Hi everyone,


I have been following this forum for a while. It is just recently that I have decided to register to create a topic. I am looking for a data scientist / research scientist position within the reinsurance / insurance / banking industry. In my estimation, I have expertise and knowledge to work as a Senior Data Scientist.


Let me give you some information about myself. I am a Canadian citizen and live in Canada. I am originally from Eastern Europe (non-EU country), though, and went to Canada to get my PhD (Chemistry, Computational Science). Right after my graduation, I got a job as a Research Scientist with a quite large international reinsurance company with offices in Canada, US, Switzerland, etc. I have been working there for approx. 2 years. In anticipation of your questions, I believe that it is very unlikely that I can get transferred to our Swiss office as it is only focused on underwriting (not research). There are several reasons why I would like to move to Switzerland:


1) I believe that there are better opportunities in the reinsurance industry there in the long run (reinsurance jobs are scarce in Canada and I don’t want to go to the US). I really like what I am doing and I want to progress in this direction;
2) I want to stay closer to my family;
3) I want to have better social protection (vacation time in Canada is too short, like two weeks) and have access to a good medical system (waiting for a year to see a specialist for non-life-threatening (yet very disturbing) condition is a norm in Canada).


I had been learning German for 5 years in my teens and used to be quite good at it. It obviously went away as I don’t practice it daily. I am sure I will be able to pick it up quickly. In addition to my reinsurance experience, I also have some work experience (internship with a global engineering company) from Germany.


1) How complicated would it be to find a job for me given my input parameters, so to say? My guess is that it is not easy at all because I am not a EU national.
2) What would be the best job search strategy in my circumstances? Is applying to online job postings a waste of time? Should I focus on recruiters instead?
3) Can you recommend any recruiting agencies?
4) What is the salary range that I can expect to be in? Does a range of 130CHFK – 150CHF sound reasonable?
5) What geographic regions should I concentrate on? I guess, Zurich is my only option?
6) How easy is it to find an English-speaking job in Zurich? Are there many of them on the market?
7) I heard that many Swiss reinsurance companies started to downsize their research / cat modelling personnel and hire people from developing countries. How accurate is that?
8) Any other thoughts on my situation would be appreciated.
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