 Hello and welcome to Lesson 1 of the Business English Course, Essential Job Vocabulary. Let's begin by answering the question, Where do you work? This seems like a simple question, but there are many ways to answer it. I work at, I work in, I work for, and I work with. Each preposition is correct in a different context. I work at, and I work for, are used with the name of the company. For example, I work at Espresso English. I work for Nike. You can also use for if you work directly for a famous person. I work for Tom Cruise. I'm his public relations manager. I work in is used in four situations. You can say, I work in a place. I work in an office. I work in a school. I work in a factory. You can also use in with a city or a country. I work in Paris. I work in France. I work in is also used with a department or area of a company. I work in the marketing department. I work in human resources. I work in sales. Finally, you can use I work in with a general area. I work in finance. I work in medical research. I work in consulting. You can say, I work with the things or people that are the objects of your day-to-day work. For example, I work with computers. I'm a teacher. I work with special needs children. If you want to add more details about your work, you can say, I'm responsible for. I'm responsible for updating the company website. I'm responsible for interviewing candidates for jobs. After I'm responsible for, use the ing form of the verb. Let's review. I work at a company. I work for a company or a person. I work in a place, city, country, department or general area. I work with people or things. In conversational English, the question where do you work is commonly phrased as what do you do or what do you do for a living. How do you answer this question if you don't have a job? You can say, I'm unemployed. Or, more indirectly, I'm between jobs at the moment. If you work for yourself, you can say, I'm self-employed. If you have your own company, you can say, I own a small business. Or, more specifically, I own a restaurant. Or, I own a graphic design company. Now let's learn some essential employment vocabulary. When you are officially accepted into a new job at a company, you are hired by the company. For example, I was hired by an insurance company just two weeks after graduating from college. When you're hired, you become an employee of the company. The company becomes your employer. The other employees in the company are your colleagues or coworkers. The person above you who is responsible for your work is your boss or supervisor. As an employee of the company, you earn a salary, money you receive regularly for your work. Don't make the mistake of saying, win a salary or get a salary. The correct verb is earn. If you're good at your job, you might get a pay raise or a raise, an increase in your salary. You could also get a promotion, an increase in importance and authority. At the end of the year, some companies give their employees a bonus, extra money for work well done. The opposite of hire is fire when your company forces you to leave your job. For example, Peter was fired because he never came to work on time. Usually if someone is fired, it's because they did something bad. If an employee loses his or her job because of a neutral reason, like the company reducing its size, then we say the employee was laid off. For example, Donna was laid off when her company started having financial problems. If you decide to leave your job, there are three verbs you can use. I'm going to quit my job. I'm going to leave my job. I'm going to resign. Quit is informal. Resign is formal. And leave can be formal or informal. When an old person decides to stop working, the verb for this is retire. In most countries people retire around age 65. Let's review the vocabulary you learned in this lesson. Listen and repeat to practice your pronunciation. Hire Employee Employer Colleague Coworker Boss Supervisor Fire Laid off Earn a salary Get a pay raise Get a promotion Get a bonus Quit your job Leave your job Resign from your job Retire Now you can take the vocabulary quiz to practice using these words and sentences. There's also a bonus quiz with extra vocabulary related to professions. Come back tomorrow for Lesson 1 of the Business English course. Come back tomorrow for Lesson 2, Interview English.