Boolean search strings for actuaries: SOA and CAS exams, ASA, FSA, ACAS and FCAS, and the FSA and EA collisions

An actuary search works when the string carries the credential stage (exams passed, associate or fellow), the society that matches the client's business (the Society of Actuaries for life, health, retirement and enterprise risk; the Casualty Actuarial Society for property and casualty) and the practice work: pricing, reserving, valuation, modeling. "Actuary" and "actuarial" alone also match actuarial recruiters, underwriters, data scientists at insurers and students, and several credential abbreviations mean something else entirely.

Below are ten strings by exam stage and practice area, the credential terms behind them, and what LinkedIn, Indeed and Google support as of November 2026. For the operators themselves, see Boolean search strings for recruiters.

Exams and credentials that change what an actuary search finds

• SOA associate. As of November 2026, the SOA's ASA requirements page lists VEE credit in Mathematical Statistics, Economics, and Accounting and Finance; exams P, FM, FAM, either ALTAM or ASTAM, SRM, PA and the ATPA assessment; two e-learning modules and the FAP course; and the Associateship Professionalism Course. Its curriculum change page says LTAM and STAM were replaced by FAM plus ALTAM or ASTAM, and IFM was eliminated, so older profiles still list IFM, LTAM or STAM.
• SOA fellow and CERA. The FSA page lists six practice areas: Corporate Finance and ERM, Group and Health Insurance, General Insurance, Individual Life and Annuities, Investment, and Retirement Benefits. The CERA page describes the Chartered Enterprise Risk Analyst.
• CAS. The CAS credential requirements page starts with VEEs, Exam 1 (Probability), Exam 2 (Financial Mathematics) and the CAS DISCs; the ACAS then needs MAS-I, MAS-II, the Course on Professionalism, Exam 5, the PCPA exam and project, and Exam 6; the FCAS needs Exams 7, 8 and 9. Search both forms of the first two exams: SOA writes P and FM, CAS writes Exams 1 and 2.
• MAAA. The American Academy of Actuaries' membership page says MAAA stands for Member of the American Academy of Actuaries and that the Academy oversees the U.S. Qualification Standards. Ask the client whether the role signs actuarial opinions, because that is where those standards come in.
• Enrolled actuary. The IRS's enrolled actuary page says an enrolled actuary has met the Joint Board's standards and been approved to perform actuarial services required under ERISA.

Ten Boolean strings by exam stage and practice area

Swap in the line of business, exams and metro from your own intake; these are examples. None of them uses graduation years or any other proxy for age or another protected characteristic: exam progress, not the year someone finished school, shows how far along a candidate is.

Analysts and associates

1. Actuarial analyst with exams — LinkedIn general search
("actuarial analyst" OR "actuarial associate" OR "actuarial assistant") AND ("exam p" OR "exam fm" OR "exam fam" OR "exam srm" OR "passed p" OR "passed fm") NOT (recruiter OR "talent acquisition" OR staffing)

2. Life and annuity ASA — LinkedIn Recruiter, Job titles + Keywords filters
(actuary OR "actuarial analyst" OR "assistant actuary") AND (asa OR "associate of the society of actuaries") AND (annuity OR "life insurance" OR altam OR valuation) NOT (cisco OR firewall OR appraiser OR recruiter)

3. Health actuary, FSA — LinkedIn general search
(actuary OR "health actuary" OR "pricing actuary") AND (fsa OR "fellow of the society of actuaries") AND ("group and health" OR medicare OR "risk adjustment" OR "medical economics") NOT ("flexible spending" OR "fsa administrator" OR "benefits administrator")

Property and casualty

4. P&C pricing actuary — LinkedIn general search
(actuary OR "actuarial analyst" OR "pricing actuary") AND (acas OR fcas OR "casualty actuarial society") AND (ratemaking OR "rate filings" OR glm OR "personal auto") NOT (recruiter OR underwriter)

5. Reserving actuary — LinkedIn Recruiter, Keywords filter
("reserving actuary" OR "reserving analyst" OR actuary) AND (reserving OR "loss reserves" OR ibnr OR "statement of actuarial opinion") AND (acas OR fcas OR maaa) NOT ("claims adjuster" OR recruiter)

