Putting Poker on Your Resume

There has always been a lot of debate within the poker community on whether or not a professional poker player should include this on his resume when he (or she) is trying to move on to something else.  This is especially relevant in the wake of Black Friday since many players are looking for alternative career paths.  Since I recently was offered and accepted a trading position (while including poker on my resume), I thought I would share my opinions on the issue.  Shockingly, I have seen a lot of people (often very smart and well-respected members of the poker community) advocating that you shouldn’t include poker on your resume.  Frankly, I think this is horrible advice (generally speaking) and a pretty irrational decision.

Before I make some fairly bold statements, let me qualify this argument by stating that my argument is intended for players who have actually been successful professional poker players. To me, that means you made $50k+ a year while playing poker as your primary source of income.  I think it goes without saying that you going to the casino twice a month and making a couple thousand dollars a year while living in your parents’ basement does not make you a professional poker player.  It might make you a relatively good recreational player, but it certainly doesn’t qualify you as a professional. And you probably shouldn’t highlight poker in the past employment portion of your resume.

First, I honestly think it is pretty irrational for professionals to not include poker on their resumes.  For many professionals, poker has been their primary, and in most cases only, source of income (and many have made a very good living playing) for multiple years. I know this was the case for me.  The decision I was faced with (and that most players are faced with) was not  “well, should I include my poker on my resume or do I include the cure for cancer that I single-handedly developed”. It was between poker and nothing. It was between including a game that I worked very hard to be successful at and in the process, demonstrated all sorts of very desirable qualities, or literally putting nothing at all meaningful on my resume.  This is the case for most of the professional players I know. How is that a debate? How can having a resume gap that often spans five or more years be better than including poker? 

                                         Image taken from :http://www.survivingtherecession.net

As poker players, we should know better than almost anyone that sometimes the best decision is the lesser of two evils. Sometimes the best decision is a play with an expected value of zero. While having poker as the only work experience on your resume is less than ideal, it is better than the alternative.  Obviously, I think playing poker professionally is a legitimate job and should be valued as work experience. The game requires an immense amount of skill and I think many of these skills are translatable to other career paths. Unfortunately, society as a whole disagrees. There is still a stigma associated with poker that it’s just luck and that the people who play it are degenerate gamblers recklessly risking their life savings. Sadly, it’s true that most of the closed-minded people that will be hiring for companies will see poker on a resume, laugh it off, and rip the resume up in about two minutes. They might even call someone in to the room to joke about it together.  

But what’s the alternative? Having a resume that fills up ½ a page and consists mainly of summer internships and high school jobs with multiple years since your last work experience? If you submit that resume, the HR person is just as likely to disregard your resume without giving it a second thought.  Maybe they won’t laugh or make jokes about it, but you will still have absolutely no chance of getting the job. At best, your resume will be viewed as mediocre and particularly in today’s job market, mediocrity doesn’t get you job interviews. For any kind of competitive position, there are going to be way stronger resumes than one with a big resume gap, and you’ll have no chance at securing an interview.  There will literally be a 0% chance of getting your foot in the door.

It’s certainly true that including poker on your resume will be very polarizing. The vast majority of the time, they will see poker and automatically eliminate you as a potential candidate.  However, if you write about your poker experience in an intelligent and professional way and highlight the skills that you made a successful poker player*, some of the more open-minded people will like your resume.  It may not happen frequently, but maybe 10% of the time the person reading your resume will love poker, or at least know enough about it to be open-minded, and consider interviewing you. It will separate you from the myriad of resumes the company is filtering out and give you a chance to get an interview.  At the very least it will be something unique and interesting that they might want to hear more about.  And to the right eyes, it may even be something really impressive.   

*I’ve included the poker section of my resume below as a general reference for players thinking of including poker on their resumes. Obviously, don’t copy mine word for word, but I thought it might give some ideas for other players.  There are obviously certain industries (most noticeably, trading) that are much more open to people with a poker background, but I definitely think people should be including it in pretty much any industry they are looking to get into. Obviously, you should tailor your resume to that particular industry. I think given the great variety of skills needed to be successful as an online poker player (especially in today’s environment), there are skills that are translatable to a wide variety of fields.

Besides the logical argument for including poker in your resume that I made above (which I think should be pretty persuasive), there is the simple fact that I take pride in having been a professional poker player. It was probably the most difficult thing I have ever accomplished and I have no desire to hide it when applying for jobs.  I think the goal should be to change other people’s perception of poker, not to cover it up like we did something wrong.  

Experience_______________________________________________________________________________

Professional Poker Player                                                                                               June 2009- Current

·        Profited over $X with rate of $Y/hr over two years of playing professionally utilizing logical deduction, game theory analysis, combinatorial mathematics, strategic decision making, and statistical analysis

·         Exercised discipline and excellent risk management by successfully navigating the volatility associated with mid and high stakes No Limit Holdem

·         Assessed complex situations objectively and made time-sensitive, high-pressure, strategic decisions while 12-15 tabling without allowing emotions to affect these decisions

·         Gathered and processed vast amounts of information, used this information to create a profitable strategy, and implemented this winning strategy over a 2.5 million hand sample

·         Identified betting patterns of specific opponents and used this information to exploit their tendencies and gain edges in expected value

·         Achieved Supernova Elite Status on Pokerstars in 2010 for frequent play, one of only 342 players in the world