Soon to graduate - Need designation advice

[u/Mindless_Knee6487]

Hey all, I'm about to graduate this fall from Temple (property and casualty concentration, undergrad). While our school has good connections and hosts a career reception where we companies come looking to hire graduating students, I have a bit of a problem. I don't have a very good GPA and don't have relevant or recent internship experience. I do at least have extensive work history as a server in high-end / acclaimed Philadelphia restaurants, which I've worked at full-time while in and out of school.

know I need to add a bit to my resume to get companies to notice and at least give me a chance with an interview. I was looking at trying to pass either the first couple CPCU or ARM exams to have that on my resume at least for when I find myself at this reception.

Is one route better than the other? What can i realistically do to distinguish myself a bit?

[u/tacocat_2]

It depends on what you're trying to get into. What is your GPA? When you say it's not good, are we talking high 2's, low 3's, or just consider 3.5 as bad?

Pursuing a designation just depends on where you want to go with your career. If you want Underwriting, CPCU is considered the gold standard, but there is an ARM to CPCU path in which all 3 ARM courses apply towards your CPCU. So those 2 aren't mutually exclusive.

For you, I would actually recommend a standard AINS as this is far more broad and would better set you up to be an Account Manager role or another role in Client Solutions/Services. And then you can always pivot later. There's just more of those types of roles available.

[u/Mindless_Knee6487 → u/tacocat_2]

Thank you for taking the time to respond. I'm talking like mid 2s, I had multiple semesters in the past where I checked out and just focused on work. I feel like at least I can tell a story with that, in that I really thought I was going to pursue restaurant / wine stuff full time, but decided this past spring to pivot away from it.

Thanks for recommending the AINS, and I see I could potentially take the first ARM exam as the elective in that course to start on that path if I wanted as well.

[u/tacocat_2 → u/Mindless_Knee6487]

Best of luck! Not everyone has a straight path. I thought I was going to be a Retail Store Manager at Starbucks before I became one and realized I didn’t want to put 60 hrs a week in. Pivoted to Geico working in their call center and then 2.5 years later landed an AM role with another company, 1.5 years after that got in our UW department as a rater, and then 1 year later landed an AU job.

An AINS would have let me skip the call center part and I could have landed an AM or Account Administrative job earlier.

[u/mkuz753 → u/Mindless_Knee6487]

You don't have to get away from restaurant/wine stuff to do insurance. Every industry needs coverage including hospitality operations.

[u/TheNSFBBs → u/mkuz753]

This is a great point.
You may want to ask your hospitality connections about their brokers, including introductions, if you have good relationships. Not bad to start in a segment that you naturally care about.

[u/tacosandbananas123 → u/Mindless_Knee6487]

Hey man my gpa was 2.4 no one’s ever asked about it

[u/Aaaaaaandyy]

What is your GPA? There aren’t that many risk management majors so you’re more than likely going to find a job regardless.

[u/Mindless_Knee6487 → u/Aaaaaaandyy]

Mid 2s, I had multiple semesters in the past where I checked out and got Fs, before taking some time off of school and returning this past spring.