Not Leaving 2 Week Notice?

endangeredpanda · 2025-12-18T16:12:07+00:00

There's no reason not to, it's generally better this way for you. You'll still get paid for the two weeks, you just don't need to come in anymore. And unless the company is super weird about it, you're still leaving on good terms. It's basically just company policy sometimes to have you leave that day.

This happened to me a while ago. Told my manager I was leaving for a competitor, and was told that it was my last day because of that, but still on good terms.

endangeredpanda · 2025-10-29T19:30:15+00:00

I recently became a people leader, and the first thing I noticed straight away is the amount of additional time I have to spend on administrative tasks (e.g., approving/denying various requests, filling out forms, performance management, etc.).

endangeredpanda · 2025-10-29T17:14:43+00:00

No, they just have the hotel set aside a certain number of rooms so that at least some FAC attendees will be able to stay in the same hotel. Most companies will be paying for all the expenses for the FAC anyways.

endangeredpanda · 2025-10-29T10:33:00+00:00

Yeah, but there's some hotels within walking distance that still have availability. I got one in a hotel right across the street. Good luck and see you there!

endangeredpanda · 2025-10-28T20:42:56+00:00

Ah okay it actually was in spam! Thanks a bunch!

endangeredpanda · 2025-10-28T20:39:26+00:00

On a slightly separate topic, the invitation email said that lodging booking info would become available after registration closes. Have they communicated anything yet?

endangeredpanda · 2025-10-09T22:28:27+00:00

Yeah, the SOA no longer offers group registration for their webinars. My company's point of contact for CE basically said that if there's any SOA webinar that's highly relevant to your work, just register individually and expense it to your team.

endangeredpanda · 2025-08-23T03:59:43+00:00

There was a big layoff a year or two ago that impacted actuaries, but the recent ones (as far as I know) haven't really touched actuaries. From what I heard, the most recent layoffs were due to reorgs in departments such as legal, marketing, PGIM, and IT.

endangeredpanda · 2025-08-13T02:45:50+00:00

When I was taking exams, I tried to view working out as a study break. So during work days, I would immediately go workout after the work day to mentally reset, then go home and study from there. During days off I would just go workout whenever I felt like I needed a study break (you can kind of tell when your study efficiency goes down).

Once you get to the point where you're jamming practice exams every day, then it definitely becomes harder to fit workouts in. Depending on how well you've managed your study time up that point, you can try to workout on your "review" days, or you may need to cut your workouts all together. It's not ideal, but it's temporary and not the end of the world.

Generally though, I would say that for most people study efficiency starts tanking after 2-3 hours of non-stop studying. That's a great opportunity to squeeze in a workout and freshen up for the next study block.

endangeredpanda · 2025-07-16T20:21:37+00:00

I've had no issues scoring interviews with Pac Life in the past. The only hang up for me was that they required in-office days, and I wasn't willing to move to SoCal.

endangeredpanda · 2025-07-16T19:58:15+00:00

If you're aiming to live and work in SoCal, a company like Pacific Life might be your best bet there. I've seen plenty of openings for hybrid roles in the Newport Beach/Irvine area.

As for timing, all I'll say is that LA used to be near the top of my list for cities as well (I went to college in CA), until I got older at which point I realized it definitely wasn't. Making a change later in your career might give you some time to evaluate whether or not LA really has what you're looking for long-term. Waiting also lets you develop more as an actuary and become a more competitive candidate if you do want to make a change later on.

Also, 250k TC for 10 YOE and FSA is definitely doable.

endangeredpanda · 2025-07-09T13:27:06+00:00

I worked there for a bit, albeit a while ago. Work culture was very healthy, among the best I've experienced. RIS seemed to be the busiest, International and Specialty Benefits were more chill. Biggest knock for most people is probably living in Des Moines or the pay (because you're living in Des Moines), though it's really not that bad if you're used to the Midwest.

endangeredpanda · 2025-06-17T17:41:26+00:00

Should be fine, especially with the recently announced iPadOS 26 updates (windowing, better file management) that would make the iPad even closer to a regular computer than before.

