Profession as a Tool

Profiling would not be complete without using someone's job as a way to evaluate him. The challenge is to assess whether the person chose the job or the job chose the person.

Typically, you can somewhat correlate a person's job-satisfaction to how much he is `built' to enjoy that job. Your goal is not only to discover what a person's occupation is, but also whether or not they are comfortable with it.

Most players will not appreciate an interrogation about their personal life at the table, subtlety is important. In conversations over the course of hours spent playing cards, their job will usually crop up at some point.

Of course, some people are happier with their career choices, and some occupations lend themselves to proud discussion more than others. There are external clues like looking at a player's hands and other physical characteristics. People who arrive to play poker around eleven to midnight might work in a restaurant.

These are very narrow clues that may not be very revealing. More revealing would be an opponent wearing a shirt that says "Rocky Mountain Plumbing" or "Hamburger Stand". One pertinent piece of information is whether he owns the company or works there.

Dr. John Holland developed a theory that he applies to career choices 15: "In American culture, most people are one of six personality types: Realistic. Investigative, L Artistic, Social, Enterprising, or Conventional" .

a person's occupation

some typical jobs

leadership and speaking abilities

classifying poker players

type of intelligence