Questions to Ask in a Networking Call
Questions for a twenty or thirty minute networking phone call, whether it is an intro call a mutual contact set up or one you asked a stranger for 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.
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The questions
Each question, and why to ask it
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.
How do you know the person who introduced us?
Why ask it
An easy first minute for an intro call, and the answer tells you how much weight the introduction carries. A former manager vouching for you sets up a different conversation from a friend of a friend passing along a name.
What were you told about why I asked for this call?
Why ask it
When someone else arranged the introduction, the brief they passed on may be one line or nothing at all. Hearing it first saves you repeating what they already know and lets you correct a wrong impression, such as the idea that you are after a job on their team.
What would be most useful for you to know about me before I start asking questions?
Why ask it
A stranger on an intro call rarely knows which part of your history is relevant to them. Letting them choose keeps your own introduction to the part they will actually use, and it is usually shorter than the version you rehearsed.
Is this still a good time, or have I caught you between things?
Why ask it
On a phone call you cannot see that someone is walking to a meeting or sitting in a parked car. Offering to ring back costs you a day and tends to buy a far more attentive conversation.
How much time do you have today, so I can keep us on track?
Why ask it
Asking up front stops the call from ending mid-sentence and signals you will not overrun. If they say twenty minutes, cut your list to four or five questions rather than racing through ten.
What surprised you about the work once you were actually doing it?
Why ask it
The gap between the outside view and the inside view is the most useful thing a call like this can give you. Vague answers here usually mean the person is being careful, so let the silence sit before moving on.
What part of your job did you have to learn on the job because nobody teaches it?
Why ask it
This is where people name the unwritten skill, such as writing a one-page recommendation, managing a vendor, or reading a room before a decision meeting. It doubles as a list of what to practice before you interview anywhere.
What's the hardest part of your job right now?
Why ask it
Present tense keeps the answer honest and current rather than a polished story about the past. It also tends to be the moment the call stops feeling like an interview.
How is success measured for you, and is that the same as the work you are proud of?
Why ask it
The distance between the metric and the pride is the most honest description of a job you will get. When those two answers match, that is a genuinely good sign about the organization.
What is a problem your team keeps running into that nobody has solved yet?
Why ask it
This moves the call from your career to their work, which is where goodwill comes from. If you can send something useful about that problem afterwards, your follow-up email writes itself.
Where does progress in your field stop being about technical skill and start being about something else?
Why ask it
Every field has a ceiling where craft alone stalls out. The answer names what replaces it, whether that is judgement, writing, politics, or client relationships, and gives you something to build early.
What would you warn someone about before they took a job like yours?
Why ask it
Framing it as a warning lets them say something negative without feeling disloyal. If they insist there is no downside, you are being given a recruiting pitch rather than an account of the work.
What do you wish you had asked before you took this job?
Why ask it
This gets at what they could not see from the outside, which is exactly the position you are in. It tends to produce the most candid ninety seconds of the call.
Is there a decision from your career you would make differently now?
Why ask it
Regret is more specific than advice. Notice whether the regret is about a job, a person, or a delay: most people regret waiting far more than they regret a bad move.
What are you and your team hiring for right now that a job posting would not capture well?
Why ask it
Postings list requirements; managers hire for gaps. The answer usually names a specific weak spot on the team, and that is the thing to speak to if you ever apply.
What mistake do people make when they move into this field from outside?
Why ask it
Anyone who has watched career changers arrive has seen the same failure more than once. The answer is usually about vocabulary or expectations about pace rather than raw ability, which means it is fixable.
What do people in my position usually get wrong when they reach out to someone like you?
Why ask it
You get a candid list of what irritates busy people, and you get it before you make the mistake. It also flatters the format of the call itself, so people answer it generously.
Which parts of my background transfer to what you do, and which do not?
Why ask it
Asking someone to name what does not transfer gives them permission to be direct. The gaps they name are usually narrower and more concrete than the ones you have been imagining.
Looking at my background, what would you focus on next if you were me?
Why ask it
Turns general advice into something specific, and it only works if you have already given them enough about yourself to answer. Their answer also shows how carefully they were listening.
Is there anything you would like me to pass back to the person who connected us?
Why ask it
Whoever made the introduction is usually left wondering whether the call ever happened. Carrying a message back closes that loop, and it gives you a reason to thank them with something specific.
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.
If someone else set up the intro call
Ask the person who introduced you what they said about you, so you know where the other side is starting from. Thank them before the call rather than after, and open from that connection, since it is the reason a stranger agreed to pick up.
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.