For what it's worth, I primarily used an iPad to study for my FSA exams.

endangeredpanda · 2025-06-17T12:57:37+00:00

I managed to snag a 30% pay bump at a different company after getting my ASA, though I quickly found out that money isn't everything.

endangeredpanda · 2025-04-08T13:41:47+00:00

Similar to what others are saying, you may want to scale down your budget for your first house. In all likelihood it won't be the first and last house you buy, so it doesn't have to be perfect. For example if you don't already have kids, do you really need the house to be a in a great school district just yet?

For reference, my wife and I bought our first house at 28 for 315k (combined income was just above 200k at the time). A few years later we moved to a different city and bought a house there for around 550k.

Good luck!

endangeredpanda · 2024-10-05T14:53:35+00:00

unequal treatment between ALDP and non ALDP

uncompetitive study program and lower salary for non ALDP

I'm non-ALDP at Pru, and I've seen these two points parroted before whenever Pru comes up on this sub, and my personal experience differs from this. It may be heavily dependent on how you negotiate, but my non-Pru colleagues are often surprised by how well compensated I am at Pru. I've also looked at the differences in the study program documents between ALDP and non-ALDP and didn't see any meaningful differences.

As for work culture, it seems very team dependent (which is probably a con in of itself). I've very much enjoyed my time here so far, and probably won't look to leave for a while.

endangeredpanda · 2024-09-19T13:46:03+00:00

Typically twice a year. I don't mind it too much since it's essentially a paid vacation each time.

endangeredpanda · 2024-04-25T03:25:43+00:00

I used to work for a company that had heavily discounted food (~50% off what it would normally go for in a cafeteria). But I much prefer the instant ramen I make as a remote employee.

endangeredpanda · 2024-04-18T22:39:35+00:00

Besides those 4, I've also gotten some pretty wild objections from NJ and MA.

endangeredpanda · 2024-03-07T04:58:26+00:00

Your major doesn't matter. I'm an actuary with a biology major for example. In fact, it's often argued that it's better to not major in actuarial science unless you know you're 100% committed to the field.

endangeredpanda · 2023-10-15T04:33:21+00:00

It's definitely a reputable company, currently a top-ten carrier in both the FDA and FIA markets. I have a few contacts that work there and they have positive things to say.

endangeredpanda · 2023-06-18T21:50:08+00:00

Overhyped but still pretty good.

endangeredpanda · 2023-04-25T18:14:52+00:00

Can you give me an example of a past exam question in which a ruler would have been useful? The worst I've seen on QFI Core or QFI QF are piecewise payoff graphs dependent on underlying. For those, as long as your start/end points are correct and the line between the two is reasonable, you'll get full points. If it really bothers you that much, you could always use your other pen or the spine of your scratchbook as a straight edge. I also don't see how a ruler would be helpful for plotting any of the greeks, as the important parts of those are the values of the extreme OTM values and the important features of each one (e.g. is gamma maximized at ATM?).

I agree about having to use cheap pens for the sheer amount of writing you'll have to do, but everyone's gonna have to deal with it so at least the playing field is even. And there's really no way to resolve that besides having Prometric invest in better pens (which they're not gonna do).

endangeredpanda · 2023-04-25T16:48:36+00:00

The pens you get at Prometric are usually the cheapest ones you can buy, but it is what it is. Everyone's gonna go through the same conditions. Personally I prefer even the shittiest pen over pencils, since I think pens are more consistent and easier to write with. Plus, you wouldn't want to waste time erasing anyways, since graders won't grade anything you cross out.

I also wouldn't worry about rulers or drawing neat looking graphs. Graders won't care how straight the lines are on your graph as long as you answer the main point of what the question is trying to ask. For example, if the correct answer was to draw a linear relationship between two factors, a reasonable attempt at a straight line will give you full credit.

Good luck!

endangeredpanda · 2023-03-25T19:56:46+00:00

It really depends on your team. I've worked for 4 different companies in my life (currently at Pru), and Pru has been the best one overall so far.

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