Alan Parikh, 39/ EMPLOYER: Chicago Consulting Actuaries/ SALARY RANGE: $40,000-$200,000 plus
How did you choose this field?
I picked this profession 12 years ago and I have never really looked back. I took the long way into the profession. My undergraduate degree is in engineering and I worked in a lab for several years. And then I got a master’s in economics and while I was taking my master’s classes, I took some statistics courses and noticed that most people in those classes were preparing for these actuarial exams. So I decided to take an exam. But even before I passed the exam, I interviewed with an actuarial consulting firm and got the job.
Is your path into the profession a common one?
My undergraduate degree is in engineering and my masters is in economics, but that’s atypical. Most people get into this profession after getting an undergraduate or graduate degree in math, or you can actually study actuarial science at the big universities.
What does an actuary do?
I guess the broadest way to describe it is that an actuary is someone who models financial risks, usually associated with pensions, insurance and health-care plans. The types of skills (we use) are pretty broadly applicable. The big insurance companies employ a lot of actuaries. There are people who specialize in casualties; that’s another aspect of insurance. There are also people who specialize in health care, so that’s almost a separate wing of the actuarial field.
Does an actuary have to be certified?
The Society of Actuaries is kind of the gatekeeper of the profession. They have a series of exams that typically are taken twice a year over six or eight years. You have to take the exams in order to receive certification from the society. It’s a pretty lengthy process, but it can take a shorter amount of time if you really push yourself.
What’s a typical day like?
I’m a pension actuary and I work for a consulting firm, so my main responsibilities are helping large companies design, finance, manage and administer pension plans. About half the job is analysis, number-crunching, being detail-oriented and digging into the numbers to figure out how pension liabilities act and forecasting them and doing a lot of “what ifs.” The other half of the job is communicating to my clients, who are typically people who work in finance, treasury or human resources at midsize and larger companies. I try to communicate to them the results of what I find.
What’s the best thing about the job?
It’s a great job if you’ve got really strong math skills and you want to apply those skills to real-world business problem-solving. It’s that kind of a mix where you can really use your math skills to solve a real-world problem. It’s a neat combination. There’s a lot of variety; my clients are in health care, the automotive industry and telecommunications. You deal with a lot of different people in a lot of different companies. There’s a huge amount of variety in what goes on from day to day and from year to year. It just continually amazes me how things have changed in the last five years.
What’s the worst thing?
The exams are just brutal. That whole process of working full time and taking exams for years is a major sacrifice in terms of time and energy, but the payoff is terrific once you’re done. Also, I’ve never been able to find a good way to explain to people just what it is that I do for a living. If you’re a doctor, you can tell people that you help people get better and that’s one sentence, but with an actuary you need like a whole page to explain it.
What attributes are essential to doing your job well?
First and foremost are strong math skills, analytical skills and problem-solving skills. That’s really the core of what you need to succeed as an actuary. Because the exam process is so lengthy, you also need to have a commitment to succeeding in the profession. In some aspects of the field, such as in my area, it also helps a lot to have good communication skills. I spend about half of my day either on the phone with clients, responding to e-mails, writing memos or in meetings. You’re taking these complicated mathematical concepts and you need to translate them for people who typically don’t deal with them and aren’t trained to deal with them. That’s not really essential to all actuaries. You can also have a job where you sit at a desk and crunch numbers all day. There are spots for that type of person, too.
What advice do you have for others interested in this field?
First of all I would say that it’s a very rewarding profession in many different ways, not just financially. There is a very strong demand for actuaries, especially the best ones. But you’ve really got to be willing to work hard, to commit yourself to it.
Where do you go from here?
On the consulting side, there’s plenty of room for me to advance. One of the payoffs of consulting is there’s a huge variety of things that you get to do. You’re looked upon as an authority by people at really high levels. So I don’t really view this as being a stepping stone to anything else. But if I did, actuaries also succeed as managers and as directors of companies.
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