So, what do you do for a living?

I've never liked that question as it takes too long to answer properly. I'm sure I could improve my party pitch, but I'm starting to realise that my friends or colleagues are equally bad at explaining their careers. I blogged recently about over-specialisation here which is often explained as a response to the world is becoming more complex. But is it really the case that our roles and responsibilities are more complex or simply a case of more jargon that surrounds them.

Now I know that by creating new words, groups can figure out who's in and who's out. Yet if we are moving towards more collaborative business models and yet we can't explain what we all do more clearly, then we need to find ways to simplfy our language, translate the jargon, and navigate our way around the complexity. Any suggestions?

Comments

[Tina]

its a tricky one. Fortunately most of my clients know what I do from former lives so I don't need to be specific.

Someone needs to provide a service where they read your CV then come up with a snappy 'this is what I do' one -iner that you can memorize for that 'elevator pitch' moment.