Party Poker’s director of HR, Kathy Swindley, has a nice article up on eGaming Review discussing what it takes to land a job at PartyGaming.

A key quote from her article is:

In terms of the type of people being sought both by ourselves and our competitors, the ability to move quickly and accept and adapt to change is a prerequisite on any job candidate’s CV.

Related Posts

No related posts found

Usually we talk about working for online poker sites but there are a lot of opportunities to work for affiliates who are a major part of the industry.

1. What was your background before getting into the online gaming industry?

I was a college instructor and speech and debate coach at various universities across the US. Before that I was just a college student lazing my way through a Communications degree.

2. How did you find your way into the business?

Part of the above described odyssey led me to teaching in a small town at a college in the southern US. It was the sort of town that had a college and a couple of industrial elements, which means the typical resident was either 19 or 39. Being in my mid-twenties at the time, that left me with few opportunities for a social group, so I started playing poker. This was back around the time when Paradise was still the industry leader.

3. Can you explain to the readers a little bit about what Part Time Poker is and what it does?

PartTimePoker is really a few sites rolled in to one. The original goal of the site was just to be a content site, and we still do a ton of content – strategy articles, hand quizzes, poker news, photos, interviews, etc. The general gist of the content is to appeal to people who are interested in and serious about poker but who still have some core priority other than poker in their lives – hence the name of the site.

A couple of years ago we bought a site called NeverBeg. We were basically looking for a forum, as ours wasn’t super-active. NeverBeg also had a staking system built in, which interested us. We ended up pretty much gutting the system and rebuilding it from the ground up, rolling that site into PTP, and now it’s the largest staking site online by any measure that we’re aware of. We’ve also, by extension, become one of the largest poker forums online.

4. What’s a typical day like for you?

A weird patchwork of tasks that inevitably leaves me spending too much time in front of my computer. I spend a good amount of my day answering a variety of emails, managing ad sales and inventory, generating content (or coordinating content with freelance writers) handling tasks as they come up on the forum, etc. I basically spend 80% of my time reacting to the needs of the site day-to-day and the other 20% trying to map out / make progress on a long-term strategy.

5. What would you say is the most satisfying part of your job?

For me, the autonomy is the greatest reward. Obviously, I don’t have total autonomy – I’m still responsible for the site, and that’s something that controls what I can do, but since I can do almost all of my work from a laptop with an internet connection, I can at least control where (and when, to some extent) I do the work, which is nice.

6. What is the least satisfying?

A lot of your work in this business is just about maintaining things. That’s essential work, but it sort of disappears into the ether – you don’t always have much tangible to show for it. If you spend your whole day answering emails and fixing things on an internet forum, at the end of the day it’s very easy to look back and say “wait, what the hell did I accomplish today?”

It’s a lot like playing MTTs. You have a ton of days where you make no progress (or get stuck in reverse), and after a few of those days in a row, you really start to feel like you’re wasting your life.

7. If someone was deciding between going out on their own and becoming an affiliate or working for an existing affiliate which route would you suggest?

It all comes down to their individual temperament. If you prefer stability and someone else handing you a structure for your days, a task list, etc, then I’d go with working for an existing affiliate. If you respond well to self-managed situations, then consider striking out on your own. I will say that building a traffic base and a revenue base with a brand new site seems like a tall order to me in the current market, but there are probably people who are a lot more motivated than me out there who could make something of it.

8. When you’re considering a candidate for a position what are the most important things you look for?

Reliability is the key for us. A lot of our tasks that we outsource aren’t the toughest tasks in the world, but they need to be done day in and day out. It’s not always easy to find people who can commit to that, especially when the pay isn’t spectacular. It’s especially difficult if you’re recruiting from within the poker community, as most people would rather play than work, even if the hourly they get from working is competitive with their play hourly.

9. What would you say the major difference is between working a regular job and working in online gaming?

I suppose there’s an issue for some of how others perceive what you do. Online gaming has a stigma attached to it in a lot of communities, and that’s going to be an issue for some people. It’s also an industry that’s very young in a lot of ways, so it’s not as stable as some other careers might be (but really, what is stable nowadays?).

10. Any last advice for readers who are thinking about getting into the business?

Have a plan and realistic expectations. Online gaming affiliate work is generally a volume game, so it’s usually going to take quite a bit of time to build any substantial base. It’s also a very competitive field (or at least a crowded one) so putting some extensive thought in beforehand about the type of content / service you’ll provide, why it’s unique enough to attract traffic and how the type of traffic it is likely to attract can be monetized can save you a lot of wasted time and energy.

—

Chris wears a variety of hats over at PartTimePoker.com, primarily handling content development for the site. In addition to daily updated strategy, new, humor and interviews, PTP is also home to largest online poker staking site, with over $10 million staked in the last two years.

Related Posts

1. 10 Questions With Chris Hughes

1. What is your professional background before becoming involved in online poker?

I started my professional career in business, the music business. I was a licensee of Polygram Music Video, marketing their artists on video in several territories. In the early 90′s I got involved in audiotext, with licenses in South Africa and Israel to market premium rate telephone services. By the mid 90′s my attention had turned to the internet where I first encountered online gaming.

2. How did you find your way into the online poker business?

Having been a part time poker player and enthusiast since the 70′s and then having had a steep learning curve in online marketing since ’95 I guess it was a natural progression for me. My first online poker account was at Paradise Poker in ’99. By 2001 I was working in an interactive marketing agency which was just starting to develop an online poker software platform and I jumped right in.

