Business English for Networking Events: How to Introduce Yourself at Work & Meet People in English

hi there high L listeners welcome back to our English learning YouTube channel with side by side American and British English we've got another business English class for you today have you

ever tried to introduce yourself and your company to other professionals but you struggle to find the right words in English or maybe want to ask other professionals more about their jobs but

you can't quite remember the right questions well in today's video we're diving into a super helpful topic how to introduce yourself and what you do in a professional setting like at a

networking event with other professionals yes that's right today we'll help you create what English speakers call an elevator pitch which is a quick brief introduction of who you

are and what you do other professionals often appreciate it when you can introduce yourself with confidence and without taking up too much of the other person's time so we've got some key

phrases that will help you sound more confident and make networking much much easier yes and we understand that having these phrases in writing is really helpful for studying and memorizing and

using them so we'd like to invite you to become a high level listening member here on YouTube and that way you can get a PDF transcript of every sentence and every line that you can download and

take offline and you can follow along word for word you can find the link for that in the description below so let's get started with these pH phrases that are going to help you introduce yourself confidently and make a great impression

and help you start building your Professional Network to both people inside your company and outside of your company so we'll break all these phrases

down into three main parts first introducing yourself second briefly explaining what you do and finally asking others about their work so we

want to keep that conversation going let's start with introducing yourself so the first group of phrases we have is meeting people outside of your company

so these are not your colleagues or co-workers they work for someone completely different so the first Wing you can introduce yourself is hi I'm and

your name from your company's name it's great to meet you for example hi I'm Mark from ecosave it's great to meet you

hey I'm Pat from highle listening it's great to meet you too now our second example hello I'm and then give your name and I work with and then your

company name okay so the first one we had I'm cat from my company I'm cat and

I work with my company for example hello I'm cat and I work with highle listening nice to meet you another example hello

I'm Mark I work with ecosave nice to meet you third and final way to introduce yourself is quite casual hi

there I'm your name I'm here with and then the company name maybe you're at a conference or a big Symposium and lots of different companies are all there

together so you'd say I'm here with Microsoft I'm here with apple as a full example hi there I'm Mark I'm here with

EOS safe cat I'm here with highle listening now it you might have the opportunity to network with colleagues or co-workers in

the same company now you might see their names on emails but you've never actually met in person so this would be a good time to chat with people inside

of the same company hi I'm and then give your name and I'm part of the specific team or specific Department it's great

to meet you so for example hi I'm cat and I'm part of the content team now I don't really need to explain what company I'm working with because we all

work for the same company so hi I'm cat and I'm part of the content team it's really nice to finally meet you in person this is a really good phrase when you've seen people on emails maybe

you've even chatted with them on the phone or on a video call and it's really nice to finally meet you in person one

more example hi I'm Mark I'm part of the operations team it's nice to finally meet you in person yes as C mentioned we're all working for the same company

so it's the operations team or the content team the one in the company so that article is helpful another way you can introduce yourself to people who

work in the same company is hi there I'm your name from a team or a department for example hi there I'm Mark from the

logistics team again it's the one of the company so from the logistics team think when you go to networking events a lot

of people just use their first name but if you are in a little bit more formal little bit more professional setting you might want to use your first and last name in other words your whole name and

then you could say something like I go by cat or you can call me cat right hi there I'm cat from the social media Department this is very friendly and

easygoing all right so step number two is going to be introducing your company or your role your position your job right so if you are meeting people

outside of your company again you might be at a conference you might be at a symposium you might be meeting people in your industry or just meeting new people maybe when you're traveling or something

like that so you might say something like I'm with and then the company name and we specialize in doing something so

don't forget the ing on whatever activity you specialize in so I'm with highle listening and we specialize in

teaching practical English for work and travel okay so we specialize in teaching

we specialize in doing we specialize in Saving don't forget the ing on that one yes so say we specialize means the

company is really good at doing this one thing it is the service that the company offers one more example I'm here with

ecosave and we specialize in helping businesses reduce energy costs so another way you can introduce yourself to people in different

companies to you is we work with companies in and then the industry to do something for example we work with

companies in marketing to lower expenses and improve efficiency so we work with companies in marketing in finance in

education a sector or an industry and what do we do lower expenses it becomes we work with

companies in marketing to lower expenses and improve efficiency you could also say we work with professionals we work with professionals those would be the

