Poker as relevant experience for an investment banking internship?

[DrunkHamster]

the sponsorship is completely non binding - the lowdown is, if I got it, I'd get £3000 a year with no strings attached except a guaranteed internship if I wanted it. I'm not sure how this would be selling my soul, moving into the city or anything else. All I'd be doing is taking their money, then probably still going into grad studies. Cheers for the advice anyway.

[60Vauban]

just to add one thing - American culture is different from European culture when adding extra-curricular activities to your CV. I've seen things like jogging, fencing, boating and religious activities listed and its not met with the same huge resistance that you see in the US.

In the US you basically wipe your resume of every sort of discriminable information except qualifications and leave out personal interests. My suggestion is to make an indirect reference, like "strategic gaming" or the like if you want to add it. Too bad poker has such a negative stigma. If you put chess and crossword puzzles you wouldn't have a problem.

[TheTROLL]

It's closer than the Americans think. But Deutsche are an uptight bunch, so I'd probably leave it off. There ARE financial services outfits in London where it'd go down a storm.

The advice to mention it in interview if a suitable opportunity arises, rather than in your CV, is probably about right.

[llayner]

It may be that I'm a girl but I've mentioned it at interviews for both an IB job and the finance job I currently at it really helped. On the second one it we had an interesting conversation about expected value which turned into economics which turned into finance. Worked out nicely.

[GrooveNougat]

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I haven't done it yet, which is why I asked you guys for advice. Thanks a lot, it seemed like a good idea to put it on but clearly it is not worth it - yes the first people to see the application will be HR, so it is probably not wise. I think the position is front office, but it's not exactly clear.

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a better idea would be to put how many women you have nailed, to show them your people and sales skills. ability to communicate to and manipulate people.

unless your number is low, then i'd just leave it off.

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Awesome. NH Oddjob.

[arsoisaen]

all i have to say is...

deutsche internship paid by the hour (!) with overtime (!!!!!!!)

mad money to be made there, good luck

[Paul Levy]

I work at another bank in London, and I did not mention poker at all at any time during the interviews (which took place in the late spring last year). I only made them aware that I had a 2-weeks holiday booked for mid july (guess what it was), without elaborating.

When I subsequently disclosed the details, the fact that I was going to play in the world series was looked at as ultra-cool by pretty much everybody (unless they're lying). A female co-worker even asked me to teach her to play (although, sad to say, nothing consequential came out of that).

So I suggest not to mention it, as it's not going to skew any chance in your favor although it might be frowned upon by the HR kind of people. However, if you happen to end up working there, you probably will want to make it known, and I reckon you'll be in quite good company.