6. Predictive modeling on the CAS track — Indeed Smart Sourcing
title: (actuary OR "actuarial analyst") AND skill: (glm OR "predictive modeling" OR python OR sas) AND ("mas-i" OR "mas-ii" OR "exam 5" OR pcpa)

Retirement, risk and leadership

7. Pension actuary — LinkedIn general search
("pension actuary" OR "retirement actuary" OR "actuarial consultant") AND ("enrolled actuary" OR "joint board" OR erisa OR "defined benefit") NOT ("enrolled agent" OR "tax preparer" OR "financial advisor")

8. Enterprise risk actuary — LinkedIn general search
(actuary OR "risk actuary" OR "erm actuary") AND (cera OR "chartered enterprise risk analyst" OR "enterprise risk management") NOT (recruiter OR "insurance agent")

9. Chief or appointed actuary — LinkedIn Recruiter, Job titles filter
("chief actuary" OR "appointed actuary" OR "vp actuarial" OR "head of actuarial") AND (fsa OR fcas OR maaa) NOT (recruiter OR "actuarial recruitment")

Search-engine X-ray

10. Public profiles by credential and city — Google X-ray
site:linkedin.com/in "actuary" "fcas" "hartford" -jobs -recruiter -recruiting

What LinkedIn, Indeed and Google actually support

As of November 2026, LinkedIn's Boolean help page requires AND, OR and NOT in capitals, supports quotes and parentheses, and does not support wildcards, so "actuary", "actuaries" and "actuarial" each need writing out. LinkedIn Recruiter's Boolean page lists Job titles, Companies and Skills and Assessments among its Boolean filters and warns that too many facets in one query can cause a search result issue. Exam OR blocks get long fast; keep titles in Job titles and the exam block in Keywords.

Indeed's advanced search post documents title: for the most recent title and anytitle: for any title held, and its industry guides document skill:. String 6 uses title: because underwriters and data scientists at insurers list GLMs and Python too.

Google's search operators page documents quotes, site:, the minus sign and filetype:, but not OR, so run string 10 once per credential.

Narrowing by line of business, exam progress and location

Line of business comes first. Life, annuity, health and retirement work follows the SOA path; property and casualty work follows the CAS path. A health pricing role and a commercial auto reserving role share Excel and almost nothing else.

Exam progress comes next, because it is how actuarial employers grade experience. An analyst with three exams, an associate and a fellow are different hires with different pay. Ask the client which stage it will consider, then build the exam block for that stage only. Many insurers run actuarial student programs, and "actuarial student" is often a job title there, so do not exclude "student" in an actuarial search.

Location narrows last. Ask the client whether the role is remote, hybrid or on site before setting a radius; a remote role widens the pool to every state, while an on-site one may mean searching the cities where insurers and consulting firms keep actuarial teams.

False positives worth excluding with NOT

• Actuarial recruiters. Recruiters who place actuaries list every exam and designation. Exclude "recruiter", "recruiting" and "staffing" in every string.
• The FSA collision. Flexible spending account administrators and benefits staff write FSA constantly. Spell out the credential and exclude "flexible spending", as string 3 does.
• The ASA collision. ASA is also a Cisco firewall product and the abbreviation of other professional bodies, including appraisal credentials. Exclude cisco, firewall and appraiser, as string 2 does.
• The EA collision. EA is also the IRS's enrolled agent credential. Write "enrolled actuary" in full and exclude "enrolled agent", as string 7 does.
• Underwriters and data scientists. Insurance underwriters and data scientists share the vocabulary. Keep them out unless the client will consider them; for underwriters, see Boolean search strings for underwriters.

A worked example: three passes on a reserving search

An invented search, shown as it actually gets narrowed.

The society term fixed the line of business; the reserving words found the people who do the work every quarter.

What a search cannot verify

A string can find someone whose profile lists the right exams and practice area. It cannot confirm which exams are passed rather than scheduled, whether the candidate meets the qualification standards for a signing role, or how they explain a reserve change to a CFO. Ask for the society transcript or confirm with the issuing body; the interview guide for insurance roles covers the rest of the loop, and the financial analyst strings help when a client's role turns out to be FP&A rather than actuarial.