Two surefire stress reducers

Who doesn’t have stress? It is a part of our daily lives, and we know that constant or excessive stress can truly endanger health. Reacting negatively while under stress can threaten our relationships, both personal and professional. There are many reasons to be stressed, and many strategies for minimizing stress in our lives. It isn’t likely that you can eliminate stress, but it’s always good to have some coping and relief strategies at hand during your work day. Here are two of our favorites.

Breathe

Sure, you breathe all the time, but studies show that when we are stressed we tend to breathe more shallowly, and even hold our breath. The most immediately calming thing you can do when under stress is to concentrate on your breathing. Breathe deeply. You might be surprised to learn what proper and effective deep breathing is and how to do it. This inspiring Ted Talk “Breathe to Heal” may really open your eyes, and mind about how transformational proper breathing can be. The actual breathing lesson is at the end of the talk.

Listen to music

Research shows that listening to music improves our mental well-being and boosts our physical health in surprising and astonishing ways. Listening to music you enjoy decreases levels of the stress hormone cortisol in your body, which counteracts the effects of chronic stress. When you use music as a stress relieving tool, it’s easy to understand why English playwright and poet, William Congreve wrote, “Music hath charms to soothe a savage beast, to soften rocks, or bend a knotted oak.” If you have that “knotted oak” feeling in your chest, a music break could be the answer. Head phones and a few minutes of soothing music can be an amazing mood changer.  

If you are not loving your job is a source of stress, maybe we can help. www.actuarialcareers.com

Is it who you know?

Is finding a great job really a matter of who you know? Certainly, it always helps to have a connection or an advocate on the inside. One of the most compelling reasons that “who you know” is so valuable is that many jobs never make it onto the job boards. Often times a vacancy prompts employees to think about whom they know that could fill the role. Human resource departments and managers want qualified candidates and don’t want the task of sorting resumes. More often than not, a few resumes from trusted sources, are what companies prefer, which is why companies like to have relationships with reputable recruiters.

Both the company’s employees and recruiters will be the first to know about openings and unadvertised positions. An employee recommendation is good, but the company knows that a good recruiter will pre-qualify candidates for their experience, expertise, personality and fit for the position and the company culture.

The benefit to the candidate is that a recruiter has the overview of the company and position as a fellow employee may not. This overview would include compensation and perks of the position. In addition, an industry-specific recruiter, as for actuaries, offers mentoring and career path counseling. A recruiter who takes time to know and personally interview candidates is able to present their skills and strengths beyond what can be presented on a resume.

               

Some candidates mistakenly think that if an employer has to pay a recruiting fee, it will reduce the compensation package. In reality, the opposite is more often true.

Good relationships can definitely be worth their weight in gold. It’s smart to cultivate authentic relationships in your field with your counterparts and with a reputable recruiter. When the time comes to start a search you will have the inside track and an advocate in your corner.  

Why taking time off is important.

Summertime is the time we think about vacation. If you haven’t made a plan or are reluctant to do so, consider this.

According to Project Time Off, “American workers are overwhelmed. After years of being asked to “do more with less” workers are overstretched, stressed out, and exhausted. The always-on, 24/7 American work culture is taking a heavy toll, leading to 429 million wasted vacation days that undermine our personal, business, and economic well-being.” 

Not taking the vacation or time off you are entitled to is called, “The Work Martyr Complex”. Reasons given for forfeiting paid time off include fears about appearing less committed, being overlooked for important projects and concerns about the amount of work that will be waiting upon return. 

According to an Oxford Economics’ analysis, which includes results reported by the U.S. Bureau of Larbor and Statistics, “there is no link between putting in more time at the office and getting a pay raise or bonus. In fact, employees who left 11-15 days of PTO unused last year are actually less likely (6.5% less likely) to have received a raise or bonus in the past three years than those who used all of their PTO.”

In fact research shows that time off greatly enhances: better physical health, personal productivity, closer family relationships, new ideas, less chance of burn out, more energy.

If you want to the best you can be for yourself, your family and your employer, take taking a break seriously.

Selling Yourself

A job interview is the exact situation in life when you have to sell yourself. 

Even though the manager or interviewer has seen your resume’, a resume is an introduction to your job history and a glimpse of your professional accomplishments, it can never take the place of actually meeting you. It’s your job to sell your uniqueness to the company in a way that makes them see you. They are looking for a good fit for the position not just in job experience but in work ethic and personal traits. 

Even if the job is not your first choice, don’t act as if the company has to sell themselves to you. The actual face-to-face is when it is so important to be prepared to sell yourself. It can really pay off in a way that nothing else can. It’s why you have been invited in. 

To help you make an impression immediately, it’s a really good idea to come up with a 30-second “commercial” that tells your professional story. Of course it should coincide with what is on your resume, but this is where you have the opportunity to quickly add background to things you can’t offer on a resume’, Such as, “I’ve been working as an actuary for 15 years, and over the years I have helped my employers be more profitable. In the process I’ve really enjoyed learning and growing as a result of the opportunities I’ve had. Now I am looking and ready for my next challenge.” For help with an actuarial resume, contact us.

