Actuarial Intern Review

I really enjoyed my experience at Mercer. It was a very worthwhile experience and I feel like I understand more about what an actuary does day-to-day and I have enjoyed the atmosphere of the office.

I felt valued by my colleagues

I was given good support from my supervisor, as well as the other people who sat near me or who I worked with. They told me about what it was like to work for Mercer, as well as answered any questions I had about both the job in general and more specific tasks.

I was not very busy on a daily basis. At the start, I only had a few hours of work to do a day and was given some CT1 work to read through. This was interesting to see what the exams may be like and what I will be required to learn. I did get busier as the weeks went on, but there was rarely a day where I was busy all day.

I was given responsibility to oversee some team inboxes, and logging incoming calculations into a spreadsheet. I think I was given a good level of responsibility as I was able to do most things I was given but I didn't feel like I had no responsibility.

The skills I developed will really help in my future career. I do hope to become an actuary, and so just being in the office and having the opportunity to see what actuaries do and speak to them about their career has been really valuable. The team working skills I have gained will help me and I have become more confident throughout my internship.

The general atmosphere was a very nice one to work in. I really enjoyed how everyone wasn't just working on their work by themselves, but they went over to other people's desks to discuss work, as well as just to chat. There were always people around to help and I liked the open plan feel of it and the fact that it wasn't completely silent.

It was quite well organised. The first induction day was organised well but when I started in my office the following day, there wasn't much work for me to do - though I do appreciate that without knowing much, there wasn't much I could do. We weren't given much information about the two projects we were assigned to do and so this brought about much confusion among the interns about where to start. Having said all this, this was just being picky and overall, the internship was organised very well.

They gave me some CT1 things to look over whilst I didn't have much work to do. This gave me an insight into what the actuarial exams would be like. As I was only there 8 weeks, there wasn't much they could do in terms of personal training and development. I had a mid-review half way through where my People's manager had collected feedback from various people I had worked with and he let me know this feedback and explained what else I could be doing if I wanted to improve.

They are very appealing. I have really enjoyed working here over the summer and would love the opportunity to work here full time. I have spoken to many people around the office who said that they initially did the summer internship before starting here full time. From speaking to various people studying for their actuarial exams, they told me about how Mercer is very supportive with giving study days for exams and supporting the trainee actuaries through their exams.

There weren't any other actuarial interns in Manchester and so there wasn't a social scene among the interns, however, among the rest of the actuarial team there was a good social scene, often going out for drinks when anyone has passed an exam or just various other socials such as bowling.

I lived at home whilst working on my internship so can't comment on the cost of living in Manchester. However, socialising in Manchester isn't overly expensive and there are a lot of things to do in Manchester city centre where the office was based. The location of the office was amazing and it was very easy to reach on public transport.

I didn't really go out in the evening after work but having lived in Manchester, I can say that the Nightlife is very good in the centre of Manchester. There is a big choice of places to go, all very close to the Mercer office and the centre of town. It is also much cheaper than in other places, such as London.

Yes, there were many opportunities to get involved in activities outside of work. The actuarial team, often went out for drinks when anyone passed an exam and there were other activities organised such as bowling and go-karting. If you want to get involved with activities outside of work, there are plenty opportunities to do this.