As a senior on the verge of graduating college, I didn't particularly look forward to the world beyond because I never had much information about it. My friends who had already graduated seemed unable to illustrate what life was like in their jobs after college. I noticed that in response to the question, people fall into two categories when you ask them what do for a living: one is self-loathing and the other is people in non-stop interview mode.

The first is the self-loathing 20-something who doesn't think much of what they do. They might say, "I just work for a non-profit," even though that doesn't explain too much. Defining your life by your company's designation in the U.S. 401K tax code seems to be trendy and I'm not sure why. These people are depressing to listen to and they are probably depressing themselves whenever they speak about their job. When you ask them how life is after college, they often say "nothing much, I just work," as if they're in serving time in prison. Most of their advice centers on enjoying college life while you can because it all goes downhill from there. There probably are few worse pieces of advice one can receive and hopefully most college students will not take it to heart.

Many of these self-loathers are probably just frustrated over being at the bottom of the totem pole. My advice to these people is that there's no guarantee that your job will be any more exciting or fulfilling when you get higher up anyway, so you might as well enjoy where you are. From personal experience, I once didn't know how good my job was until I left it and didn't find anything better. There are always things to find that you like about your work if you put your mind to it and expressing those positive things aloud to your friends when they ask is better for the both of you.

The second category of people are those who treat their life like a never-ending job interview and try to impress you by throwing vague words around about what they do like "I consult," "I manage," "I assemble," etc.  I live in the Washington D.C. area where this is an epidemic. People here act as if every potential person they talk to might get them a job on Capitol Hill, so they never stop trying to impress you with a good answer to that question. It also seems like literally everyone is a consultant and I have to wonder how there are so many consultants in this town. When I think of a consultant, I think of someone writing a "Dear Abby" column or a wizened old soul spreading his wisdom; not someone two months out of college who probably can't remember much of what they studied in their major.

Nevertheless, the people who fall into this category need work as well: They need to recognize that a written resume and a conversation require different communication skills.  Unless you're a rocket scientist, everyone should be able to say what your organization does and what you do in that organization within a couple sentences.

Business Advisor Alan Boyer advises his clients starting out in small business to work on a "30-second elevator speech" that can quickly summarize and effectively sell your business in the time it takes for two people to get into and out of an elevator. He says that the exercise of preparing a 30-second speech not only allows his clients to effectively present themselves but it changes their vision of who and what they are as an entire business.

This is something that you could work on to help you get a better idea of where you are with your job and be able to present those views to others effectively.

For more on Alan Boyer's advice columns, click here