Questions to Ask a Guest Speaker About Their Job
Questions to ask a guest speaker about their job, for a class visit, a career day or a club talk. The list opens with the five every speaker expects, then covers the day to day, how people get in, the highs and lows of the work, pay and prospects, and advice.
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The questions
Each question, and why to ask it
The basics
What does a typical day look like in your job?
Why ask it
The opener nearly every speaker expects, and it gives the room a picture to hang the later answers on. If the reply sounds like the job ad, ask what yesterday looked like instead.
Why did you choose this career, and was it always the plan?
Why ask it
Plenty of guests will say it was not the plan at all, and hearing that from the front of the room takes pressure off anyone who has not decided yet. Listen for the moment the choice was actually made: a class, a summer job, a person.
What do you enjoy most about your work?
Why ask it
Notice whether the answer is about the task itself, the people or the results. A speaker who lights up over something you already like doing is a better sign of fit than the job title is.
What is the most challenging part of your job?
Why ask it
Most guests will name the part that wears them down if they are asked plainly. Ask yourself whether you could live with that difficulty most weeks, because it comes with the role whoever holds it.
What advice would you give a student who wants to work in your field?
Why ask it
Everyone asks it and it is still worth asking, because a guest has usually thought about the answer on the way in. If it comes out general, such as work hard or stay curious, ask what that looked like in their own first year.
In one or two sentences, what is it you actually get paid to do?
Why ask it
Guests are often introduced by a title that means little to the room. Asking what they are paid to do gets the job in plain words, and everything said afterwards is easier to follow once you have it.
How long have you been doing this job, and what did you do before it?
Why ask it
The number of years tells you how much of the field's history the guest has seen for themselves. The job before is sometimes completely unrelated, which is worth hearing if you assume everyone starts out on the right path.
When you were at school, what job did you think you would end up doing?
Why ask it
The gap between that answer and the person standing in front of you is the interesting part. Ask what happened in between and you often get the whole route in without having to ask for it.
Day to day
Can you walk us through yesterday at work, from when you started to when you stopped?
Why ask it
A typical day is an average, and yesterday is a fact. A real day tends to include the email, the meetings and the waiting that a summary leaves out, and those are part of the job too.
What part of the job takes the most time, and is it the part you expected?
Why ask it
From outside you see the visible part of a role: the surgery, the courtroom, the finished design. The hours often go on something else, such as records, approvals or phone calls, and it helps to know which before you pick a course.
What do you do in your job that the title would never tell us?
Why ask it
The answer tends to be the unofficial work: calming a client, translating between two departments, fixing what someone else left. Ask how they learned that part, since it is seldom taught.
Who do you work with most closely, and who do you answer to?
Why ask it
A job is partly the people in it. The answer shows whether the day is spent in a team, with customers or alone, and how much the speaker gets to decide for themselves.
Who decides whether your work is good, and how do they measure it?
Why ask it
Some jobs are judged by numbers, some by a manager's opinion and some by whether the client comes back. Knowing which one applies tells you what the pressure feels like from inside.
How much of your week is spent at a desk, and where is the rest of it?
Why ask it
The split is hard to guess from outside: some outdoor jobs are half paperwork, and some office jobs involve a lot of site visits. If you already know you hate sitting still, or love it, this answer counts for a lot.
What tools or software do you use every day, and which did you have to learn on the job?
Why ask it
Write the names down, because they are things you can look up or try at home tonight. The second half tells you what an employer expects you to arrive knowing and what they are willing to teach.
Do you travel for work, and is it as good as it sounds?
Why ask it
Travel is one of the things people picture when they imagine a career, and the reality runs from one conference a year to living out of a suitcase. Ask who pays, how much notice they get and whether they see anything besides the meeting room.
What hours do you really work, and how often do they run over?
Why ask it
The hours in the contract and the hours worked can be different numbers. Ask how often the day runs over and whether that time is paid, which depends on the employer and says more than the official schedule does.
How do you balance work with the rest of your life, and has that become easier or harder over the years?
Why ask it
Balance shifts over a career, and a senior person's week is not the one you would start with. Check which stage the speaker is describing, then ask what their first two years were like.
What do people most often get wrong about your job?
Why ask it
Much of what a class knows about a job comes from television or from one relative. The guest gets to correct that picture, and you find out whether the thing that attracted you to the work is real.
