Poker & Resume

I actually spoke with the CEO of a large forex company and explained my situation, he was fairly thrilled with it all and thought highly of it. Offered me a job, but I opted to continue with poker for now.

I keep my resume updated and it reads very well, particularly for the finance sector. Make sure you include relevant skills/attributes you have from poker. I think the main trouble will be getting it past the recruitment staff and not instantly rejected though. I was fortunate to be able to speak directly with someone.

im in the finance area too. i chose to not put it on my resume but rather to mention it after i was hired. i had a lot of extracurriculars though so my resume looked decent without poker and i didnt really have a huge gap anywhere. i got into the workforce immediately after school. if you are looking to get into a good entry level spot just apply and speak well in your interview and im sure youll be fine. poker teaches you a lot of awesome skills that you can directly apply to a lot of the situational interview questions without being specific. being vaguish is fine as long as you give them what they are looking for. getting into anything decent as a first job without a killer resume is tough in the finance industry. idk if its the same in austrailia but in canada thats the case. if you show progress towards a cfa thats pretty great all around regardless of what else you have. even intent to try to get it at some point is good.

I dont put it, but im engineering.
I have some gaps.But iworked for about 2 years in engineering field so that helps. But im currently looking for job also, haveb een without work for like 8 months

Am in investment banking in the UK and i'd not put it. Bosses are generally slightly older generation who don't fully understand it all so look down on you for it and see you as risky.

Just make up crap for the uni clubs you was in

Never really played full time, working as an Analyst today and didn't mention poker.

lol try asking this in a non-poker forum and lets see what normal people think, rather than a largely biased internet poker playing 24/7 nerds.

in my experience, high ranking decision makers in companies often think poker is very interesting and a positive thing unless they have a moral objection.

however, if you're applying to a company's HR department, that is often done by young to middle aged women, and they don't usually understand or see it as a negative.

i had an interview for an internship i got a few years back where my future boss thought it was the coolest thing ever and wanted to talk all about it, basically skipping all the normal interview questions (poker was big on my resume). however the girl who read my resume before was very unimpressed and did not recommend me for this job. i was lucky to at least be given an interview, where the boss eventually gave me the job, but if they had a ton of candidates, i might have been skipped by the HR girl from even getting a chance.

in general i too think you should take a conservative approach and not mention poker at all on your resume, because the chance of getting rejected is higher. they can think you are a 'gambler' or they can ask in an interview why you did not become a professional and then you might have to say that you're not good enough (i dont know if that is true).

i work for a big fmcg company, and normally an okay-ish CV with good personality in interviews and acing aptitude tests should be enough to get a job.

still, you have that 2 year gap on your resume and you just have to prepare that the interviewer is going to ask about that. if you feel that the interviewer can appreciate your pokerbreak, i would gamble and tell it, then you stand out from most other applicants.

Yes I put in it. I kept it short though, I said I made over 100k during 1500 hours of poker.
From my experience they like it very much. You can tell a lot about it, like how you set your own targets (SNE f.e.) and succeeded in meeting these targets. It also says something about ambition, vision and dedication. Be prepared to explain why you quit as well.

On August 03 2012 15:29 gororokgororok wrote: Yes I put in it. I kept it short though, I said I made over 100k during 1500 hours of poker. From my experience they like it very much. You can tell a lot about it, like how you set your own targets (SNE f.e.) and succeeded in meeting these targets. It also says something about ambition, vision and dedication. Be prepared to explain why you quit as well.

i've always stayed away from talking about money. they might think you'll quit once the work gets hard if you have poker as an alternative, or just have money in the bank to fall back on while you look for a new job. money is the proof of being good at poker, but it easily sounds like bragging or even intimidating to others to make decent money playing a card game. however, i never actually talked about it, so maybe it doesn't actually work this way in practice.

i agree with the goals part, and if you did it, it'd also be great to talk about coaching others, or networking with stronger players to learn from them. also, having a detailed plan to talk about how you accomplished your goals and motivated yourself should be a big plus.

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