people who are working right so we work with Professionals in in the industry health and medicine to what what do you

do how how do you help them right to enhance their English for presentations and meetings so altogether we work with Professionals in health and medicine to

enhance or make it better to enhance their English for presentations and meetings now the simplest one we help

businesses do something all right we help businesses we help companies we help professionals do something all

right so you don't need the ing here for example we help professional learn to speak English more confidently and effectively as Kat said you don't

need in and you don't need to either it's we help businesses save we help websites protect themselves we help

businesses save money on utility bills so next you might be at an inter company event as in everybody works for the big

firm you you might have work for a very large company with lots of different departments and you may not get to meet them they could be different sides of the building or completely different buildings or even different cities but

when you're all together and you do work for the same organization you can explain what you do and what your role is with these sentences the first one is

I work with the the team or department where we handle and then your specific responsibilities for example I work with

the marketing team where we handle content creation and Community engagement we handle means we work we

create we do content creation so one more time I work with the marketing department where we handle content creation and Community engagement I work

with the operations team where we handle Logistics and Supply Chain management so you can say I work with this team I

work with the team or you can say I work in the specific Department remember a department is a group that works inside

of the company and usually we only have one right the HR department the finance department the payroll department right it's just one of them so it's very

special that's why we're going to use the now I work in the blank department and what do I do there well I work in the department where we

focus on and then give a really good goal or a reason that you're there right so it's where we focus on what's the

main idea your main job I work in the finance department where we focus on budgeting and financial planning for our projects yes when you explain your

team's goal we're always using a noun this could be a noun like recruitment or engagement but it could also be the

Geren noun like we focus on recruiting or we focus on engaging you can use either of those forms as an example I

work in the HR department where we focus on employee engagement and recruitment so the last one if you're meeting other people in your company and you want to

say what you do you can say I'm part of the and then department and my main focus is and then your specific area so

maybe it is a big department with many different employees or a lot of teammates I am just part one small part

I'm part of the IT department and my main focus is maintaining and improving our internal systems again for my area

of work I'm using a noun gerent maintain in improving our internal systems I could say my main focus is the

maintenance and Improvement of our internal systems they're both correct sometimes the Jared's a bit easier I'm part of the customer service team and my

main focus is ensuring client satisfaction and resolving tickets so that's kind of nice uh I don't just have one single job I've got a couple of

different things that I do and you can say I'm part of a team or part of the

department all right so we do want to ask other people some questions right you might start the conversation so I might say something like oh uh what line

of work are you in this is for people who are outside your company so if they work in the same company as you you might already know but if they are in a

completely different part you can say what line of work are you in line is a great word in this context it means what

kind of industry or what sector or what field are you in it's a good way to say it and not sound too busy uh I hear it kind of casually like even if you're

traveling Oh yes what line of work are you in another question you can ask to people outside your company is what industry do you work in so the grammar

is different what line of work are you in what industry do you work in it's the same question in different words what

industry do you work in it Finance marketing now a simple question could simply be so what do you do if I'm

asking you what do you do I'm asking probably about your work so what kind of work do you do or you could say what do

you do for work what do you do for fun right if you want to make it really clear but I think most of the time especially if you're in a networking group or if you're at a an event where

you're meeting other people in your industry what kind of work do you do and what do you do is a very common question so now if you want to continue

the conversation or ask some questions and you're talking to people who work in the same company maybe I work on the marketing team and I talked about myself

I can then ask are you also on the marketing team or maybe I'm in the legal department say are you also in the legal

department I can ask that question and just help the conversation carry on and learn what they do like this one because I'm trying to connect to the other

person and that's a good way to keep the conversation going so on the team or in the department that's where common to

use or you could simply say my job right are you a sales rep as well are you a teacher as well are you an engineer as

well now I'm using as well because I'm a teacher or I'm a sales rep or I'm a doctor right are you a doctor as well and then I'm trying to connect with you

to see if you are also in that position yes and if I work in the tech department I can ask are you in the tech department

as well remember the team in the department now if we're continuing the conversation oh what department are you in now you might want to give a little

bit of kind of some emphasis so if someone asks me hey Cat what department are you in and I explain I'm in the marketing department uh what department

are you in just giving that little bit of emphasis we can absolutely ask each other the same question but we're going to give a little bit of emphasis what