5 Things to wrap up your interview

1. Make sure that before you leave the interview meeting, you clearly express your interest in the position. Be genuinely enthusiastic about how you are looking forward to working with them in the future.

2. Even if you’ve already discussed it, you can end with a summary of how you feel you can be of benefit to the company. 

3. Ask about the next step. It is perfectly fine to ask when they anticipate making a decision about the position. 

If you are working with us at Actuarial Careers, you have the benefit of knowing we will be in touch with the company to follow up on your interview. We will be able to give you feedback on the interview from the manager’s perspective. And we will keep in touch until they make a decision. 

4. After the stress of an interview it can be so easy to forget the simple things we do every day, like saying thank you! Don’t forget to thank the interviewer for their time.

5. When you get back home, always follow up any interview with a prompt thank-you letter. Make it short and professional. It’s will help to make you memorable. 

For help with your job search contact us.

Optimizing Your Resume

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If you haven’t done a resume recently, it’s time to brush up on the most current trends. You may have heard of Search Engine Optimization for websites, but it may not strike a chord when you think about your resume. Once you have written your basic resume, you should pump it up with keywords that align your qualifications with the positions you are seeking. If you do, computerized and human search engines are more likely to find a match in you! Here’s how to go about it. 

1. Review the job posting

Pay attention to the title of the position, experience, skills and education in the job postings on our website. These are really good sources of industry keywords. These can be helpful terms to help you describe your experience. If they do, include them appropriately in your resume.

 2. Job descriptions 

Your recruiter is likely to have more detailed job descriptions of the position or types of positions you are interested in. Ask to see the full job descriptions, they often give a broader range of qualifications than a job posting. You may find more ways that your experience can match up with the requirements. Then you can also use the company’s lingo in the context of your resume. 

 3. Positions/Titles 

Hiring managers like to see resumes that contain a matching title for the position or a level below the position to secure candidates with relevant experience and skills. If you see a match to your experience, make sure your titles reflect it. If you happen to have a title that is unique or a less commonly known term, change it to reflect something the employer can tell is an equivalent to what they are looking for. 

For help with an actuarial resume, contact us.

6 Smart Resume Writing Tips

If you haven’t done a resume recently, it’s time to brush up on the most current trends. 

We know many candidates who would rather attempt to write the sequel to War and Peace then to write their own resume’. We help our candidates, but we encourage them to understand what is important in presenting themselves to a prospective company. Here are some of the tips we offer our candidates to help them launch the process of representing their experience and talents on paper.

 1. Start by thinking about what you want to convey to a prospective employer. The first rule in writing is to know your audience. You may know what you have to offer, but you have to put yourselves in their shoes. Think about what would interest them about you, and what makes you the best candidate for the job.

2. Make it easy for the reader to skim your resume and still get the main points. Use bold subtitles and communicate key accomplishments in bite-sized sentences. 

3. Speak to benefits, not just your experience. It’s a good idea to include examples of how you brought value to your employers: money you saved them, models you’ve developed, procedures you put in place or projects that made them money. 

4. Ensure your resume is aligned with your LinkedIn profile, twitter account, blog, and other social media pages. Consistency is key, anything else is confusing and appears as suspicious. 

 5. Use a format that is mobile and device friendly so that your resume can easily be opened on any device without having to log into a platform like Google Docs. A PDF is always a good choice. 

6. Optimize your resume. We can help.

How strong are you at strengths?

You can expect every job interviewer to ask you what you feel are your strengths. When you think about it, your strengths are the things you do within the scope of your position that make you stand out from others who do the same thing.

It can be difficult sometimes to identify our own strengths. Most of us tend to minimize them because they are natural and easy for us, so they don’t feel special. What you may discover is that others recognize them before you do, which is why you might find that some responsibilities get delegated to you more often than others. 

For instance, you may be a natural at organizing your office space or files, and you find that others ask you for ideas they can implement. 

You may be really adept a seeing the bigger picture, so you often find yourself appointed as the project leader.

You may be good at explaining concepts, which puts you in front of the room or in charge of creating a presentation for the executives in your company. 

Once view your strengths from that perspective, you also have the examples to share during an interview, of how your strengths could benefit the prospective employer. 

If you work with a professional and experienced recruiter, he or she can help you prepare for your interview. A good recruiter who really knows you, and knows the position and the company can help you tailor the presentation of your strengths to the requirements of the position. 

How do you define your strengths?  

Let us help you make the most of your strengths. www.actuarialcareers.com

The Job Offer: Negotiating Salary

Most people find “the money” conversation difficult to address when interviewing. If you aren’t working with a recruiter, you may not even know what the salary range of the position is. If you do, you likely have no way of knowing where your experience fits into the company’s compensation scale. This is one of the many advantages of working with a reputable recruiter.

There are many reasons for actuarial job seekers to work with a recruiter, but one of the most compelling is that they know the industry and all about salary and negotiation.

Your recruiter should have all the information about the company, what the position pays, what skills the job really requires, how those skills are valued, and what type of person would be a good fit for the culture. When you are the perfect match, the recruiter knows that it makes you more valuable to the hiring manager. All of these things factor in to successful salary negotiation. When you work with a recruiter he or she will be able to eliminate the confusion. 

