Mike Hallett was a good if not outstanding amateur and won the National Under-16 title in 1975. He started work as a shipping clerk but always wanted to be a professional snooker player. After captaining the England team in the 1978 Home Championship at the age of 19, he put forward his application to join the paid ranks in 1979 and, somewhat to his own surprise, was successful at the first attempt.

He struggled in his early years and it was not until the 1983 Professional Players Tournament that he reached the last 16 of a ranking event, beating Steve Davis on the way, and thus collected any points. He did however get to that stage of the UK championship every year except one during that period but that event was non-ranking at the time. In 1986 he reached the semi-finals of the English Professional Championship losing only in the deciding frame to Neal Foulds. He also reached the last 16 of the Embassy that year, his best to date

1986/87 saw him reach the final of the World Doubles with a young man called Stephen Hendry and he ended the season by reaching the quarter finals of the world championship. This, together with some consistent results in the other ranking events, saw him enter the top 16, at No. 16, for the first time. The following year, he and Hendry won the World Doubles and he was runner up in the British Open and a semi-finalist in the Fidelity International. He was also beaten in the Masters final at Wembley, a 9-0 whitewash by Steve Davis, as well being runner-up in both the Australian Masters and Pontins Professional Championships.

Three ranking semi-finals and a world quarter-final in 1988/89 saw him rise to his highest ever ranking of sixth. That season also saw him get his first individual title, the Fosters Professional invitation event and followed this with the English Professional title. The following season he finally landed a ranking title, The Hong Kong Open. After putting out Stephen Hendry and Jimmy White he squeezed passed Dene O’Kane 9-8 in the final.

In 1991, again partnered by Stephen Hendry, he took the doubles event at the one-off World Masters and the next season he won both the Scottish Masters and the Humo Masters in Belgium.

Since then, apart from reaching the quarter-finals of the 1993 Welsh Open, his form has slumped and when the WPBSA restricted the numbers on the main tour at the end of the 1996/97 season, Mike failed to make the cut. He got back in again for 1998/99 but failed to qualify again at the end of that season although he is now back on the main tour once again.

After one season back on the main tour, Mike finished 133^rd and failed to qualify for the 2001/02 season. Nowadays he supplements his tour earnings with some commentating for TV and it seemed unlikely that we would see him back on the main tour but he continued to play on the Challenge Tour and was close to regaining a Main Tour place at the end of the 2002/03 campaign but just missed out. The next season however he finished comfortably in the top 16 on the Order of Merit to ensure a return to the Main Tour in 2004/05 after a gap of three seasons.