How to Answer “What Do You Do?” Without Boring Everyone
Lead with the problem you solve, not your job title. Name who has the problem, say what changes when it is fixed, then stop. Fifteen seconds beats sixty, and stopping early invites the follow-up question that lets you say more.
This question gets asked more than any other and it produces some of the worst answers in business. Most people say their job title and a category, which tells the listener almost nothing.
Why the title answer fails
"I am a financial advisor." "We do HVAC." These are accurate and completely inert. The listener now knows a category and has no reason to ask a second question.
Worse, a category invites comparison to every other member of it. You have just told somebody you are one of a hundred interchangeable options.
The structure that works
- Name the person with the problem.
- Name the problem in their words, not your industry's words.
- Say what is different afterward.
- Stop.
Stopping is the part people skip and it is doing the most work. A short answer that lands leaves a gap, and the other person fills it with a question. Now they are asking, which is a far better position than you talking.
What it sounds like
Weak: "I am a real estate agent in Santa Clarita."
Better: "I help people who have to sell a house they never planned to sell. Divorce, a death in the family, a job that moved. The part they dread is the not knowing, so I take that off them."
Same job. The second one gets a follow-up question every time.
Use their language, not yours
Every industry has vocabulary that means nothing outside it. If your answer contains a word your customer would not use unprompted, cut it.
The test is whether a smart neighbour who knows nothing about your field would understand it completely. If they would have to ask what something means, it is not ready.
Have a fifteen and a sixty
Have a fifteen second version for ordinary situations and a sixty second version for when somebody asks properly. Lead with the fifteen every single time and let them ask for the sixty.
Guests who open with the sixty on a podcast lose the room in the first minute. Guests who open with the fifteen get asked to keep going, which is a much better place to be talking from.
Questions, answered
How long should my answer to what do you do be?
Fifteen seconds by default. Long enough to name a problem and a change, short enough to invite a follow-up question. Save the longer version for when somebody actually asks for it.
Should I use my job title at all?
Only after the problem, if at all. Lead with what you fix and who you fix it for. The title is a filing category, and categories make you comparable to everyone else in them.
What if I do several different things?
Pick the one most relevant to whoever is listening and lead with only that. Listing everything reads as unfocused and gives people nothing to remember.
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