What Do You Do?

No doubt you have been asked this question at a cocktail party or when meeting someone for the first time. It seems to be the American Way and the quintessential question to start off a conversation with a person whom you don’t know.

I’ve seen men and women in career transition flinch from this question especially if they are unemployed at the time. Others base their entire identity on their career and launch into a long winded discussion about the details of their job.

In the USA, most of us default into answering this question based on our career or professional lives. While in most other parts of the world, particularly in Europe, the asker wants to know about your hobbies, how you spend your free time, and what your interests are beyond work? I’ve even heard an international colleague stop a responder from launching into a discussion about her career by saying – “Please tell me about you and what you do beyond work.”

I’m not suggesting that you shy away from a discussion about the professional you but feel free to take a chance and steer the conversation towards the avocation side of your life. It might be refreshing to start a conversation and establish a new friendship with someone based on who you are as opposed to what you do.

In the spirit of good networking, it’s not always about the professional arena. You can and should build your community of new contacts with people who do interesting things that appeal to you in addition to potential professional connections. You can always steer the conversation back to the career world but it would be refreshing to learn about your interest in organic gardening before you launch into your Project Manager role at company X.

Starting a conversation with your interests can also build trust and help others feel safe since inappropriate networkers are everywhere and blatantly ask for job leads making people feel uncomfortable and threatened by a new introduction.

Be confident in discussing who you are and not what you do as this refreshing change may lead to a more long term relationship that lasts beyond the cocktail reception.