3. What is/was the scope of your position?

My first meaningful position was managing one of the founding programs of the Playtrech powered iPoker network. It involved a lot of scoping out of the new software, room and lobby layouts, and coping with the myriad of issues that all new networks experience prior to and after launching. Since then I’ve had a variety of experiences including having launched two poker rooms on the Ongame network, VP Marketing online for WPT (World Poker Tour) and a spell with Party Poker.

4. Describe a typical day in the life of a poker room manager.

A typical day would start with a review of the KPI’s in the poker room. Getting together with members of the team either individually or as a group to discuss results of old promotions, ideas for new ones, tournament schedules, live events, player marketing and creating more value. Time must also be found for keeping up to date with industry developments and business intelligence which helps in shaping the decisions you make for the business. Further time is spent in overseeing the acquisition program with the media buyers plus the affiliate program team, mostly to ensure the deals they’re doing make sense and that ROI on the types of players they’re acquiring can be achieved.
Finally, reporting up to exec is also typically a part of a poker room managers day.

5. How is working in the online poker industry been different than other jobs you’ve worked at?

No two days are ever the same, being a relatively new industry there’s always a lot to learn and experience every day,

6. What was the best or most satisfying part of your job?

Starting a new poker room and getting it to grow from scratch to a real business.

7. Conversely, what was the worst or least satisfying party of your job?

Dealing with mounds of red tape and bureaucracy

8. What was the funniest or more bizarre memory you have of working for an online poker company?

An event I did for the World Poker Tour in Leicester Square London called Poker in the Park. We invited anyone in or around the (in)famous square to come in and play in the tent we had set up with Bluff Magazine. Steve Lipscomb and Mimi Rogers ended up playing poker with members of the public that strayed into the tent. The Empire Casino on the square was doing their grand opening at that time and sent a bevy of feather clad bunnies to hang out with us… a bizarre day! pic attached….if you look close you’ll see the bunny had a stray feather pretty much in my ear, was a bit tough getting through the photo session standing next to Steve. You can also see a bit of the ‘action’ in the tent behind.

9. Would you recommend being an online poker room manager as a career?

It isn’t for everyone, but yes, online poker is still growing, there are endless opportunities.

10. What advice would you give someone who wanted to get into the business?

Have a passion for the game, be prepared for long and irregular hours, keep an open mind as there is a lot to learn.

Bio

Hilly Ehrlich was the Managing Director of Fair Poker at IOG Casinos, VP Marketing online for WPT and Head of Poker Networks at Party Gaming. He’s been involved in online gaming for nine years. He has worked in several facets of the business including program building, management, affiliate marketing, player acquisition, live events, licensing, strategic planning and business development.

Related Posts

1. 10 Questions With Chris Hughes

photo of Chris Hughes from TED Blog (blog.ted.com)

1. What is your professional background before becoming involved in online poker?

I was actually working at an advertising agency and my days consisted of managing the internet infrastructure for a major luxury car manufacturer. As a technologist you’ll find that for the most part working in poker is no different than any other higher order tech job. The main differences are the need for constant uptime and personal availability. A solid understanding of the game doesn’t hurt either .

2. How did you find your way into the online poker business?

A recruitment firm actually. I got a call out of the blue because a friend of mine recommended me. Turns out that at the time there were few highly skilled poker technologists, this caused the industry players to branch out and find talent from the general public. I was fortunate that I had a track record of delivering high availability web apps.

3. What was the scope of your position?

I ran the public facing web infrastructure this included all game downloads, affiliate tracking, community portal, and I managed all of the company’s player websites. I lead the group that began the internationalization process for the website and eventually delivered 20 language specific versions of the website.

4. Describe a typical day in the life of a Director of Web Technology.

Keeping everything on the web running. I’d look at what sort of traffic we had in the past 24 hrs and see if any of it was malicious. I’d look at user navigation trends to see if the running promotions were being well received. After those reports are sent out then comes the never ending process of refining and improving the site and visitor experience.

5. How is working in the online poker industry been different than other jobs you’ve worked at?

I’ve never worked in a more progressive industry. Given the amount of money that is on the line at any given time, investment in infrastructure was never a problem.

6. What was the best or most satisfying part of your job?

The caliber of colleagues. I enjoy doing a good job but that can be done in any industry. What makes working in poker software special is that it attracts a pretty smart crowd. It’s the high quality of colleague that in turn provides a fantastic place to work.

7. Conversely, what was the worst or least satisfying party of your job?

The demands for time. This may be less of a problem now but when I started we were scaling up very quickly and customer growth outpaced
internal hiring. I also really enjoyed what I did so there was a deep sense of responsibility for keeping everything running. If left unchecked burnout can be a huge problem.

8. What was the funniest or more bizarre memory you have of working for an online poker company?

Easy, the company Christmas party. Many of the professional players were in attendance and I beat many of them to the final table. But that isn’t where the story ends, my girlfriend at the time got into a Rock Paper Scissors contest with one of the pros and took him for $300.

9. Would you recommend the job to other Directors of Web Technology?

Absolutely, I really had a blast working in poker. I discovered a whole new level of respect for the game and those who play it well. It was one of the best jobs I’ve ever had.

10. What advice would you give someone who wanted to get into the business?

Know the game well. If you are looking to work in poker distinguish yourself by knowing the terminology or even better learn to love playing the game. At the higher levels the gaming companies are looking for more then just a talented technologist.

Bio

Chris Hughes was the Director of Web Technology at Full Tilt Poker. He’s been involved in internet technology for over 10 years. Chris’s big internet claim to fame was being the guy to jailbreak the iPhone and most recently was a presenter at the TED 2009 conference. Chris currently works as a technology researcher within an R&D division at a major US telco. His ramblings on technology can be found on his blog, http://spazout.com.

Related Posts

No related posts found