Getting in
What was the first job you had in this field, and how did you get it?
Why ask it
Listen for the mechanism: a job ad, a teacher's contact, a summer placement that turned into an offer. If it was luck or a connection, ask how someone without that connection gets the same start.
What qualifications or training does someone need for your job, and how long does it take?
Why ask it
Requirements differ by country, state and employer, so ask how it works where the speaker trained and check whether the same holds where you live. The length matters as much as the list: some routes take months and others most of a decade.
Looking back at school, which classes paid off in your job and which never came up?
Why ask it
The useful class is often not the obvious one, such as writing for an engineer or statistics for a designer. Whatever they name, you can act on it the next time you choose subjects.
Which skills matter most in your job, and which of them could a student start building now?
Why ask it
Guests tend to name plain things here: writing clearly, staying calm with an upset customer, checking your own work. The second half turns the answer into something to work on long before you apply.
Is there a way into your field that most people do not know about?
Why ask it
Careers pages describe the standard route. Someone inside the field knows the others, such as an apprenticeship, a junior support role or a move across from a related trade, and can say which of them employers respect.
Did you have a mentor early on, and how did that relationship start?
Why ask it
Students are told to find a mentor and seldom told how. The story of how one began, a manager who took an interest or a question asked after a meeting, is the part you can use.
Was there a setback on the way in, such as a rejection or a failed exam, and what did you do about it?
Why ask it
Guests are introduced by their successes, so the room rarely hears this unless someone asks. Ask it kindly and take whatever they offer, since it is their story to tell.
If you were hiring someone with no experience tomorrow, what would you look for?
Why ask it
Not every guest does the hiring, so if this one does not, ask what their own first manager saw in them. Listen for what stands in for experience when a beginner has none, and compare it with what you have been told matters.
Does your workplace, or others like it, take students for visits, shadowing or work experience?
Why ask it
Asked on behalf of the whole room, it is a fair question and puts nobody on the spot. If the answer is no, ask which kind of employer in the field usually says yes.
Highs and lows
What is the most interesting problem you have worked on?
Why ask it
Here the guest talks about the work itself instead of the career around it. Watch how they tell it: someone who speeds up and adds detail is showing you what keeps them in the job.
Which piece of your work are you proudest of, and can you tell us why that one?
Why ask it
People point at something concrete: a building, a published article, a patient who recovered, a system that still runs. The choice shows what counts as success in that job, which is not always what an outsider would guess.
Has anything happened at work that still makes you laugh?
Why ask it
A lighter question for a younger class or a room that has gone quiet. The story is likely to be the thing people repeat at home that evening, and it gives you a look at the guest's colleagues as well.
What surprised you most when you first started the job?
Why ask it
The surprise marks the gap between how a job looks from a classroom and how it is from inside, and everyone in the audience is on the classroom side of it. Ask whether it was a good surprise or a bad one.
Which part of the job can nobody really train you for?
Why ask it
Answers tend to be about people more than technique: giving bad news, working for a client who keeps changing the brief, being the one who has to decide. Ask how long it took before that part stopped feeling new.
Tell us about a day when something went wrong at work. What happened next?
Why ask it
A bad-day story shows how mistakes are treated in that workplace: fixed quietly, blamed on someone, or learned from. It also shows how much rides on getting things right first time.
What do people in your field complain about when no outsiders are around?
Why ask it
Asked with a smile, it gets the grumble that colleagues share over lunch: the paperwork, the schedule, the customers. If the same complaint would bother you every week, take it seriously, however lightly it is told.
What are you still learning to do better, even after all this time?
Why ask it
It is a kinder way of asking what the guest finds hard, and it suits a room that assumes professionals arrive finished. Whatever they name is something the job keeps demanding year after year.
Have you ever thought about leaving the field, and what kept you in it?
Why ask it
The first half finds the pressure point of the profession and the second finds what outweighs it. Leave it alone if the guest's manager or colleagues are in the room.
Pay and future
What can someone expect to earn in their first year in your field, and what about after ten?
Why ask it
Say that you are not asking for the guest's own salary, and a range becomes much easier to give. Pay varies by region and employer, so ask where to find current figures for the place you live.
Is work in your field mostly permanent jobs, short contracts or freelance?
Why ask it
A pay figure means little until you know how steady it is. Where a field runs on short contracts, part of the job is finding the next one, and the speaker will either know what that is like or know people who do.
