Career Cast has compiled their ranking for the best careers, and once again actuary has topped the list. The earnings potential, employment outlook, and low stress of the job have for years put actuaries as one of the top careers. Increasingly, actuaries are being promoted from their traditional place in the risk management department to the executive suite of many large financial firms, making an actuarial career a good stepping stone to management.
But how does one become an actuary? First, let’s look at what they do.
Actuaries are in high demand because their training allows them to analyze past data to assign a probability and a value for a certain event occurring. For insurance companies, pension plans and many other businesses, assigning a cost to an event that has yet to happen is a must. How could health insurance function if the insurance company did not have an idea of how many and how severely their subscribers would fall ill in a given period. Actuaries provide this data.
To determine this, actuaries need to have a broad set of skills. A strong background in math is important, especially analytical math like statistics, probability theory and calculus, as much of an actuary’s job is analyzing historic data for patterns and trends. A solid understanding of business concepts like accounting, economics and finance helps the actuary assign a cost to the probability they determined. With all of that data crunching, solid computer skills to analyze that data in spreadsheets, statistical programs are a must.
Actuaries are not merely number crunchers. They are making a business case for these numbers. They need strong communication skills to prepare reports and present their findings to the business managers who use their data to determine the company’s direction. Keeping track of all the pieces of these large projects requires a disciplined approach and the ability to solve problems.