about you what department are you in that way it keeps the conversation going but you don't have to think of a new question you can actually just ask the question back to the person through it

works with everything where are you from yeah where are you from do it with anything doing this weekend what are your plans for next week uhuh exactly

what's your name right okay we've got a Bonus list for you as well we've gone through those three main stages where you introduce yourself talk about your role and then

ask a question if you want some extra things to say at these networking events where there lots of people if you want to just keep talking because you like

them or you just want to fill the time you can ask how did you hear about this event how did you hear about this event and maybe they'll tell you that they

were invited by their company they found it on their own or they know someone else and you can expand the network oh what brings you to the happy hour so

you could just say what brings you to this event what brings you to the Symposium what brings you to the

conference what brings you to the happy hour right so what brings you here meaning why are you here but if you asked simply why are you here that seems

very direct like why are you here you shouldn't be here so we usually say something like exactly so maybe we should say something more along the lines of so what brings you here today

what brings you to this event yeah much friendlier question another question I really like is have you gone to one of these events

before so I'm asking is this the first time or have you gone to one of these events sometime in the past I don't know

when specifically so I'm using the present perfect have you gone to one of these events before and they might say uh no actually this is my very first

time what about you and the bow keeps rolling I mean a completely simple one you could just say something like hey how's your day going so far or how's the

event going so far or you know how's your workday going so far this is very common small talk in the office and it is a really good way to just break the

ice hey how's everything going so far how's your going so far one last one what do you think of the event so far

what do you think as in are you enjoying it has it been a little bit boring has it been interesting have you made some useful contacts I know some of my students who work for big big companies

when they invite all of their staff to these big agms and expose there's entertainment there's music there's guest speakers there's lots of kind of supposedly impressive things happening

so if that's the casee for you what do you think of the event so far and they can tell you what they've liked and disliked okay so now we'll put all of these great questions and sentences

together in some dialogues every dialogue will be at some kind of networking event the first two will be with people who work for different companies different Industries something

completely different and they're meeting each other for the first time and introducing themselves professionally okay okay so these are all people meeting outside of your company you've

never met them before let's start hi I'm Kat and I work in English language education with high level listening it's nice to meet you hi cat I'm Mark from

ecosave great to connect with you now what kind of work do you do at ecosave we specialize in helping businesses save on utility bills and become more sustainable what about high

level listening well we work with professionals to help them communicate more confidently in English especially for presentations and meetings W that's sounds really useful

how did you hear about this event actually a a colleague recommended it how about you same yeah seems like a great place to meet like-minded professionals okay so that's the first

dialogue we're going to show you another one which uses all of the phrases we've shown you so far this time I start hi there I'm Mark and I'm here with

ecosave I'm cat from highle listening it's nice to meet you have you gone to one of these events before this is actually my first time what about you I've been to a few

they're usually great for finding new connections it's good to hear so what industry are you in Energy Efficiency and cost reduction we work with

companies to lower expenses and become more sustainable how about you I'm an education we specialize in teaching professionals

practical English for work and travel oh that's great so what do you think of the event so far it's been really interesting so many great conversations

already how about you same here yeah I'm looking forward to learning more from everyone here okay so now we're going to do two more dialogues but this time

you're meeting people who also work for the same company maybe they're in different buildings countries but you all work for the same organization so

you might be at a company happy hour or a company networking event hi there I'm Mark from the HR department hey Mark oh

I'm cat I used to work with Nicole Oh Nicole okay so do you work in HR as well yeah my team mostly focuses on Recruitment and employee engagement

what about you okay I'm part of the it support team there so my main focus because is maintaining and upgrading our HR systems

that is such an important job have you gone to one of these company lunches before yes a few times it's always nice to finally meet some of the other teams

in person how about you uh it's my first one but I'm already enjoying it all right so there you have it everyone a really good set of questions phrases and

structure so you can use these to introduce yourself clearly confidently and professionally the next time you're at a networking event all in highle English yes that's right please let us

know about today's video which phrases or questions were new for you let us know in the comments we read and reply to every single one so you can practice with us absolutely we do and don't

forget that if you want to get a PDF transcript of this episode and see every single line and every single sentence written down for you to take offline then join us as a highle listening

member here on YouTube using the link below thank you so much for joining us everyone and we'll see you for another video here on high L listening very very

soon bye thanks

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