To All:
I will respond to other contra-arguments on this thread by the end of the week. I'm choosing to respond to Dr.Al here and now.
Dr.Al,
Here you go:
"You forget one extremely important difference between you and most hiring managers: You play poker, and they don't."
That's changing... and that's my main point. Poker has been a subculture; it is now part of American pop culture via TV. This increases the respectability of excellent poker players who may also coincidentally be job applicants.
Business owners have been enjoying cards for decades in America. These are the type of hiring people that will appreciate the incredible range of skills a truly good player has worked on and mastered to be successful at the game. Indeed, a poker discussion with a real poker fan who also runs a business and hires people can be a great icebreaker. This can turn a percieved liability (poker) into a winning asset that gets the job. How? By connecting with the boss in a way that other applicants cannot even imagine or think.
"You understand what it takes to play winning poker, and you respect those qualities. As I argued in "Nobody Understands Us," most people don't differentiate between poker players and other gamblers. You can read it at cardplayer.com; click on magazine, writers, and my name."
I examined it, and I see all your articles, here:
http://www.cardplayer.com/poker_maga...an_Schoonmaker
You make some very strong points, but less strong as of 2005. Again, each passing day, that's changing. Poker is now mainstream. A certain percentage of new players actually understand the incredible range of skills required to play well. Also, they have come to understand the extremely high emotional maturity and corresponding "EQ" winning players MUST have. These personal characteristics are highly desireable in any team effort.
As for the interview itself: any good player is going to probe. Any good applicant is going to try to guide the interview. Casual use of a few poker terms in passing can accomplish both goals. If the manager doesn't take the bait, ditch the poker discussion idea. If he signals some understanding, a little more poker talk can be a great icebreaker and prove you are absolutely in the right interview.
"Even if someone does not have a negative stereotype, he will want RELEVANT experience for any significant job. How does a poker player prove that his experience is relevant to most jobs?"
The applicant does it by demonstrating how he can solve complex problems on the fly with incomplete information. And this is my MAIN point: any winner player can generalize his hard-won poker skills to apply them to almost ANY situation. Instantly, because the skills are highly developed and internalized from habit and constant use.
Interviewers want to know the THINKING behind getting a solution, not just the correct answer. It's safe to say a winning player is going to listen far better, ask far more incisive and perceptive questions, and demonstrate way better overall analytical skills than the average applicant. There really is no contest here.
This poker playing guy is exactly the kind of person you want to bring in on an existing team. You want someone who is going to size things up fast and adjust to what's actually going on, now.
Dr. Al, you yourself have said elsewhere in a 2+2 post that poker is about power.
The winning player understands power, and he fits in fast. He does not deny reality. No. He embraces reality. This makes him very adaptable and perhaps even more conscious than the average person. Again I'm talking *winning* players here, the top five percent. These are the very same people that will have a very real 2-year gap on the resume.
So the way the applicant proves that his poker experience is relevant to most jobs is to leverage his full range of perceptive powers and skills during all phases of the job-find process, but especially during the facetime interview, where he has intentionally isolated his prime target, the hiring manager with at least "no judgements" about poker.
If poker is about anything, it's about understanding others. Individuals focused on understanding others tend to do very well indeed, wherever they work, and whenever they interview.
Lastly: I believe long-term winning players are business people... who simply don't yet realize it yet.
I believe learning to play winning poker is the greatest practical training anyone could ever receive about running a business.
Business is, after all, a people game. [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]