Two Stories of Career Transitions

By Stefanos Orfanos

Expanding Horizons, June 2023

Not every aspiring actuary ends up becoming one. Some succumb to the rigors of the exams, while others, armed with a wealth of transferable skills from their actuarial training and experience, forge their own unique career paths.

I spoke with two former students who found success by pivoting away from actuarial work. Here is what they had to say. (Note: Names have been withheld to protect the anonymity of the interviewees.)

Stefanos Orfanos (SO): Can you give some context to your careers now?

Interviewee 1 (IN1): I started off in health actuarial consulting for the first three-plus years of my career, where I worked on various projects spanning reserve analyses, pricing strategy, mergers and acquisitions, and audit support for large health insurance clients. After that, I transitioned into data analytics, consulting for large tech clients, including developing dashboards to provide visual analytics that quickly translate insights into actions as well as ideating on data strategies to provide scalable and efficient processes. I am now combining the two experiences as I work in a pseudo internal consulting role where I am identifying opportunities to modernize reporting to drive more efficient processes and incubate these solutions across financial data products.

Interviewee 2 (IN2): Even though I’ve only been working for two and a half years, I think it makes sense to break my career into three different parts. For the first one and a half years, I did normal actuarial P&C pricing work for specialty product lines: things like renters, condos, motorcycles and boats. I did this for several different states and even countrywide, which gave me a broad range of experience with different sizes of data and risk. At the 1.5-year mark, I transitioned into a new role that I like to call a “technical actuary,” which is the intersection of an actuary and a software developer. I would develop tools and automation initiatives that centered around actuarial principles to increase the efficiency and efficacy of my coworkers’ work. This is where I found my enjoyment of software engineering and the main reason that I started to look for new positions. Then came the move to a new company as a software engineer.

SO: Why did you choose to be an actuary in the first place?

IN2: I could name a few different reasons why I initially decided to become an actuary. There is a very well-defined track to becoming an actuary where a huge part of that is passing exams, so if you are able to pass the exams, you're already more than halfway to landing your first job. This is opposed to other careers that are very much skill- and experience-based, which are things I didn't have coming out of college. At the same time, the actuarial path offers stability and job security within industries that have no real chance of going away. Finally, an actuarial career can be a really good jumping-off point to other analytical and data-driven careers.

IN1: Quite frankly, I first pursued being an actuary because I had read an article that being an actuary was one of the best jobs in America that has high demand and high pay for someone with a mathematics background. As I became more involved with the actuarial program at my university, networked with professionals and interned with various companies, I enjoyed the people I interacted with, the work that was an intersection of business and mathematics, and the structured career progression that being an actuary has.

SO: What was your experience like with your actuarial employers? How hard was it to prepare for and pass actuarial exams?

IN1: Working for an actuarial consulting firm certainly has its pros and cons. First, it was incredibly difficult for me to prepare for and pass actuarial exams; client obligations took precedence over actuarial exams, and significant travel or strict deadlines took away from study time. However, because I was a consultant, I was given a broader lens into business processes and exposed to high-impact and highly visible projects very quickly. It’s because I started my career in consulting that I have a broader skill set that has allowed me to be successful at all the roles I’ve had to this date. Overall, my experience at my former actuarial employer was a favorable one that accelerated my career development, even if that career ended up being outside of actuarial.

IN2: I really enjoyed the company I worked for. There was a great work-life balance, very predictable workstreams and a good company culture to fit into. As for passing exams, there was a huge amount of company support through designated work/study hours and company-purchased study materials. Also, since many people that I worked with day to day were also actuaries, there was a high level of understanding for the stress that comes with studying for exams. The major problem I had with my role was the velocity of change within the company and the work. This is to be expected for most actuarial work at larger corporations, and it can definitely be seen as a positive for other people, but it wasn’t for me.

SO: What made you transition into a nonactuarial role?

IN2: I could give two reasons for this transition. Being an actuary forces you to specialize early in your career by studying for and passing exams that take up a lot of personal time. At that point, I wanted to be able to gain more generalized knowledge while also choosing what I wanted to spend time doing (studying, personal projects, hobbies, etc.). Also, because there is such heavy regulation over actuarial careers, innovation can be very slow-moving in traditional roles.

IN1: The transition out of an actuarial role was more of a personal rather than a professional decision. My significant other received a job offer that had us move to a state that did not have many actuarial opportunities; this was prior to remote work being as prevalent as it is now.

SO: Would you consider taking more exams at this point?

IN1: At this point in my career, I would not consider taking any more exams. I have found a successful career path in the intersection of finance and technology that honors my professional values of innovation and collaboration. However, if remote work had been as prevalent as it is today when I made the personal decision to leave my previous actuarial employer, I absolutely would consider it. The actuarial career path is still a desirable field of work that I miss, and I believe that it still has potential to grow even further.

IN2: The short answer is no. After the first few exams, the information becomes much more specialized to a specific industry, which greatly removes the inherent value outside of that industry. Given that hundreds of hours need to be put into each exam, there are more worthwhile and generalized things that I can be spending my time learning.

Statements of fact and opinions expressed herein are those of the individual authors and are not necessarily those of the Society of Actuaries, the editors, or the respective authors’ employers.

Stefanos Orfanos, FSA, CERA, is a clinical assistant professor and the director of Actuarial Science at Georgia State University. He can be reached at sorfanos@gsu.edu.