It’s probably one of the questions I am asked the most frequently: “Can you tell me how to get a job with PokerStars?” Until recently it’s one where I normally have directed people to our careers page for an answer, but in this case I have a new role available that will be reporting to me and we thought it would be interesting to show people just what it’s like to try and get a job with the best poker company around.

I should mention that I don’t say that lightly. Rational Group (the parent company of PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker) has been named one of the UK’s Best Workplaces by the Great Place to Work Institute in both 2012 and 2013. Having worked for the company for almost 10 years, I can certainly agree that it is by far the best company I have ever worked for.

Before I get into the position itself, I wanted to let people know up front that this position will be based on the Isle of Man. Although relatively unknown to me when I first moved here over seven years ago, the Isle of Man is a special and unique place that is now home to myself and many others in the company who have also moved over here to work and live. The unique personality and relatively small size of the Island make for an environment in which co-workers are also friends, often going to each other’s house for meals, game nights or even going on trips together.

In order to attract and qualify the most desirable candidates, PokerStars/Rational Group will often administer written tests to applicants to help assess their appropriateness for certain positions. Below are some questions which would be typically asked of an applicant for this position who met the above requirements:

Poker Data Specialist Test
1. Please provide a summary of your online poker-playing history, including usernames for each site and your stakes, games, number of hands, first played date and last played date.

2. The tournaments team manager has asked you to provide data on the effectiveness of satellites toward participation in the Sunday Million (how satellites increase or decrease participation in the target event). Describe how you would respond to such a query, any additional information you might ask for and how you would structure your response which includes the data requested.

3. A PRM (Poker Room Management) staff member has asked you to create a very specific Microstrategy repeatable report, providing details of attributes, measures, and layouts. You know that this staff member has requested the report to answer a specific question, but you do not think that the report requested will provide the right information to answer the question and think it might even provide misleading results. The report will take about 45 minutes to create. How do you proceed?

4. The Sit & Go Manager has deployed a Progressive Knockout tournament with the same tournament fee % as is used for similar non-knockout tournaments. Players are complaining that there is less skill edge in progressive knockout tournaments so the rake should be lower. The Sit & Go Manager agrees that if the edge is lower he should consider lower rake, but he isn’t sure the edge is lower nor, if it is lower, does he know by how much. Describe in words the approach you would take to compare skill edge in progressive knockouts to skill edge in regular tournaments in order to provide a comparison for the Sit & Go Manager

5. The Head of VIP Program wants to have a repeating report that helps her see trends in VIP Status retention from month to month. Mock up a sample report (with made up sample data) that you think would meet her needs.

I hope you find this position interesting. If you are interested in applying, please see our careers page where you can apply for the position, send us your CV and even submit answers to the above test if you so choose.

PokerStars – a truly Great Place to Work!

Chris Straghalis is Senior Manager, Poker Innovation and Projects, working in PokerStars’ Poker Room Management team