Poker winnings on resume

[Schmitty 87]

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Writing poker on a college resume is pretty stupid IMO.

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not on the resume. for the personal statement

[mwgr5]

I thinking adding poker as an interest can be a plus for finance interviews. I have also been told this by many Ibankers and people in asset managment and equity research.

The key is to first explain that poker is a game of skill in the long run. By using analytical and quantitative skills, poker players can have a competitive advantage to win in the long run. Like the financial markets, poker is a volatile game. Players have to endure loosing streaks, similar to long term investors need to endure market down turns and stay the course to achieve optimal results.

Many people will also ask if you are a risk taker. Using poker, you can say you take calculated risks that are profitable in the long run. You need to analyze the risk to determine if the expected value warrants taking the risk.

Note, if you add poker to your resume be prepared to answer questions about odds. Second note, I hope you go to a target school (HYPS) and have a high GPA, because if you have no related work experience you are way behind your competition.

[mwgr5]

Also, I think if you list poker just as an interest, the people that don't understand poker a lot may just skim over that detail and not really hold it against you. However, for people that are interested in poker, adding it to your interests can cause the interview to get sidetracked for a while which is a good think in Ibanking interviews because it prevents bankers from asking you the tougher questions.

[hlacheen]

Everyone (faculty) I've asked at my university confirm what PRE told me awhile ago - internships. Internships are huuuuge. Get em.

[chisness]

yeah seriously internships are HUGE. as mwgr said, no related experience puts you way behind the competition. also tons of the ibanking full time jobs are given to interns.

i wish i had known this before, but even making more $$ through poker than would be possible with an internship doesn't make it a good overall choice. also, keep in mind that most people can only play around 20 hrs of poker per week and with a job might be able to do 12 or something, so it's not a huge difference.

[chisness]

if i didn't get a good full time offer, i wonder if i could try to get an internship and just graduate a year later, while taking a few quarters off for poker so as to not pay additional tuition

any thoughts on this?

[ThePlan]

I haven't read the rest of this thread, but I can tell you what my grad school advisor told me about taking last summer off to play poker. He said that its not really the fact that you like to play poker or gamble and did it for a living one summer because you were good enough to support yourself; a lot of recruiters will find that fact very interesting (esp. if they like to play themselves), and they'll realize that it takes good analytical skills to make money at poker. The problem is that they'll say to themselves "Well, if this guy makes so much money playing poker, then why would he want to come work a 40 hour job for us?" So from his point of view, the company wants to know that you are committed to working full time for the rest of your life, and if you take time off to play poker instead of getting experience in an internship, they may see it as not being ready to accept a full-time job.

Not sure if that's really the case or not, but regardless, I left my poker career off my resume and focused on other stuff; theres really no reason to leave it on your resume at all IMO.

[slickss]

ThePlan has a good point. From an employer's point-of-view, it is in many jobs almost a requirement that you *need* the job. I would be skeptical in hiring someone who just won the lottery for a $20/hour job, as I would be afraid they just wouldn't show up some times or just quit after 3 months (waste of training).

I disagree with most people who think poker makes sense on a resume, unless it somehow was for a poker-related job.

[PRE]

I actually think putitng poker under "interests" is a very good idea IF you have a very solid resume besides that (good grades, internships, etc.). Poker actually helped me get my current job, but 99% of the other people I interviewed with loathed it.

[metamath]

if you're applying to a trading position, definitely put poker under 'interests'

it worked for me