleme

Bean81 said:

Some thoughts:

1. If you do nothing relevant with your degree, there's not a huge amount of value in your degree ten years later, but it's not zero value. It really depends on what you did in that ten-year period. With your maths degree, you typically have 2-3 years maximum to find a relevant job post-qualification. That could be something very junior in a field that interests you, rather than a well-paid grad job. For example, I started in a basic marketing data analysis role, then tried an accounts payable role and started moving up through the accounting roles and qualification from there.

2. Graduate actuary jobs are very competitive. Your CV and application are the one thing that will distinguish you from the rest. ChatGPT is very helpful here: put your draft answer in and type "make this more professional" and you'll return something decent. Attending grad job fairs and making a good impression will also help.

3. There are TONS of jobs if you enjoy working with data. Some examples at my place of work in London (where most people work fully from home) include:
- Sales and Marketing data analyst roles. Start at £30k, go up to £75k with experience and some line management. Low six figures with greater responsibility.
--Data Scientist roles. Easily six figures in London within five years if you're good at it. I would recommend this to you if actuary doesn't work out.
- Data roles within IT: curating and engineering data sets, working with analysts to resolve business problems, working on data literacy for organisations. Six figures for very technical roles like data engineers, architects and developers.

For all of these jobs, you may need to pick up something very junior (even temporary) to get on the right path. The benefit of your degree here is that it acts as a signal to employers that you have enough intellectual horsepower to build a career.

thanks for the feedback I think there is a lot of validity in what you say, I dont expect to walk straight into a well paid job. I am not looking for the immediate highest paying job I can get. I know where that would be and it would not be relevant to my direction. What I am looking for is something that would have good career development.

its arguable what different routes I should take or could take. what I want to avoid is hostile work places with nasty politics. I am bad at navigating work place politics and when career progression/promotions/raises are opaque and ambiguous or clear but very limited people get nasty and use political spin to compete for advancements and hold others back, or even do this just for sport. I am very unlikely to succeed in such circumstances and have had negative experiences in the past.


data scientist and analyst jobs are also things I am potentially pursuing but they are very competitive jobs too. I do agree specifically saying actuary only may not be the best strategy, but if I can get in the door there is nothing vague about it, it offers clear progression and simply looking up what even part qualified actuaries get is very fast pay upgrades.

Data scientists and analysts is much more opaque I have seen analyst and data positions mentioning anywhere from low wages to low six figures. When people say analysts they mean different things as well, same for data. I guess I am not good at playing the game and navigating the social landscape, I suck at politics and negative spin. the way I have learned is opaque means always low wages where as clear structure and progression means high wages.

I think one question is at what point do you give up if any? when I graduated from my accounting and finance degree I sent thousands of job applications and got rejected everywhere I had one job interview where they decided to reject me within 30 seconds I had travelled all the way from Bournemouth to London and they knew this to get rejected in 30 seconds. I eventually gave up on the accounting thing until 10 years later when I got headhunted for a position but it didnt work out that is another story for another day.

If I could find the statistics of how many people apply on average per actuary graduate position and graduate apprentice position I could then simply apply basic statistics to say that if the number of applications without success I have submitted exceeds X then I can conclude to a certain degree of confidence that my applications are not competitive enough and this is an unrealistic career path.

Conversely I might find that actually I fail to reject the null hypothesis and thus conclude that there is not sufficient evidence to conclude that my applications are not competitive and thus I need to keep going. Of course depending on numbers this may not be viable eg if it is a very large number of applications to each role then this could mean years and each year that goes by my applications are less competitive.

Conversely there are other routes then graduate and apprentice though those are more opaque.

I just wanted to do a job that pays reasonably well and requires an iota of intelligence.

I so far have been paid min wage most of my life constantly called an idiot which is degrading and i would go so far as to say for the vast majority of my jobs any trainable animal could do my job, I mean there would be hygiene issues which would rule them out (though have seen people in similiar roles where most non human animals would beat their hygiene standards) but I am saying would be able to grasp the role. I wont limit myself to saying Elephants Chimps and Orangutans could do my jobs I would say any monkey I mean cats dogs foxes and badgers would have the intelligence to figure it out and be trained but then they dont have the hands. I suppose with Elon Musks brain chips could get like robot hands for them etc. It wont happen because people would deem it cruel to make one of these animals work 12 hours a day in a repetitive mind numbing task but I guess I dont count as equal to them.......

Doubleme

green_beer

Doubleme said:

you might find this one interesting

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y91FrG9Ji2U

Doubleme

So I am potentially open to apprenticeships which are for any age not just 16/18 year olds. Apprenticeships are opaque as a concept because they seem to vary from targeting school leavers whom are 16 to asking just for GCSES to targeting A level leavers to targeting degrees (so basically just a graduate position) to even targeting master degree graduates.

I have seen apprenticeships going for 12k 15k undisclosed (this is the most common usually does not say a figure) to £30000 (the highest one I saw already rejected from that yay)

As I understand it an apprenticeship can allow the employer to pay below minimum wage. The original idea been a Conservative idea to do away with minimum wage

note I know that apprenticeships have existed for a very long time but it the loophole allowing below min wage was whose idea?

anyway I obviously could not support myself on £6.40 an hour. The only way that becomes viable is with a large windful to cover the net negative year and make up the shortfall or been subsidized either by the government (really the UK tax payer) or friends/family.

Some could say that second job or poker but this would be unrealistic expecting to work 40-50 hours a week on top of studying for additional exams I can do I have proven that already to myself, but expecting to work 40-50 hours a week on top of exams and then do another 20 plus hours a week I know isn't realistic.

The thing is you build expectation from where you already are, eg normally people say what is your current salary and what salary are you expecting?

well if my current salary is <£13000 I cant then turn round and say I was hoping for £25000 they would expect like a 10% increase or the likes well the law says that once you have completed first year of an apprenticeship if over the age of 19 they legally have to pay you min wage which will be £22k plus in this April and likely more the following year.

so they would give me min wage the next year and make out that it is a massive raise. and the year after that i dont know.