Put poker on resume?

[viciouspenguin]

hi erroneous,

it depends on what university you attend, your other credentials, and what type of finance internships you are looking into. for top finance internships (ibanking, asset management, big 4 accounting firms, etc) i'd actually suggest putting it on. for these internships, a 3.0 gpa is very poor (unless you are an ivy student)... so you should take as many risks as you can to stand out and land an interview. many of the top firms dont even consider candidates with SATs lower than 1400 and or gpas lower than 3.5.

personally i have an uncompetitive gpa (3.38) at a top public university, and i would have never received interviews if i didn't include poker. since i did, i did get offered a few interviews (and landed a pretty good finance internship)

however, it also depends on how much success you've found in poker, and how well you can portray it on your resume/cover letter as well as in an interview

edit: reread your post and realized you said you paid for your tuition with poker. not sure how much you've made, but anything less than 100, 150k profit in my opinion probably wont sound too impressive... if you want to put poker on your resume be sure you can wow the recruiters. making 50k in 2-3 yrs wont do it, but making 200k+ as a student in a year or two will

[viciouspenguin]

i strongly disagree with a lot of the advice in the thread... if you're going after very competitive finance internships you must put everything you can on your resume. "too much risk, too little in return" is bs - you can leave it off your resume (no risk, and get no interviews) or put it on your resume (high risk, MAYBE get an interview). you will not get any attention from recruiters if all you have is 2 yrs work in a non-finance related position and a 3.0 gpa.

at the same time if you're not looking into the top finance jobs, then forget everything i've said and omit poker on your resume.

[fm191124]

[ QUOTE ]

at the same time if you're not looking into the top finance jobs, then forget everything i've said and omit poker on your resume.

[/ QUOTE ]

what do you consider a worthwhile non "top finance" internships?

[MTUCache]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

at the same time if you're not looking into the top finance jobs, then forget everything i've said and omit poker on your resume.

[/ QUOTE ]
what do you consider a worthwhile non "top finance" internships?

[/ QUOTE ]

Obviously something that he's seen in a movie somewhere.

I don't know thing one about finance. I'll admit that. Maybe it is a completely different corporate culture than engineering (which is what I am familiar with). But I honestly don't see how putting poker on your resume is going to help you. Sure, maybe some random mid-level guy is looking for a really aggressive, ambitious college grad. Maybe he'd be impressed. But I think it would be a hell of a lot more effective to bring this up during the interview process than it would be actually on your resume.

Is it going to grab some peoples' attention? Sure... so will listing "bum" as your previous experience, or putting your six month religious "sabbatical" on there to the Red Light District. Just because it stands out doesn't mean that it's going to help you get noticed in a good way. Some people may be interested, and want to get to know you better. Others aren't going to be, and will toss it right in the trash.

Rather than just blindly advertise this to everyone who might look at your resume, I'd hope that you were good enough at reading people that you could pick and choose which people you should bring this subject up with. You can still find +EV spots to discuss this, I'm sure there will be some people who are impressed. But why walk around telling EVERYONE that you were a poker player. I think we all know that not everyone is going to approve.

Who knows, maybe the guy at the job fair will be impressed, but what about his boss (the guy who's going to be looking at his resume next)? If you had just brought it up in casual conversation, you still would have gotten the attention, but now you wouldn't have to explain yourself to crazy-bible-thumper-VP who now has ahold of your resume and is wondering why some degenerate heathen is interviewing for his company.

Unless you want everyone in the company to know (which is very doubtful), I'd limit this to a need-to-know basis, or at the very least a casual conversation with the couple of people who it might impress.

[mulebennett]

i reaaaaalllllllly wouldn't put it on my resume. if i was an employer and saw Poker on someone's resume, i would think negatively about them assuming they were reckless as hell.

[jfresh]

i don't understand everyone here. yes, if you just put 'I played poker for 4 years in college' as the first bullet on your resume, it'll be headed to the trash immediately. but put a positive spin on it and it'll catch the reader's eye. you don't think making 100k-200k+ as a student stands out?

for instance, i put these underneath my poker playing bullet in my resume:
• Strengthened money management, fundamental probability and statistical analysis skills
• Enabled myself to become financially independent
• Income has paid for past two years of out-of-state tuition and living expenses
I think those are pretty good/unique achievements for someone in college, especially in the finance/consulting industry.

this is a poker forum; if we can't look with a positive light on our hobby, who will?

[TheDespot]

I debated putting this on my resume as just a casual hobby (I play small stakes mostly, made about $1K last year, though I take it very seriously) for an internship I'm applying for this summer, but eventually decided against it. Again, the problem is that not everyone is a 2+2 member who can appreciate poker. I think it'd be better to maybe casually mention it as a hobby during an interview perhaps and see how it's received? Or maybe not even mention it at all. Unfortunately, it's a bit of a touchy subject in our society because it is viewed radically differently by different people. Some see it as a sin, others as an admirable occupation. So I guess it just depends on the luck of the draw and who is reading your resume. I'll tell you this though: Once I ascend to the top of the business world, I will greatly value someone with poker on their resume and this person's interview would inevitably involve a HU matchup against me.

[Thremp]

jfresh,

You're likely to be thought of a compulsive liar.

[viciouspenguin]

didn't you guys see strassa's post in HSNL half a year ago? his resume was 100% poker, yet he landed 3 interviews for trading at top wall street firms. this upcoming fall he will be a trader at morgan stanley. btw according to strassa, his gpa was sub 3.0

sure, poker has been negatively portrayed, bible thumping vps wont like it, etc wont like it. ive heard that argument 1000 times.

but consider the following scenario:

your gpa is 3.0, you go to a recognizable but not top univeristiy, you hvae work experience but non in the finance sector. you made 200k but you leave it off your resume/cover sheet. how the hell are you supposed to get an interview? how do you compete with kids who got ibanking internships their sophomore year, kids who are in business frats, kids with 4.0 gpas, kids from ivys, etc? in this scenario your chances of getting an interview are pretty much 0%. with poker you can show you've learned skills that separate you from other candidates - you've actually practiced [censored] like risk management, while none of these other kids have.

i wouldnt put poker on my resume if i didnt have to. if i had a 3.0 gpa nad was applying to a mid-lower tier accounting position, i'd just leave it off since i'd probably land interviews without it. i wouldnt put poker on my resume if i made less than 6 figures. making 5k, 20k, even 50k is not impressive. when i went to one of my interviews, the first guy interviewing me said: "WOW, $x from poker. REALLY." i didn't land it (because my second interviewer completely raped me), but instantly there was respect/interest. sure, there are some people who wont like it, but if you dont take risks while going for top internships, you'll never get one. if you run into one of these guys, then you wont get an interview. whatever. you wouldnt have gotten the interview anyway (if you didnt list poker)

edit: btw, i listed poker as the last interest on my resume, but spent about 80% of my cover sheet talking about it

[T50_Omaha8]

I wouldn't put that I've made $200k playing online poker. You don't want them to be jealous of your six figure savings (which the first interviewer probably doesn't have). Saying you paid for college, room and board, etc is sufficient. Maybe make a joke about having a bit of financial leeway if they ask you in interview.

[ QUOTE ]
Some see it as a sin, others as an admirable occupation.

[/ QUOTE ] I don't think one in 10,000 people see playing poker professionally as an admirable occupation. Hell, I don't even think it's an admirable occupation.