When Your Passion Is Directly Related to Work

Maybe you’re a software engineer who spends all of your spare time working on a coding side project. Or you’re applying for a content strategist role and also run your own personal blog. This is the easiest scenario to be in, since you can draw a direct line between what you love to do outside of work and the actual job duties.

Your answer might sound something like this:

“This probably isn’t surprising coming from an engineer, but I love experimenting with code. For example, when I started playing World of Warcraft, I really hated the interface, so I wanted to try to write my own. I had to teach myself a new coding language, Lua, and seek out communities that supported that language, and communities of other people who were modding the same game. I really enjoyed the process of discovery and getting feedback from the community. It’s exactly why I enjoy what I do all day as an engineer.”

Or in the case of the content strategist with the personal blog, you might say:

“I’ve gotten really interested in personal finance lately, so I started a blog and I’ve been creating weekly posts for it. It’s been fun to use my content and marketing skills on a type of content that’s really different from my day job, and I’ve had a chance to learn a lot more about SEO, too.”