Hi,

I'm about to graduate with a M.Sc in Engineering (chemical engineering) and with no work experience. I'm 24 years old and I've always played poker to support myself. I don't regret it money wise but when comparing myself to my peers I realize that my chances of landing a job has probably hurt a lot. I just want to see if there are people in my situation or that have been in my situation and how it worked out. Since this is a poker forum I assume there are some people with my experience.

Any tips, ideas, doom sayers are welcome.

Try to get an internship and leverage that into a full time job in the future. Obviously its pretty late in the game but if it was during the normal that's what I would recommend. Maybe you should try to do it next year. Consequently, you could try to network with people in your class or alums and explain the situation. With no work experience you are either going to have to get lucky or know somebody. Knowing someone makes it much easier.

You graduated with a degree in engineering, I wouldnt be worried unless you expect to make 100K/year right off the bat

same position except I just graduated with a B.B.A. in Finance from a non-target.

just got an internship offer from a F500 (more than likely going to take this), and have an interview with a F100 company for FT position later this week.

wish I would turn back time and fulfill the internship obligations during my 2nd and 3rd years.

Is it impossible to play poker and do an internship?

not at all, I barely even played poker during this time. I simply didn't care enough at the time, just bad decisions.

With ChemE as a major it shouldn't be a problem finding a job. You just might have to be willing to relocate or go on a lot of job interviews. Personally (CS major) it took me until about the 5th interview to able to answer the technical questions well.

Since your past salary is zero a lot of headhunters will lowball you, use Salary.com and glassdoor.com and don't let them low ball you on salary.

nsfw language

my teacher told me a good response to salary is to ask for industry standard, if you want to pay me more than that I'll be happy with that too. Gets a chuckle/laugh every time.