Talking about occupation: Basic English Conversation

Asking about occupations

What do you do for a living?
What do you do to make a living?
What company do you work for?
What's your job?
What's your occupation?
What do you do?

Office jobs - Many people work in an office. You can say you’re an “office worker”, or give
the title of your job: a receptionist, an accountant, etc.

Other places you can work

I work… in a factory/school/hospital; on a farm; from home (“I work from home” = you have
an office in your house)
You can also say “I work as a doctor / as an actor etc”.

If you don’t know the title of your job, you can talk about your industry or type of job.

For example, “I work in … (industry / type of job)

Some typical industries: publishing (creating books): education (teaching); construction

(building houses); manufacturing (making things); finance (money)

Some typical types of job: marketing; sales; IT; logistics; HR; management; consultancy

For example:
I’d like to work in IT.
His dream is to work in management.

Talking about how you work

full-time (for example, 5 days a week, from 9 to 5)
part-time (for example, 2 days a week, or mornings / afternoons only)
flexi-time (for example, from 10 – 6)
in shifts (for example, only the morning, afternoon, evening or night)

Practice Conversation:
A: Hi Jane! Didn't know you work in the same building.
B. Yeah. I just started to work here last month.
A: What do you do?
B: I work as an IT for Apple. How about you?
A: That's an interesting job. I'm currently in finance, but I'm thinking about changing job soon.
Perhaps I'd apply somewhere I can work from home so I can focus on my family.
B: That sounds very ideal.