Work Experience:  You have to get it yourself - start in 1st or 2nd year.
ACT245, 370 Survey April 2012: half of students have never done paid work
Off-campus work permit programme for foreign students  ( please update me  on experience with this )
 

Temporary/part-time jobs to improve prospects of permanent employment

Very bad situation at graduation- 'I've never worked': You might think that you can concentrate solely on getting good grades in university courses and passing SoA/CAS professional exams. But if you take courses every term including summer, you might graduate unemployable. Employers sometimes tell us that they wouldn't hire anyone who has never done any paid work outside the university.   They joke that it's easier to explain to a fish what it's like to live on land than to explain to that graduate the atmosphere of working in a for-profit environment.

Rather better on your resume: McDonald's  as a student job. Or coffee shops or house-painting or grape-picking or call centres of financial institutions or....try anything. I stacked supermarket shelves and worked on an auto production line (photo below) - when I wasn't washing dishes in a hotel. Menial labour during university vacations is a North American tradition. 

Quite a bit better-Office jobs: Banks, small companies, try to get jobs as relevant as possible to actuarial. If you have a relative running a business in Beijing or Dubai, maybe ask him/her to employ you at low pay running payroll and inventory spreadsheets and answering phones in their office. Employers tell us that getting work experience is much more important than graduating quickly.  Phone a branch of a temp agency; if they say 'just send a resume', which will be probably be ignored,  then say that, instead, you would like an appointment to talk to them - it's urgent. Try being just a little pushy if necessary, and if no luck then phone another office, maybe of the same agency:
manpower.ca
kellybranchlocator.com
adecco.ca
If your English is poor on the phone, try walking into agency branches-with a resume. If you don't have a Canadian passport or PR status then make sure you can otherwise prove to the agency that you can legally work in Canada with zero or minimum form-filling needed from the agency. Don't be as silly as I was, decades ago, and get dazzled enough by the agency to agree to wait for them rather than to try other  employers simultaneously. Agencies help you only if it results in quick, easy fees from employers.

Better yet-Insurance/Pensions related:
A claims department job for a few months would boost your resume a lot if you have no actuarial or clerical experience. 


Best: jobs like these: 

Manulife Co-op actuarial deadline July 12, 2012 starts Sept 2012   
We have a late addition to our roles for the Kitchener-Waterloo Actuarial Co-op Program for the fall term so we will need to recruit 1 additional student. Please share the attached posting with any friends or acquaintances still looking for a work term for Fall 2012. The posting closes tonight at 11:59pm. Please feel free to pass on my contact information if they have any questions about the roles or program. It will be a role in Individual Wealth Management in the Pricing Area. Thanks!
Sarah
Sarah Healey, Program Specialist, Campus Programs | Global Talent Management | Manulife Financial

Manulife 2012+ Co-op Opportunities  in Canada and in Asia for actuarial students. Please contact
Canada:  Marisa Chan,  Marisa_Chan@manulife.com
Asia:  Lindsay Watson, campus_recruitment@manulife.com
 

Advice from Keith and others: your choice what to believe!

Keith Sharp's comments on job hunting
1. Use  soa.org member search and LinkedIn and Google to investigate firms: - here's potential interviewers working (2013) at GGY Axis, mostly in Toronto.

2. We all like eg. Toronto, Vancouver,  San Francisco, Hong Kong  so e.g. Regina, Minneapolis might be easier
3. A way to get your resume noticed in the pile could be to have  attended Toastmasters  (public speaking - preparation for client contact) and giving ten  five-minute speeches to get  a "Competent Toastmaster' certificate;  Clubs close to the campuses are likely to be particularly student-friendly: email and go and try it. Fine for all students, including early-year.
4. Use 'advanced search' of membership at soa.org : e.g. get emails of all FSAs in Shanghai or Singapore
5. Take sessions on interviewing skills - typical questions   student advice
6. Ability in Excel is as essential as ability in breathing
7. Insurance companies in Canada and US mostly also use Axis - grab any chance to learn it
8. Be on LinkedIn, free: 200 million users, 6 million in Canada, hirer might think you are hiding something if not there
9. Even a small name change may mean hirers cannot trace you online. Lots of privacy, no job.

A better advisor would be someone who got an entry-level job in the last few years. We all learn from our mistakes and get better at job-hunting. Start soon after high school - good luck!