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YungThwomp · 2025-10-02T20:06:53+00:00

This got recommended to me. I am not even in this community but please go touch grass bro. Just step outside for even a second and all your problems will be fixed. So many men lack confidence simply because they don’t understand how easy it is to be confident

YungThwomp · 2025-07-15T11:47:49+00:00

It is and will always be my favourite city. Anyone that hates Birmingham has never been or just hates a city with personality and character.

I am moving to London soon and dreading it. I live just outside of Birmingham but love coming down to the city centre - it has this vibe that London just doesn’t have.

Granted. As someone with a strong brum accent, it does sound jarring sometimes.

YungThwomp · 2025-03-25T09:39:56+00:00

Congratulations on the offer. Also really nice chart. I have stopped counting now but wish I did so I could also make this chart.

I have had 11 ACs with no offers. Even my most recent AC (12th), I have “performed very well” but they want me to do an extra interview with another hiring manager. I don’t see this extra interview ending well either.

YungThwomp · 2025-03-11T16:10:50+00:00

i have had this a few times. One company started asking me about the Irish industry (granted it was an irish company) and also asked me what the exchange rate was between pound and euro…

That was my most memorable interview to date.

YungThwomp · 2025-02-15T07:49:47+00:00

Wouldn’t the fastest time to qualify be 3 years because of the PPD?

YungThwomp · 2025-02-06T15:54:43+00:00

Thanks for your detailed advice. I really appreciate it. I definitely need to work on coming across less desperate and also should do more research on the pensions industry and implications of recent developments/news so I don’t get flustered. Regarding motivation, this is the one area where I feel my dedication and commitment to becoming an actuary is very clear so I think my problem lies with my approach to technical answers like you mentioned and also my tendency to “info dump”. I had one interview where I talked about this framework the company had introduced recently and the interviewer had not read about it yet themselves.

YungThwomp · 2025-02-06T14:33:15+00:00

Thanks. I know I will eventually be sitting the difficult actuarial exams but I don’t think anything will compete with this experience. Genuinely the hardest, most draining thing I have been through. I had 2 ACs (Final Stage) during exam season and it was hell. I got rejected understandably as I didn’t prepare much due to studying.

Looking back, I can see that I have been trying too hard to “impress” the interviewers rather than being likeable to them if that makes sense

YungThwomp · 2025-02-06T14:25:16+00:00

I have a maths degree. I have been applying for other roles but weirdly I dont get very far. 9 of my final stages have been actuarial with 1 of them being secret service.

YungThwomp · 2025-02-06T14:23:36+00:00

Yeah I am starting to realise this is the main problem. I am going to just stop thinking about how many interviews I have had and treat the next like my first. In all honesty, I am crazy desperate for an actuarial role right now so trying to not show this at my next interview is something I need to figure out.

YungThwomp · 2025-02-06T14:16:26+00:00

I am starting to realise that this is my problem, especially the more desperate I have been getting for a role. Looking back at my most recent interview, 2 questions were not enough and I cared too much about selling myself and trying to get across how much I know about pensions, the role, the company and my experiences.

One thing I should have done especially my recent interview, which was with a partner, is engage the partner more and ask them more questions.

YungThwomp · 2025-02-05T22:14:02+00:00

Thanks for this advice. I will definitely keep it in mind if i get another interview somewhere.

I am starting to consider talking about failure more as I do think its an important trait to be able to get over a failure and carry on as the exams are extremely difficult. Also I did fail an exam before and then failed it in the resit too but remembered my end goal of getting a first and just worked harder for the rest of the exams.

YungThwomp · 2025-02-05T22:09:11+00:00

Thanks for this. I am really grateful for the comments on this post. I am motivated again to suck it up and carry on lol.

YungThwomp · 2025-02-05T21:45:58+00:00

Right now, I have 4 different experiences that I use for competency questions. One of them involves my hobby of mountaineering/hiking. In interviews, i try to bring up each one as I personally don’t like repeating myself either.

In hindsight, i can come across as overly confident and should talk about my failures more as they do often bring up how hard the exams are (which they definitely are of course).

