Many thanks to all the actuaries that took the time to enter into our competition to choose the best actuaries’ joke.
We are truly heartened to see that actuaries from around the world know that the best solution today’s economic gloom is not really quantitative easing but a few old fashioned jokes.
We were inundated with entries and deciding who should get the tickets to “The Night of Actuaries” event in Paris was not an easy task.
The judging was the subject of perhaps too many meetings at GAAPS and plenty of heated debate.
The winning jokes are…
• Q: What is the difference between an Actuary and an Accountant?
A: About 25 grand!
• Two people are flying in a hot air balloon and realize they are lost. They see a man on the ground, so they navigate the balloon to where they can speak to him. They yell to him, “Can you help us – we’re lost.” The man on the ground replies, “You’re in a hot air balloon, about two hundred feet off the ground.” One of the people in the balloon replies to the man on the ground, “You must be an actuary. You gave us information that is accurate, but completely useless.” The actuary on the ground yells to the people in the balloon, “You must be in marketing.” They yell back, “yes, how did you know?” The actuary says,” well, you’re in the same situation you were in before you talked to me, but now it’s my fault.”
• Question: What is an actuary’s favourite dessert?
Answer: Pi
• f(x)=6x+3 walks into a bar.
“Got any sandwiches?” f(x)=6x+3 asks the barman.
“Sorry,” he replies, “We don’t cater for functions.”
• Q: How many accountants does it take to find the present value of an annuity?
A: Three. One to determine the amount of each payment, one to figure out which account to put the answer in, and one to go ask an actuary how to calculate it.
• All the functions of x are at a party. They are all having fun, dancing and mingling except exp(x). Exp(x) is standing alone in the corner looking miserable. The other functions notice this and approach him they ask him “exp(x) why don’t you integrate with us?” and he replied “because it makes no difference!”
• Top 6 things you will never hear an actuary say:
6. I have a hot date tonight.
5. I got a lot out of that marketing meeting.
4. Our prices are too high.
3. Just throw out that large loss; it’ll never happen again.
2. We’ve got to take more chances here.
1. We can expect your favourable trend to continue indefinitely.
• Q: Why does a heavy metal fan want to become an actuary?
A: He wants to be paid for predicting death and destruction.
• A man with a wooden leg wanted to buy fire insurance for his leg. The first actuary quoted an annual premium of £500, estimating that the leg would burn once in 20 years and the value of the leg is £10,000. The second actuary quoted an annual premium of £50. When the second actuary was asked how he arrived at such a small figure, he replied, “I have this situation in the fire schedule rating table. The object is a wooden structure with an upper sprinkler, isn’t it?”
• Q: Where did the actuary go on his holidays?
A: To Q-Ba!
• After the actuary failed his exam, he started thinking of quitting the exams altogether and becoming a professional fisherman. But then he discovered that he couldn’t live on his net income.
Some of the winners will be making their way to Paris for the Night of Actuaries (read The GAAPS Blog for updates on the party). All other winners will soon be cracking open the champagne.
Posted in Odds and Ends
Tagged actuarial, actuarial events, actuarial jokes, Actuaries, Actuary, acturarial profession, Competition, Fun, GAAPS France, jokes, Night of Actuaries, Paris, press releases
The Actuary Magazine has an online job search facility The Actuary Jobs. As vacancies are uploaded by both employers and a selection of recruiters, we decided to assume that is representative of the range of actuarial opportunities currently available. The initial aim was to produce a statistical analysis of the vacancies available on The Actuary Jobs in order to create a picture of the current actuarial job market.
Which sectors have the most vacancies? And at which levels of experience? Are there significant differences in salary across sectors? How great are the increases in salary between different career stages – from recent graduates to experienced actuaries?
First I entered the data for the number of vacancies by sector. As shown in Graph 1, there are significantly more vacancies advertised for General and Life positions than for any other sector.
Vacancies by Sector
The next stage was to investigate how these vacancies subdivided by career stage. (Graph 2) The job search facility recognises 8 distinct career stages from undergraduate through to experienced.
Actuarial vacancies subdivided by sector and career stage
At first glance it appears that once a candidate has commenced their actuarial studies there does not seem to be a significant difference in the number of vacancies available at the various career stages within a sector.
Actuarial Vacancies by Salary Range
The situation appears even stranger when looking at the salaries available at each career stage (Graph 3). There are vacancies available for experienced actuaries within the lowest pay-band of £20,000 – £29,000 and it would seem that there are positions available where actuarial students, at the beginning of their career, will be able to command a salary in excess of £120,000!
The solution lies in the way that vacancies have been uploaded to the jobsearch facility. Once vacancy for a head of pricing, responsible for dealing with senior management lists the experience required as “Actuarial Student, Ex-student, Part Qualified, Nearly / Newly Qualified, Qualified, Experienced”. Therefore, this position is included as a vacancy at every career stage, rendering statistical analysis of the data impossible. More importantly is the effect that this will have on candidates using this facility to search for a job.
Visitors to The Actuary Jobs are invited to choose from a selection of criteria (sector, level, salary) in order to create a short list of appropriate vacancies. Understandably there may be some overlap between career stages, a vacancy may be suitable either for someone who is Nearly / Newly Qualified or for someone Qualified, but to list every career stage for one vacancy, as in the example above, renders the search facility useless. Candidates using The Actuary Jobs search facility will not be able to obtain a short list that is any more meaningful that the full list of vacancies.
It is imperative for employers and recruiters to carefully consider their choice of keywords when uploading a vacancy. At present, this does not appear to be the case.
Posted in Articles, Insights, Life, Trends
Tagged actuarial, actuarial exams, Actuaries, Actuary, acturarial profession, Articles, career stages, Careers, Education, employers, general, graduates, job search, life, online job search, recruitment, salary, sector, statistical analysis, The Actuarial Profession, vacancies
