My husband was on the track to become a mathematics professor, couldn't keep his grades up in the P.h.D. program of mathematics he had been in, working as a Teaching Assistant, for two years, withdrew. We've been focusing him on an Actuarial track ever since. He had 2 exams passed and a master's in mathematics for 18 months, got his third exam 7 months ago, and 4 exams passed as of Nov 2015. It would be one thing if he was getting interviews but no hires but he's gotten only 2 interviews in 18 months. We're at a weird place. We thought more exams were better, but Employers are not responding, obviously.
We're pulling at straws and playing guessing games. Meanwhile, he's working manual labor at a Union. And he's not just applying for Actuary positions, there have been other job titles he's applied for. Like Analyst and those people that prepare mortgage contracts. We are only applying locally for lower paying positions, but we opened our Actuary search to the entire United States over a year ago now. One of my guesses is his current job, always meant to me a temp fix, now looks horrible on his resume. As a result of this guess, now he is making moves towards a non union but same employer supervisor position, because at least that is an office job with "responsibility" even those he's never wanted to be anyone's manager. We've had his resume looked at. We practiced interview skills for a few hours a day before his last interview.
This whole thing is massively confusing to me because my whole life Math = jobs. Good at math = better jobs. But never chronic underemployment. Our other guess is that actuary has become a job of nepotism and networking and if you don't know the right people, you don't get a glance. It's a big Question Mark and we don't know where else to go as we've thrown a lot of time and resources into this direction and he would actually like to be an Actuary and the salary scale is where we want him to be at.
Now, my second partner (polyfidelitous V if it matters) has a completely different background that is not complicated to explain. He has some mental health issues but is very intelligent (can chat with Master's in Math husband all day.) All he wants to do is switch from his near 11 year union job and become an Electrician. Pure college seems to trigger his OCD/ performance anxiety, so we wanted him to go the route of the On the job vocational training with the local electrician's Union. But he applied in October and they won't even give him a timeline. I am like, What? Although, maybe we're jumping the gun on being concerned? It's not even been 3 months and Holiday season was involved...
Meanwhile, I took a chance, my career seems to be blossoming and my income nearly doubled. I am NOT good at math, although I enjoy physics and chemistry, but I do work in the medical field (not a nurse), and I do have 7 years of experience employers very much like you to have.
What I've taken strongly from MMM is keep optimizing and poking and improving. But maybe I'm encouraging my partners into the wrong directions or don't fully understand how to help my partners break into their industry choices.
What are we doing wrong?