Talking about your profession in English: 3 easy ways & 3 advanced ways

Learn 3 simple and 3 advanced ways to answer the important question: "What do you do?" This is one of the most common questions in English conversations. Use the right phrases, expressions, and prepositions to answer. If you're a beginner, you'll learn to answer this question correctly and easily. Advanced English speakers will learn to answer by talking about their industry and by using expressions and phrases to describe their work. Whether in social situations, at work, or during a job interview, knowing how to answer this question confidently will help you make a good impression. In addition to this lesson, you can also study our free printable resource page with 100+ basic business questions at http://www.engvid.com/english-resource/100-basic-business-questions-answers/ . Improve your business English by learning how to answer all these questions.
Take the quiz here: http://www.engvid.com/talking-about-your-profession-in-english/

TRANSCRIPT

Hi. I'm Rebecca from engVid. If you work internationally or want to work internationally, you need to be able to answer many basic business English questions. Now, of course, there are hundreds of basic business English questions, but in this lesson, we're going to start with one which is very important, and that's the question: "What do you do?" So I'm going to show you how to answer that question simply, correctly, and confidently. And later, I'll tell you about a resource I've written with over a hundred other business English questions and answers, which you can access and download for free. But for now, let's start with the first important question: "What do you do?"

Okay, so at the top here, I've shown you three easy, simple ways to answer the question. All right? Let's look at what they are. And down here, there are some other options. But first, we'll focus on these. So, the first one is you could simply say when someone asks you: "What you do?" you could simply say: "I'm" plus your profession. For example: "I'm a doctor.", "I'm a lawyer.", "I'm an accountant." Okay? That kind of thing. So, that's one way to answer.

A second way to answer is to talk about the field that you work in. For example, I could say: "I'm in education." Somebody could say: "I'm in finance." Okay? So that's the field or the area of work. All right? The professional field. So right now, for yourself, think: How would you answer this? What would you say? "I'm a teacher.", "I'm an engineer." Okay? Or: "I'm in engineering.", "I'm in finance." That kind of thing.

Okay, the third way that you can answer is by talking about your employer, talking about the company that you work for. So then you would say: "I work for" plus the name of the company. "I work for Microsoft.", "I work for Sony." Or if you don't want to give the name of the company or if the name of the company is not necessarily known, or it's not important, or you don't feel like disclosing that information, you can simply say something in general, for example: "I work for an airline.", "I work for a law firm." Okay? So, these ways, these three ways are completely correct and you can be sure that if you say one of these, you will be answering the question: "What do you do?" correctly. Okay?

So, that's enough, but now I'm going to show you a little bit more that you could say, if it's relevant to you. But if this is enough, then just choose one of these, and use and learn one of those. Okay? But let's look at some other possibilities. For example, you could say: "I'm the CEO of Microsoft." Okay, that would be a very big position. "CEO" is "Chief Executive Officer", the top person, the senior most executive. All right? Or: "I'm the Director of Sales at Sony." All right? So, here, you're giving your position. Okay? So you notice that because it's a particular position, we don't say "a", we say "the". So if you're giving your title, your position, then you'd remember to say "the".

Next: If you want to express a little bit more about your field, but in a different way with a little bit more vocabulary, slightly more advanced vocabulary, then you could say: "I'm in the publishing industry." Now, you could also just say: "I'm in publishing." That's fine, too. But if you want to say a little bit more, give a little bit more advanced answer, you can say: "I'm in the publishing industry.", or "I'm in the advertising business.", or "I'm in the energy sector." Okay? "Sector" means a part of the economy. Or: "I'm in the public sector." which means you work for the government, or "I'm in the private sector." Okay? That kind of thing. So you could also say these. Okay? All the answers down here are a little bit more advanced.