Just The Job: Becoming a professional Poker Player

Author: Simon Dexter

Learn to play poker and you could be in with a better chance of securing that dream career – read on to find out more about how a poker game reveals more about your suitability for a specific job role than you might have at first thought.

Attending a job interview remains a genuinely stressful time and so you might be pleasantly surprised to learn that if you learn poker, you are likely to find the whole process a little easier. With any job interview there can be so much at stake, as in a poker game. There is also plenty to think about, ranging from the mundane (is my tie straight, is my hair combed?) to the more pertinent: what will my answer be to question X or Y, where will I be working, when should I raise the subject of salary?

Moreover, interview techniques have changed enormously over the past few years. It’s no longer the case that interviewees wriggle uncomfortably in their seat as the head of personnel and a handful of bored managers fire standard questions at them. Nowadays, the person sweating in the hot seat may be expected to perform a host of different tasks, such as playing a poker game (which I will go on to explain later), to satisfy the decision-makers that they are a person worth recruiting.

Recently, a US recruitment company conducted extensive research into the type of questions interviewers ask and why.

It found that as companies involve more people in the hiring process to get a clearer picture of a candidate’s abilities and personality, unexpected questions and tasks, such as being asked to play poker, are bound to surprise even the well-prepared candidate.

Apparently, most interviewers use ‘icebreaker’ questions such as “What’s your favourite colour?” or “If you could be any animal, what would you be?”, while others get straight to the point, hoping to reveal a candidate’s aspirations: “What did you want to be when you were 10 years old?” or a real tricky one, “Do you see yourself in my position in the future?”

Other questions, arriving later in the interview, are deliberately designed to make the candidate squirm: “Why are manhole covers circular?” or, “How will taking this job change your life?” Interview questions such as this are thrown in to intentionally elicit a candid, unrehearsed response.

Given these occasionally sneaky techniques, it’s a wonder why it has taken companies so long to realise that if they really want to drop their job applicants in at the deep end and see how they respond to unexpected situations, why not get them to play poker?

It may not come as a surprise to learn that last month, one large American finance company, did precisely that, staging a Texas Hold ‘Em poker tournament for 83 short-listed job applicants as a method of testing their potential employee’s analytical skills.

The company, which trades stock options, regularly hosts poker game tournaments for clients, but this was the first time it had staged one for potential recruits. To make it really interesting, they also stumped up ,000 in prize money, including a first prize of ,000. So, learn to play poker and the benefits can be pretty good!

According to their website, job applicants are required to have “the ability to work well under pressure, to use critical and non-linear reasoning and to communicate effectively with other team members.” They also expect applicants to “undergo a unique interview process that focuses on skills that range from the quantitative to informed decision making,” The company are convinced that if employees learn poker, these skills will be fine-tuned and their employees will be able to work well under pressure. After reading the job requirements, several readers may be inclined to fire off their CV…

Keeping a close eye on last month’s high-pressure poker game tournament (and dealing the cards at the final heads-up) was the company’s founder and avid poker fan, whose interest lay in how the players handled their betting. “Poker and trading have a lot of similarities, such as making good decisions under pressure,” he said following the tournament’s finale. “It teaches you to deal with losing even when you make the right decision.” Such authentic comments may persuade several poker players, especially those who have suffered (and subsequently recovered) from a clutch of bad beats, that here is a guy for whom they could work.

Nolan Dalla, a spokesman for the WSOP, concurred, saying that “poker was the perfect laboratory for learning trading fundamentals, such as game theory and understanding the trade-off between risk and reward.” And you thought it was a game of cards!

The recruitment tournament, on the ninth floor of the company’s headquarters, lasted a tad longer than your average interview too: a cool ten hours. Traders dealt the cards until the final rounds when the founder and another director took over.

One analyst said the company was searching for job candidates who appreciated that an understanding of a poker game’s odds could prove beneficial in the long term. “Over time,” she said, “you’re not lucky, it’s statistics that are in your favour. Poker teaches you that you can lose a lot but still be profitable in the long run.”

Immediately following the tournament, each of the top nine finishers, including Ayres Fan, who won ,000 first prize, were interviewed; job offers are expected to be sent out later this month.

Whereas previously, you may have researched the history and structure of the organisation for whom you were hoping to work, nowadays, it may pay you to fully understand the difference between an Ajax and a Kojak prior to submitting your CV. For those that don’t, you can start to learn poker with a look at the poker dictionary section at Littlewoods Poker, because the moral of the tale is: an appreciation of poker could help enormously with your next job application – probably more so than explaining why orange is your favourite colour