Jobs, Workplaces and Talking About Work
What people do, where they do it, and how to talk about your own job in English without sounding translated.
Almost every conversation with a new person in English reaches "what do you do?" within a few minutes. This is how to answer it well.
The question
What do you do? — this means "what is your job?", not "what are you doing right now".
Compare:
What do you do? — I'm a nurse. (profession) What are you doing? — I'm making coffee. (right now)
Answering
Use a / an with the job. English requires the article.
❌ I am teacher. ✅ I'm a teacher. ✅ I work as an engineer.
Other ways:
- I work in marketing. (a field)
- I work for a bank. (an employer)
- I work at Siemens. (a named place)
- I'm self-employed. / I'm freelance.
- I'm between jobs at the moment. (polite for unemployed)
in / for / at are fixed: in a field, for an employer, at a specific place.
Jobs
teacher · nurse · doctor · engineer · accountant · lawyer · chef · driver · electrician · plumber · shop assistant · receptionist · developer · designer · manager · consultant
Workplaces
office · factory · shop · hospital · school · restaurant · warehouse · building site · laboratory · from home
I work in an office. · She works from home two days a week.
Talking about conditions
- I work full-time / part-time.
- I do shifts. / I'm on nights this week.
- I get 25 days' holiday.
- My salary is paid monthly. (a wage is usually hourly or weekly)
- I have to commute an hour each way.
The follow-up questions
- How long have you been there?
- Do you enjoy it?
- What does that involve? — a genuinely useful question when you do not know the job
Test yourself
The quiz below focuses on the articles and the three prepositions.