Taking calculated risks in your career whilst still studying for professional actuarial exams

This is an adaptation of a talk I first presented at the Young Actuaries Conference on the 29 May 2018 in Sydney.

If you’re more visual you can watch this plenary session and panel Q&A on Knowledge Sharing via this YouTube link and if you’d prefer just the audio you can listen here.

(Left to Right): Meng Yuan, Mark Henderson, Solai Valliappan and Bill Konstantinidis at the Young Actuaries Conference, 29 May 2018 held in Sydney

Today I’m going to talk about my story and the three areas I found useful in how I’ve moved directionally in my career so you can find some ideas and adjust them accordingly for your next steps in your career.

Slide 1: A question in the early stages of my career of whether to wait to explore other things professionally post qualification

I graduated from UNSW with a Bachelor of Commerce (my majors were Actuarial Studies and Finance) and started my career as a graduate at Zurich. I spent a couple of years in pricing and a couple of years in reserving. At the same time I was sitting exams and I was building my character by failing and subsequently passing exams.

The exams were quite consuming to my headspace. I developed this pattern, habit and vortex of intensely studying for 3 months, the rhetoric I’d often think was “I’ll postpone it to after the exam or when I qualify”. And then reality set…