Writing my CV - Include Poker?

Unless you are living in Republic of Pokeria better live it out of your CV

Why shouldn't you add it?

be proud of it, many people can't understand the poker world so you'll have a chance now to stand up and explain people how poker works and how it changed your mindset/view on life (if).

Poker isn't just a game but also an activity which requires huge amount of study, self discipline and hard work to succeed at. If anything, this is positive and shows you're willing to put a lot of effort into things and could possibly be a great factor to remember of you by the interviewer.

don't you think? aren't you proud of your successes and don't you wanna tell people how hard it is actually to play (even if its just micro stakes) professionally/occasionally ?

Ingrid

Originally posted by Gerovit
Unless you are living in Republic of Pokeria better live it out of your CV

really

Originally posted by Gerovit
Unless you are living in Republic of Pokeria better live it out of your CV

Otherwise known as Gibraltar I believe ♦

anyway, what job are you applying to Matt?

It is no job in particular, I work at a Hotel, but its not where i want my career to lead. I work Seasonal, so Once December is over, im out of work for 2 months, so im going to be applying for anything and everything of interest that can lead to a decent career. I'll apply for stuff im Qualified for, and some i'm not, but my CV will be all over the place lol

Thanks for the input IngridN, I can see where you're coming from, Hell, maybe it would get me an extra interview, just because they are curious

well, I'm not too sure I make sense but I wouldn't want to hide my hobby just because it doesn't match to what anybody else happen to be doing. it's who you are, right?

include it or not, you don't need to put it in capital letters, if you just put it as hobby, then nobody will even care imo as many youngsters play poker nowadays.. (and for the past decades ♦ )

A lot of employers think that poker is a huge no no for potential employees.

They see the negative connotations that poker has with gambling and immediately think of you as some shady guy, however this usually happens if you don't portray yourself well.

For example you could write something like;

You may see I have a gap on my cv from the age on 18-22. In this time I used both the a levels that I received from school, Pychology and Maths.

After taking a great interest in the game of poker and understanding the correlations it has with both of my passions and skills I decided to take it seriously.

I recorded and analysed my play on a daily business including hiring a consultant for a fixed fee to help with my mental game and another coach to help with the technical side of poker. I am pleased to say that from the 3 years I played poker I did not have one negative month.

You can see on the graph below that I was playing a style that was adapting to my opponents and making split second decisions that made sure the "office had a profitable day"

[INSERT HUGE WINNING GRAPH ♠_love:)

I just wrote this in 2 minutes and obviously can be massively improved, but showing graphs and facts to back up "I won moniez at teh pokers" will impress most if not all employers.

Originally posted by pleno1
A lot of employers think that poker is a huge no no for potential employees.

They see the negative connotations that poker has with gambling and immediately think of you as some shady guy, however this usually happens if you don't portray yourself well.

For example you could write something like;

You may see I have a gap on my cv from the age on 18-22. In this time I used both the a levels that I received from school, Pychology and Maths.

After taking a great interest in the game of poker and understanding the correlations it has with both of my passions and skills I decided to take it seriously.

I recorded and analysed my play on a daily business including hiring a consultant for a fixed fee to help with my mental game and another coach to help with the technical side of poker. I am pleased to say that from the 3 years I played poker I did not have one negative month.

You can see on the graph below that I was playing a style that was adapting to my opponents and making split second decisions that made sure the "office had a profitable day"

[INSERT HUGE WINNING GRAPH ♠_love:)

I just wrote this in 2 minutes and obviously can be massively improved, but showing graphs and facts to back up "I won moniez at teh pokers" will impress most if not all employers.

Pretty much exactly what I was going to say.

Poker requires:
Extreme self-discipline
Good money management
Application of maths/psychology
Application of logic in high pressure situations very quickly

I think any employer who immediately disregards it would be rubbish to work for anyway

Originally posted by IngridN
Why shouldn't you add it?

be proud of it, many people can't understand the poker world so you'll have a chance now to stand up and explain people how poker works and how it changed your mindset/view on life (if).

Poker isn't just a game but also an activity which requires huge amount of study, self discipline and hard work to succeed at. If anything, this is positive and shows you're willing to put a lot of effort into things and could possibly be a great factor to remember of you by the interviewer.

don't you think? aren't you proud of your successes and don't you wanna tell people how hard it is actually to play (even if its just micro stakes) professionally/occasionally ?

Ingrid

I'm a very big +1 on what Ingrid said. It doesn't much matter what u do in life if u are successful at it (as long as it doesn't harm other ppl ofc.). A proper employer should always respect that.

I also believe in being honest, first and foremost toward urself and, whenever possible/appropriate, towards others as well. U may end up developing a lengthy relationship with ur future employer and I think it could be more problematic if your future employer learns of your poker career at a future point in ur relationship. And if things don't work out, at least u'll know things didn't work out because u held anything back.

I work at a big conservative law firm - we take on 4 trainees a year from several hundred applicants. One of the successful 4 had poker listed on his CV.

Originally posted by JonikoP
I work at a big conservative law firm - we take on 4 trainees a year from several hundred applicants. One of the successful 4 had poker listed on his CV.

this

and thank you Atoks

In my first cv's I used to write a lot. But later, when I wanted to improve my cv, I talked to more experienced man than me, who said - don't put things in a cv, that are not necesarry for your job. For example I have put on my cv thatI have worked at the farm, when I was searching for programmer job. Later, the mensioned man told me to delete it.
Also now as I work at office, I heard the same things from the head of our company, as well as from coleggue - that you don't need to put things that are not relevant.

Many of the companies probably will not understand what poker is - they just think its some gabling and that's it. Unless you explain them well, but yet the question is - will they want to listen, you know how many people - they don't even listen, they have the oppinion that poker is gambling and thats it.

I would add it and maybe relate back to an Essay David Sklansky wrote about how poker is good for you as an attachment:
http://www.twoplustwo.com/magazine/issue33/sklansky-schoonmaker-poker-good-for-you.php

hold your head high.

Tbh i wouldnt include poker unless you have some reasonable success. Which, in your case, i dont think you have. Simply because its imo kinda ridiculous to include it in cv, and then if they ask you how much success you had you'll say something like "Oh, i won like $500 in past year, you know, im doing fine".

Originally posted by Alficor1
Tbh i wouldnt include poker unless you have some reasonable success.

Agree, I think definately it's a good thing if you've been playing professionally for a while, but if it's just a "hobby" I think it doesnt show off any of the skills required to be successful which might interest employers

I don't know guys, i think differently about this...

For example, I'm not a successful player (at least not highstakes anyway) and haven't got much knowledge about the poker world before I joined this community. But met many interesting players the last 10 months, in contact with our VIP's and part of the team in Gibraltar, sitting next to Black Members and having a poker player boyfriend showed me how much volume they put in every single day and how hard they study to get better no matter if they already successful or not.

This maybe means that I'll never be a successful player (since i dont have time to play poker full time and put enough energy in it) however it showed me what one capable of achieving and what this game requires you to be really worth doing it full time.

Just like any other job, you need to study hard, discipline and ready take on the huge bumps (variance) which may come and go.

In the interview you shouldn't talk about your successes but as i said in my first post, just try to explain the interviewer why you choose poker to be your hobby and how it can change your life/mind set and be a better worker in any job BECAUSE you learned some key behaviour elements while trying to beat the game.

I dunno, im not even good to explain this but even I could talk about this if i was interviewed and i don't play professionally.

just like i would include ballet it was hard work, lot of sweating and stretching my bones..