Sunday, March 04, 2007

Job?

For the first time since quitting my old job to play poker, I've applied for a new one. This decision was based much more on the attractiveness of the particular job than a desire to quit poker. The job in question is almost precisely what I was looking for when I graduated college: statistical analysis for the baseball operations department on a major league team. A friend alerted me to a posting on the Oakland A's website about an opening for the position of "Baseball Operations Intern." It looks like mostly number crunching and programming, but I actually kind of like doing that. Also, as I learned three years ago, it's incredibly difficult to get your foot in the door of the baseball industry, so even a somewhat attractive position would be worthwhile. This baseball operations position is much more attractive than any that I saw posted three years ago when I was looking for such jobs. The fact that it's with the A's is a plus, since it's at least in the state where I currently live, and the A's are known as the pioneers of objective statistical analysis in baseball operations. Also, there are some poker casinos in the area, but I would likely take a hiatus from poker if I got the job.

Applying for this position also gave me occasion to update my resume. Here's what I had to say about my past two years:

Professional Poker Player. Las Vegas, NV and Los Angeles, CA.
Played tournaments and cash games in various casinos. Requires consistent, efficient, and accurate application of analytical skills encompassing the fields of psychology, game theory, statistics, mathematics, and economics. Particularly important is an understanding of risk management, rational decision-making, and statistical inference. Independently researched these topics and retrospectively analyzed my play in order to improve playing ability and expected winning rates. (2005-present)

I'm pretty happy with this description for my resume, but I'd certainly be open to any advice or criticism. I realize that having this on my resume is probably a negative for certain jobs, but then so would an empty period of time since 2005. For the baseball job, I think my poker background is likely to help me.

1 comment:

F.J. Delgado said...

Sounds like an awesome job. I would love to do something like this, if only I were more mathematically adept.

Good luck, hope you land it.