The Future Actuary talked with Mary Giannini, national campus recruiting manager at Towers Perrin, one of the largest actuarial employers in the world, and Lawrence J. Rae, FCIA, assistant vice president and actuary and a member of the committee responsible for the internship program at Sun Life Assurance of Canada. It is a testing ground for full-time hires. We hope to offer permanent employment to all our interns. Companies want to get their investment in the students back and for that reason I think we are typically going to offer permanent employment to people who have done co-op or summer employment with us. We want those who are doing well academically in actuarial science, math, applied math and so forth.
Work experience is important and communications ability is critical.
We put them through a fairly rigorous process. Most of our interns are college students between their junior and senior years. We want candidates who are human beings, that is well-rounded people who have the potential for managerial positions. We are trying to get away from the stereotypical technical actuary. There still is a role for people who have that technical skill set only, but we find they often don't manage to go all the way through our program.