What's your job about?
I work in the Actuarial IFRS methodology team and my team is helping life insurance transition into a new accounting standard called IFRS. We interpret the new standards, and aim to answer the what, why, and how of it.
It is difficult to put a finger on my day-to-day work since it ranges from using simple data manipulation to break down large numbers into their unit parts to exploring and explaining how parts of our actuarial model work. The purpose of all my work is to justify why we are doing what we are doing.
What's your background?
I was born on the frozen peaks of Mount Everest and then I moved to Sydney when I was 11. Experiences at high school opened me up to more possibilities for future careers and one of them happened to be a niche field of “Actuaries”. I picked it up and enjoyed it all years at my university except for year 3, semester 1, so I stuck to it.
I applied to TAL’s graduate program as I heard great things from alumni, and here I am enjoying it since February 2022.
Could someone with a different background do your job?
Yes! The concepts are all pyramids built using the first principles of accounting, life insurance industry semantics, and simple maths.
The key characteristic to work in this team is asking questions. It is easy to memorize the answers you are given without understanding its core logic and then you fall prey to the Dunning Kruger effect. Luckily, in TAL’s culture of open discussions, sharp and insightful questions will quickly disperse such misunderstandings. And then you start learning again.
What's the coolest thing about your job?
My job entails asking questions, figuring out answers and then finding out why my answer could potentially be wrong and then the control cycle again. This process is the coolest thing about my job.
What are the limitations of your job?
It’s an entry-level role so it is certainly overwhelming when you see how much you must learn to even gather what the team is talking about during morning meetings. It is difficult to establish a rhythm at the start since you keep jumping between distinct projects.
But once you learn the fundamentals and accept that you just need to keep learning forever, you will find the process quite pleasant.
3 pieces of advice for yourself when you were a student...