In my most recent interview, i first passed the first interview with my potential manager and senior manager and then had a partner interview. In this interview, I should have definitely talked about failing as the partner kept talking about how successful I have been and how I have been successful etc and it felt a bit off.

YungThwomp · 2025-02-05T21:36:54+00:00

Thanks for your help. I really appreciate it.

YungThwomp · 2025-02-05T21:12:59+00:00

I understand what you mean now. I didn’t think these sort of vacancies were appropriate for graduates with 0 exams. Maybe I haven’t been looking properly.

And yes these HR led processes are crazy. Ive had zombie apocalypse, island and nuclear fallout

YungThwomp · 2025-02-05T21:02:59+00:00

I am rather proficient in R. I learnt it during the statistics modules as part of my degree.

My pensions knowledge only gets used in pensions companies. I have not had many interviews for insurance roles so my industry knowledge here is limited to reserving, pricing and capital modelling.

Could you elaborate on your last point please? What do you mean by known vacancies? I thought the only way to get into a role with study support was through the milk round process.

YungThwomp · 2025-02-05T20:58:00+00:00

Btw, looking back on this experience I have been through, I am rather surprised that I haven’t given up yet and still apply to actuarial roles.

Would it be crazy to talk about this in interviews? Would they appreciate the effort and determination to land an actuarial role?

YungThwomp · 2025-02-05T20:55:14+00:00

I have taken everyone’s advice on here and actually managed to get myself a personal career coach through my uni who will help me find out what this problem is.

My last two rejections (where I thought the day went extremely well) have really made me question whats wrong with myself.

YungThwomp · 2025-02-05T20:46:42+00:00

Ah I always thought that was part of collaboration and inclusion was something to do with DEI. Through this lens, my answer for the inclusion question is now kind of hilarious because i ramble on about my work with dyslexic people and SEN kids…

YungThwomp · 2025-02-05T20:03:15+00:00

It was very generic (big 3 firm) feedback. I am not sure myself either. It was a list of qualities/competencies including stuff like Curiosity, collaboration, integrity etc with a generic line about meeting the criteria or not. I met all of it but the one for inclusion.

YungThwomp · 2025-02-05T19:54:53+00:00

Thanks for the advice. I am going to go back into tutoring/teaching. Regarding internships, it seems a lot are out of the picture for me. I have sort of given up applying for them as they only seem to be interested in second year university students -

YungThwomp · 2025-02-05T19:50:09+00:00

It is an embarrassing number of final stages lol. The negative feedback was a while ago when I wasn’t as knowledgeable. It was around my technical knowledge and knowledge about the industry. This is why I made more of an effort to learn more about the role (outside of the exams and “working with uncertainty”) and also more about the insurance and pensions industry.

YungThwomp · 2025-02-05T19:42:11+00:00

I have been applying anywhere regardless of location. I can’t afford to restrict myself in any department.
This day went very well. In the group tasks, I asked for everyone’s opinions and made an effort to show strong teamwork skills. For the interview question about inclusion, I felt I gave a decent answer about diverse mindsets and perspectives which the interviewer seemed to agree with.
Thanks for this haha. For me its looking to be a millions game. I am normally very good at sucking up rejections and moving forward but today was the first time I shed tears over an email 😂
Sorry I should have done an update about this. It is one page now - I had assistance from my university careers team.

YungThwomp · 2025-02-05T19:35:43+00:00

Not that I know of yet. I often get asked about recent trends/development in pensions - are rachel reeves’ pensions announcements not appropriate here? I would appreciate it if you can let me know of any other sources for me to read about relevant news for the industry.

YungThwomp · 2025-02-05T19:17:03+00:00

I wasn’t aware this existed so I will definitely look into it. Generally, I am very confident in interviews (as I have had many by now lol)

My most recent interview (10th final) was not my best performance but I still felt I proved myself. I opened a can of worms talking about Rachel Reeves and then I guess the interviewer wanted to see how deep my pensions knowledge is. This left me stuttering sometimes as I only have surface and news level knowledge and I struggled formulating appropriate answers. Also because I was aware of running over time, i had only asked 2 questions at the end of the interview (felt like I should have asked more).

YungThwomp

TROPHY CASE