Where can this job lead, and what do people usually move on to after a few years?
Why ask it
Some jobs are ladders and some are destinations. You learn whether people stay for decades, move into management, or use the role as a way into something else.
Can this job be done anywhere, or does it tie you to certain cities or employers?
Why ask it
Geography is a quiet limit on a career. If the work clusters in a few places or with a handful of large employers, that is better heard before training than after it.
How has the job changed since you started, and are there more openings now or fewer?
Why ask it
The first half gets the history and the second gets the part that affects you. A guest can only speak for the corner of the field they see, so treat the answer as one honest report and not a forecast.
How are new technology and AI changing what a beginner in your field is asked to do?
Why ask it
A newcomer's tasks are often the first to be reshaped by new tools, and those are the tasks a student would be hired for. A guest who trains new starters can describe the first year as it is now; treat anything about ten years out as opinion.
Advice
What should someone in this room do in the next year if they want your job?
Why ask it
It narrows general advice to one step with a deadline: a course to pick, a portfolio to start, a person to write to. Whatever is suggested, write it down and do it, because that is what makes a follow-up message worth answering.
What do you know now about working life that you wish someone had told you as a student?
Why ask it
It invites the guest to talk to their younger self, which usually produces something more personal than career advice. Expect an answer about people, money or patience more often than one about qualifications.
If you were our age again, would you choose the same career?
Why ask it
A fast yes tells you one thing and a pause tells you another. Either way, ask what they would change about the route, since that comes from someone who has seen where it leads.
Who should not go into this line of work?
Why ask it
Guests find this easier to answer honestly than who should. If the description sounds like you, it is better heard now, and if it does not, you have just been told what the job really requires.
What could we read, watch or try this month to find out more about your field?
Why ask it
You are asking for a named place to start: a trade magazine, a professional body's website, a free course, an open day. Write the names down as they are said, because they are the first thing to go by the end of the hour.
If one of us thinks of a question next week, is there a way to get it to you?
Why ask it
In a school the message may need to go through the teacher, so ask in a way that lets the guest choose the channel. A short, specific note afterwards is how a single visit turns into a contact.
What should we have asked you that nobody did?
Why ask it
Save it for the last minute of the session. Many speakers arrive with one point they hoped to make, and this is the opening for it.
Making the most of a visiting speaker
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
Before they arrive
Look up what they actually do
Job titles hide a lot of variation. Five minutes on the guest's employer lets you ask about their work rather than their field, which is the difference between a real answer and a general one.
Pick two questions and keep one in reserve
Sessions run short and hands go up. Having a first choice ready, and a second in case someone else asks yours, means you get to speak.
Choose questions they alone can answer
Anything answerable by a search wastes the visit. What is specific to them is their experience, their choices and their opinions.
Share the list out
When a whole class is asking, give each table one group of questions. The hour then covers the day to day, the route in, the highs and lows and the pay, and the guest is not asked for their typical day five times.
During the session
Open with a staple, then get specific
The first five questions are ones most speakers have answered before, which makes them good for warming up a room. Keep the narrower ones, about hours, pay or a day that went wrong, for once the guest has relaxed.
Ask about a specific occasion
A question about one particular day gets a story, and a question about work in general gets a summary. 'What happened the last time a deadline slipped?' will take you further than 'How do you handle pressure?'
Write down the nouns
Tools, job titles, qualifications and employers that come up in passing are easy to forget and easy to look up later, as long as you caught the name.
Follow up once
A second question on the same answer, such as what happened next, gets past the version they have told before.
Afterwards
- Send a short thank you that mentions one specific thing you took from it
- If they offered to be contacted, do it within a week while they remember the session
- Ask one narrow follow-up question rather than a general request for advice
- Act on the one concrete step they suggested before asking for anything more
Common mistakes
Asking for a job in the first conversation
It puts a guest in an awkward position in front of a room. Asking what to do next achieves the same thing without the cost.
Asking what they personally earn
It puts the guest on the spot in front of a room, and many people will not answer. Ask what the field pays, from a first year to an experienced person, and you get a figure you can use.
Asking questions the talk already answered
It reads as inattention and uses up goodwill that a later, better question would have needed.
Only asking about the good parts
A session where nobody asks about pay, hours or drawbacks leaves everyone with an inaccurate picture of the job.