When you receive an offer, the recruiter can help to “sell” your qualifications to the company in a way that you could never do, because they have a connection with the company and the manager.

A good recruiter is experienced in finding the right fit first and then getting the best offer for the candidate. They do the negotiation so that you don’t have to!

Visit us at www.actuarialcareers.com for more information.

Are your salary requirements realistic?

It can be difficult to get perspective on your value in the workplace. Often candidates’ ideas of what they think they should be earning are misaligned with what employers are willing to pay, or what the marketplace will bear.

Wanting to earn more can be a reason to change jobs, but if that’s the only reason, it might mean you need to take a closer and more educated look at the marketplace, your value in it, and your value to your existing employer.

Before you begin, realize that your financial needs are not justification for earning more. Take stock of your experience, not only in terms of years in the industry, but projects and leadership roles that brought value to your employers. If you have accomplishments in your current position such as: money you’ve saved them; models you created; projects you were involved in or spearheaded; results that went beyond your job description, you could use them to ask for an increase. If not, make sure you include them in your next resume.

Knowing what your position with your specialties is worth in your field could be difficult to pinpoint. To assist actuaries, we gather information on actuarial careers and offer detailed salary information, via great query tools that make it easy to see how your skills and salary measure up, and what you need to reach the income level you want.  

Our job listings can also help you see the possibilities! 

Time management at work.

Most of us have more To-do than day.  If it seems that there simply isn’t enough time in your workday, it could be that you aren’t using yours wisely. We all have the same 24 hours in a day, yet some people accomplish so much and others barely move the productivity needle.

The biggest impediments to success are procrastination and wasted time. We all give in to these productivity eaters from time to time. 

The best way to overcome time-wasting habits is to embrace a plan that helps you focus. 

Here are some ways you can harness concentration, get more done in less time so you do have more free time.

1.  Create a To-do list and keep it in plain sight. If the activity isn’t on your list, it’s not “real”, meaning that if it wasn’t important enough to make the list, it’s not worthy of your work time. Writing things down keeps you from forgetting and keeps you realistic about how much you have to get done. Sticking to your list keeps you on track.
2. Get organized. Searching for the things you need is a huge time waster. Having what you need when you need it also keeps you from getting distracted with other tasks, ideas and thoughts while you are searching. This goes for organizing your desktop and the files you need on your computer.
3. Prioritize your list. While you list maybe extensive, some things are more time sensitive or important than others. If you prioritize and work on completing the most important tasks first, even if you only get one thing done, it will at least be the most important one.
4. Batch related tasks together. Doing like tasks or work that involves the same subject or information will allow you to get more done in less time.
5. Schedule some break time. Regardless of how much you have to do, you have to manage your energy. Allow yourself time to get up and stretch and move around. A good break will increase your productivity when you return to your desk.
6. Make it a habit to pay attention to your regular fluctuations in your physical and mental energy levels. Do the most intensive tasks when you know your concentration is at its peak.

If you are considering a job change, check out our new job listings here.

Remember when Sony Pictures got hacked?

When Sony Pictures' email system was hacked? Actors’ salaries became public knowledge. That was when some actors discovered the discrepancies in pay scales. Fortunately, the actuarial community has real information and great tools to find out what the marketplace is paying for actuarial positions throughout the country, and for nearly every field and specialization.

We at Actuarial Careers, Inc. realize how important it is to your life and your career path to compare  where you are now, where you are going and what the next step should be along the path in terms of salary advancement. Our recruiters can help you with a strategy for your advancement. Our unique salary survey results are presented with query tools that allow you to slice and dice the salary data we collect. In a few keystrokes you can see what job titles, specializations and geographic locations are paying.     

   

Every year, in December, we launch a new survey. Participation in the survey includes actuaries in a drawing for prizes. We encourage you, and the actuaries you know to participate. The more participation we get the more you will know about salaries in your industry. Your information is always confidential. 

Take a look, and be sure to be on the lookout for our emails and social media posts. If you aren’t on our list, sign up here.  In the meantime, here’s a link to our HOT jobs.

Are your salary requirements realistic?

It can be difficult to get perspective on your value in the workplace. Often candidates’ ideas of what they think they should be earning are mis-aligned with what employers are willing to pay or what the marketplace will bear.

Wanting to earn more can be a reason to change jobs, but if that’s the only reason, it might mean you need to take a closer and more educated look at the marketplace, your value in it, and your value to your existing employer.

Before you begin, realize that your financial needs are not justification for earning more. Take stock of your experience, not only in terms of years in the industry, but projects and leadership roles that brought value to your employers, past and current. If you have accomplishments in your current position such as: money you’ve saved them; models you created; projects you were involved in or spearheaded; results that went beyond your job description, you could use them to ask for an increase. If not, make sure you include them in your next resume.

Knowing what your position in your industry with your specialties pays could be difficult to pinpoint. To assist actuaries, we gather information on actuarial careers and offer detailed information, via great query tools that make it easy to see how your skills and salary measure up and what you need to reach the income level you want.  

Our job listings can also help you see the possibilities!