On October 2, 2012, the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries’ Qualifications Executive Committee approved the extension of the IFA and Society of Actuaries’ benchmarking project to include a comparison of the SOA Competency Framework with the IFA Work Based Skills dimensions with an aim to identify a common skill set at qualification and one three years post qualification based on competencies rather than technical knowledge.

The ICA 2014 presentation will present the findings of the actuarial competencies project, which will follow the process outlined below:

 A six person Taskforce, comprising three representatives from each association, will be formed to identify competencies from the SOA’s Competency Framework that align with the IFA’s Work Based Skills. The selected competencies will be relevant to all practice areas and will be able to be modified so that performance can be assessed against each competency at two different levels (new Fellow and three years’ post Fellowship). In the UK, the Financial Reporting Council is motivated to ensure that the IFA specifies actuarial skill sets not just at qualification but also three years post qualification and this project will address their concerns.

The Taskforce will then validate its initial findings with reference groups in the United Kingdom and North America. After fine tuning the competencies and levels based on reference group feedback, the Taskforce will establish assessment mechanisms for each competency level. Once this task is completed, the taskforce will test members who volunteer for the study at qualification and three years’ post qualification to calibrate and validate the model.

This will be the first study of its kind in actuarial education.  Minimum qualifications standards are set by the International Actuarial Association, but both the IFA and SOA exceed these standards. This study will be the first time the two largest actuarial educators have sought to identify and compare, in terms of competencies, the output of the two education programs. We anticipate that the results of the study will enable both organizations to be able to communicate more accurate and realistic expectations of performance to employers of newly qualified actuaries. We further expect that new Fellows will be able to compare themselves against the average performance of others and will be able to anticipate and identify an improvement in each competency area to a benchmark set at three years’ post qualification.