Why did you want to join APR?

Like many other part-qualified actuaries working in industry, I had gained a very useful but somewhat narrow range of experience in my previous job, and I feared I would have difficulty changing practice areas in the future. APR offers exposure to a wide range of projects and actively takes employee and client preferences into account when making decisions on work allocation. I have only been here 6 months and have already had projects at two companies with roles in different areas where I am continuously learning.

How have you found working at APR so far?

After I joined I was pleasantly surprised by many of the other benefits of working here. For example, there is a lot of focus on employee training with regular internal tutor-led courses, self-taught courses using APR’s impressive training library and a yearly allowance for external training. There is a high level of autonomy on what employees can do to improve their skillset and in-house time can be used to carry it out.

Being an actuarially focused employer, APR has a larger actuarial team of which is more than many large employers. However, it also has the advantage of being a relatively small and growing company. It has a flat management structure and many opportunities to get involved in business development projects – opportunities that wouldn’t be available at a larger company.

Having employees working with different clients, there is the risk that they will not interact much and some people will not be aware of what is happening at APR. To help avoid this there is a wide range of regular social events we can get involved in such as coffee/games catch ups, special events and, most recently, a company-wide chess league. There are also regular updates from partners to all employees and information is shared on available client and in-house projects.