Questions to Ask in a Networking Call
Questions for a twenty or thirty minute call with someone you have been introduced to or approached cold, covering their current work, how people get hired where they are, what your background looks like from their side, and how to ask for an introduction without overstepping.
The questions
Open any question for the note
Before I take up your time, what would make this call worth it for you?
Why ask it
Almost nobody asks, and it reframes the call as an exchange rather than a favour. Sometimes there is a real answer: they are hiring, or they want a view from your side of the industry. Sometimes the answer is that they simply enjoy these calls, which is useful permission to ask for more of their time.
How would you describe what you do to someone outside your company?
Why ask it
You get their own framing rather than a title, which tells you what they consider the core of the job. Ask this rather than what they do, since the plain version is where you find the parts you did not know existed.
What is taking up most of your week right now?
Why ask it
Current and specific, so it produces the project and the obstacle rather than a summary of responsibilities. Most of the rest of the call should follow from whatever they name here.
How did you get from where you started to this role?
Why ask it
The path is usually less orderly than a profile suggests, and the detours are what tell you whether your own background is a barrier. Listen for the moves that were sideways, since those are the ones people rarely write down.
What part of your work would you hand off tomorrow if you could?
Why ask it
It gets an honest answer about the least appealing part of the job, and it occasionally identifies a gap you could fill. What someone wants rid of is often what they will eventually hire for.
What is changing in your field that people outside it have not noticed yet?
Why ask it
It invites expertise rather than opinion, and the answer tends to be practical: a client behaviour, a tool everyone quietly adopted, a role that has stopped being hired. That is the kind of detail that improves how you talk about the field.
What do you look for when you hire for your team?
Why ask it
Asked about their process rather than about you, so it does not read as a pitch. People who screen candidates usually name the first thing they check, which is rarely the qualification the job posting leads with.
How did you decide to join your current company over the alternatives?
Why ask it
The comparison gets you their real criteria and often a candid word about the places they turned down. It also tells you what this company offered that others did not, which is what you would be weighing later.
What do you know now that would have saved you a couple of years?
Why ask it
More specific than asking for advice, and the time frame forces them to name a real mistake or delay. Answers about the wrong first job or a skill they put off learning are far more usable than encouragement.
Which of your skills got you promoted, and which stopped mattering?
Why ask it
The second half is the part worth hearing. Learning that the technical depth someone built early was replaced by writing and persuasion tells you where the field is actually heading, and where to put your own effort.
How do people usually get into your organization: postings, referrals, or contract work?
Why ask it
This is a factual question with a useful answer, and it avoids asking for a favour. If most hires come through referral or through contracting first, applying online is the wrong strategy and now you know.
Is there anything in my background that would raise a question for you?
Why ask it
It invites the objection you cannot see yourself, whether that is a gap, a short tenure, or a change of field that needs explaining, at a moment when nothing is at stake. Their answer is a free preview of what a hiring manager would ask, and you can practise answering it on the spot.
What should I be reading or following that is not obvious?
Why ask it
Asking for the non-obvious rules out the answer everyone gives. You often get a specific newsletter, a person worth following, or a conference that is worth attending, which is also a natural thing to report back on later.
Who has the most interesting view on this that I should hear next?
Why ask it
Ask before the call winds down, so there is time for them to say why the person matters. A name with a reason attached is far more useful than a suggestion to speak to more people.
Would you be comfortable introducing me, and what would you need from me to make that easy?
Why ask it
The second clause is what makes this work: it gives them a way to say yes with less effort, usually a short paragraph they can forward. It also lets them decline gracefully, which protects the relationship.
What is the most useful thing someone did for you when you were where I am?
Why ask it
It prompts a specific memory, and people frequently offer to do the same thing for you without being asked. It is also a more graceful way to reach a request for help than asking outright.
How do you prefer people follow up with you?
Why ask it
Some people want a short email, some want a message on a platform, and some will not read either. Asking removes the guessing that leaves most of these calls with no second contact.
Is there anything I could do that would actually be useful to you?
Why ask it
Offering is more credible when it is small and specific: an introduction of your own, a document, a candidate for the role they mentioned earlier. A vague offer to help with anything reads as politeness and gets declined every time.
Is there a way I can stay on your radar without being a nuisance?
Why ask it
It admits the awkwardness that both people are aware of, which tends to get a genuinely helpful answer: a frequency, a channel, or an invitation to write when you have news.
If we speak again in six months, what would you want to hear that I had done?
Why ask it
This turns the advice into something checkable and gives you a reason to write again that is not a request. It also reveals what they think your actual next step is, which may not be what you assumed.
Running a networking call well
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
Before the call
Say why them, specifically
The request that gets accepted names something particular: a project they led, a path they took, a company they joined. Requests that could have been sent to a hundred people mostly go unanswered, and the ones that are accepted start colder.
Ask for twenty minutes and mean it
A shorter ask is easier to accept and forces you to prepare. Ending at nineteen minutes, or offering to, is also what earns the extension people often give you.
Decide your one question
Know the single thing you most want to leave with, whether that is a view on your background, a name, or a sense of how hiring works there. Ask it in the first half of the call rather than as time runs out.
During the call
- Give a two-sentence version of yourself, not a five-minute one. They can ask for more.
- Say what you have already tried or read, so their advice starts past the obvious.
- Follow the thread they warm to, even if you had a list.
- Take notes and say you are, so the typing does not read as distraction.
- Name any request clearly rather than hinting at it, and make it easy to decline.
What makes these calls fail
Opening with a request for a referral
It puts a stranger in the position of vouching for someone they have known for four minutes. Ask how hiring works there instead, and the offer often follows on its own.
Asking questions your reading should have answered
What the company does, how big it is, what the product is. These signal that the call was easier than the preparation, and people notice.
Talking for most of the time
The common failure is nerves turning the call into a monologue. If you have spoken for more than a third of it, ask a question and stop.
Vanishing afterwards
Most of these conversations produce nothing because nobody writes again. A short note the same day, and one more when something has changed, is the whole difference.
Asking for an intro you have not made easy
If you want a forwarded message, write it for them. Requests that require the other person to draft something take weeks or never happen.
After the call
- Send a short thank-you within a day naming one thing you will do because of the call.
- If they offered an introduction, send the paragraph they can forward, unprompted and short.
- Act on any name they gave you within a week, and tell them how it went.
- Write again in a few months with a result rather than a new request, which is what makes the second call easy to get.