Questions to Ask During Networking
Questions for networking in person: conferences, industry mixers, meetups, and the standing-around conversations in between. Written for short exchanges with people you have just met and may want to speak to again.
The questions
Open any question for the note
What brought you here today?
Why ask it
The safest possible opener, and the answer sorts people quickly. Someone sent by their employer, someone job hunting, and someone speaking later all want very different things from the next five minutes.
Is this your first time at one of these, or are you a regular?
Why ask it
A regular can tell you which sessions and side rooms are worth your time, and often knows who else is here. A first-timer is usually relieved to be talking to anyone, which makes them the easier conversation.
What do you actually work on day to day?
Why ask it
Better than asking what they do, because job titles at events are inflated and interchangeable. The word actually gives people permission to describe the unglamorous version, which is the one you can respond to.
Who are you hoping to run into while you are here?
Why ask it
This surfaces what they want, which is the only reliable way to be useful to a stranger. If you know one of the people they name, you have an introduction to offer inside two minutes of meeting.
Which sessions are you making sure you get to?
Why ask it
Their choices tell you what problem they are currently trying to solve, which is more revealing than their job description. It also gives you an easy reason to find them again later.
How did you get into this line of work?
Why ask it
Almost nobody planned their way in, so this usually produces a story with a turn in it. The turn is where the person becomes memorable, and memorable is the whole point of a first conversation.
What is keeping your team busy this quarter?
Why ask it
Anchoring to a quarter gets you something concrete instead of a mission statement. If they cannot name a current priority, you are likely talking to someone far from the work, which changes what you ask next.
What has changed most in your work over the last couple of years?
Why ask it
You get their view of where the field is heading without the empty forecasting that the word trends invites. Watch whether they describe change as something they are driving or something happening to them.
What part of your job would surprise someone outside your industry?
Why ask it
This produces the detail you will still remember next week: the approval nobody expects, the tool everyone secretly uses, the deadline that governs everything. It also flatters their expertise without asking them to boast.
What is everyone in your corner of the industry arguing about right now?
Why ask it
Arguments are more informative than consensus, and people enjoy explaining a live disagreement. Which side they take, and how fairly they describe the other side, tells you a good deal about them.
Where do you think the standard advice in your field is wrong?
Why ask it
This separates people who repeat received wisdom from people who have tested it. A thoughtful answer is a strong signal that this is someone worth staying in contact with.
What is the hardest part of hiring for your team at the moment?
Why ask it
You learn where the real gaps are without asking whether they are hiring, which puts nobody on the spot. Their answer is also the most useful thing you can pass to a friend who is looking.
What is something you tried this year that did not work out?
Why ask it
Asked warmly, this builds trust faster than any success story, because they are taking a small risk in answering. Someone who cannot name a single failure is either guarded or not close enough to the work.
Who do you learn the most from, and what do they do differently?
Why ask it
You get a name and a practice in one answer. The practice is often something you can copy immediately, and the name is someone you might reasonably ask to be introduced to.
What do you wish more people asked you about your work?
Why ask it
Everyone at an event has answered the same three questions all day, and this one lets them talk about the part they find interesting. Their answer usually points straight at what they are proudest of.
How do you decide which of these events are worth your time?
Why ask it
You get a shortlist of the gatherings that people in your field actually rate, which saves you a year of trial and error. It is also a natural way to compare notes rather than talk about yourselves.
What are you working on outside of work?
Why ask it
Deliberately open enough to cover a side project, a course, a garden, or a toddler. This is the question that turns a contact into a person you will recognise in a year.
Is there anything you are looking for help with where I might know someone?
Why ask it
Offering the network you have rather than the favour they might want from you flips the usual event dynamic. Even if you cannot help, the offer is remembered.
Who else here should I introduce myself to?
Why ask it
This gets you a warm route to two or three more people and lets your conversation end without anyone feeling dropped. If they walk you over and make the introduction, you have found a genuinely generous contact.
Should we swap details, and what is the best way to reach you?
Why ask it
Asking how to reach them, not just for the card, tells you whether email, a message, or a specific platform will actually be read. Sending one line the same evening is what makes the exchange worth anything.
Working a room without dreading it
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
Getting into conversations
Approach pairs and threes, not fours and fives
A group of two or three has room for another person and will usually open up to include you. A tight circle of five is mid-conversation and hard to join without cutting across someone.
Stand near the practical bottlenecks
The coffee queue, the registration desk, and the corridor outside a popular session put you next to people who are already stationary and unoccupied. Talking to someone in a queue requires no excuse.
Set a target you can actually hit
Three real conversations beats twenty exchanged cards. You can follow up properly with three people the same evening, which is where any value from the event comes from.
Write one line on the card or in your phone immediately
Not their job title, which you will find later, but the thing they said: rebuilding their onboarding, moving back from Lisbon, hiring two analysts. That line is what makes your follow-up worth reading.
Keeping a conversation alive
- Follow the energy: when someone speeds up or leans in, ask a second question about that instead of moving down your list.
- Ask for an example whenever you get an abstraction. What did that look like in practice is the single most useful follow-up.
- Give something before you ask for anything: a name, a link, a warning about a vendor, an answer to a problem they mentioned.
- Silence for two seconds is not failure. Most people will fill it with the more honest half of their answer.
- If you are talking about yourself for more than a minute, ask them something.
Ending and following up
Leaving a conversation cleanly
- 1Say the useful part back to them: that point about hiring for judgement over tools is going to stick with me.
- 2Name what happens next, if anything: I will send you that write-up tomorrow.
- 3Give a reason to move that is not about them: I promised I would catch the four o'clock session.
- 4Offer a handoff where you can: you should meet Priya before you go, she runs the same setup.
The follow-up note, same evening
- 1One line on where you met and what you talked about, specific enough that they place you instantly.
- 2The thing you promised, attached or linked, with no further request in the same message.
- 3One sentence on what you would find useful next, such as a short call or an introduction to a person they named.
- 4Nothing else. Long follow-ups from strangers rarely get answered.
Common mistakes
Collecting instead of talking
Working through the room to hand out cards produces a contact list nobody in it recognises. Fewer, longer conversations are worth more than broad coverage.
Leading with your pitch
Opening with what you sell or what you want makes the other person start managing the conversation instead of having it. Save it until they ask, and they usually will.
Scanning the room while someone is talking
It reads as looking for someone better, and people remember it. Face the person you are with and let the room look after itself.
Only talking to people more senior than you
Peers change jobs, hear about openings first, and stay in your field for decades. The most useful contacts from any event are usually the people at roughly your own level.