Questions to Ask Networking Call
Questions for a short networking or informational call with someone whose work you want to understand, covering how they got where they are, what the job is actually like, how hiring decisions get made in their world, and how to leave the door open afterwards.
The questions
Open any question for the note
How did you end up in this role?
Why ask it
An easy opener that also tells you whether the path was planned or accidental. Most senior people describe a route that no longer exists in the same form, which is worth knowing before you try to copy it.
What did the path between your first job and this one look like?
Why ask it
The gap between the two is where the useful detail sits: the sideways move, the two years in an unrelated function, the employer nobody has heard of. Titles on a profile hide all of it.
What does a normal week actually look like for you?
Why ask it
Job descriptions describe scope, not hours, and this is where you learn how much of the week is meetings, review, or firefighting. If the answer is that no week is typical, ask them to walk through last week specifically.
Which part of the job takes more time than people expect?
Why ask it
This surfaces the unglamorous majority of the work, the part that decides whether you would enjoy it. Someone who cannot name anything is either new to the role or managing the conversation.
What skills matter most in your work now, and which ones did you assume would matter but don't?
Why ask it
The second half is the part people rarely volunteer, and it can save you from investing in a credential or tool that carries less weight than the job ads suggest.
What do people trying to break into this field usually get wrong?
Why ask it
Framed this way it invites candor without asking them to critique you. Answers tend to cluster around applying too broadly, misreading who makes hiring decisions, or overvaluing formal qualifications.
What's changing in the field right now that someone outside it wouldn't notice?
Why ask it
Asks for their read rather than a headline, and gives you something specific to reference in later conversations. Generic answers about technology or disruption mean you should follow up with what it has changed about their own work.
How do you keep up? Anything you read or follow regularly?
Why ask it
You get a short reading list you can actually work through, and the answer is a fair signal of how fast the field moves. A shrug here is itself informative about how much of the knowledge is tacit.
When you've hired for your team, what made you say yes to someone?
Why ask it
Asking about decisions they have already made gets you concrete detail, where asking what they look for gets you a list of virtues. Watch for whether they describe evidence of work or personal referral, because that tells you which route into the team is real.
What would make a resume for a role like yours stand out before anyone meets the person?
Why ask it
Isolates the screening stage, which is where most applications end. It also reveals whether their organization filters on credentials, portfolio, or someone vouching internally.
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.
What's kept you at this organization rather than somewhere else?
Why ask it
The reasons people stay tell you what a place is genuinely good at, and hesitation before answering is worth noticing. Pay attention if every reason is about colleagues and none about the work.
Was there a point where you nearly went in a different direction?
Why ask it
Invites the decision they still think about, which is usually where their most considered advice lives. It also normalizes the uncertainty you are probably feeling.
What do you wish someone had told you when you were at my stage?
Why ask it
The one question that asks them to translate their experience into your situation rather than describe their own. If they have not asked what your situation is, this prompts them to.
If you were starting out today, would you take the same route?
Why ask it
Tests whether their path is still available or has closed behind them, which is easy to miss when you are taking their history as a map.
How do you decide what to say no to?
Why ask it
More revealing than asking about work-life balance, because it asks for a method rather than an aspiration. The answer shows how much control the role really carries.
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 anyone else you'd suggest I talk to?
Why ask it
The single question most likely to extend the conversation past this call. Offering to draft the introduction message yourself makes a yes much easier for them.
Is there anything I could help with, an introduction, a set of notes, a pair of eyes on something?
Why ask it
Naming concrete forms of help stops this from being a polite formality. Even a no changes the shape of the relationship, because you have offered something before asking for anything.
Would it be alright if I came back to you in a few months with an update?
Why ask it
Gets explicit permission to follow up, which removes the awkwardness of a cold message later. Ask at the end, once they have decided how the call went.
Running a networking call well
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
Setting it up
- 1Ask for a specific, short slot. Twenty minutes is easier to accept than a vague coffee, and it signals you have thought about their time.
- 2Say in your request why you are asking them rather than anyone else. One line about their specific work is what separates your message from a template.
- 3Send two or three lines about yourself beforehand so they are not spending the first five minutes working out who you are.
- 4Pick five or six questions, not twenty. Anything more and you will rush people through answers instead of following them.
During the call
Give them your situation early
Two sentences on where you are and what you are weighing up. Advice cannot be specific if they do not know what you are choosing between, and a vague picture produces vague answers.
Follow the interesting answer, drop the list
If they mention a failed project or an unexpected move, ask about that instead of moving to your next question. The prepared list is insurance against silence, not an agenda to complete.
Watch the clock yourself
At five minutes remaining, say so and ask your most important remaining question. Ending on time when you said you would is the single easiest way to earn a second conversation.
Do not ask for a job
You can say what you are looking for, and you can ask how roles like theirs usually get filled. Asking them to pass on your resume in the first conversation converts a relationship into a transaction, and usually ends it.
Afterwards
- 1Send a short thank-you within a day that names one specific thing you are going to do differently. Generic gratitude is forgettable.
- 2If they suggested an introduction, write the message you want forwarded and send it to them ready to pass on.
- 3Act on one recommendation, then tell them a few weeks later what happened. This is the step almost nobody takes, and it is what makes people remember you.
- 4Keep a note of what you discussed and when. Six months later the detail you can recall is the difference between a warm message and an obviously cold one.
What goes wrong
- Asking questions answered by their public profile. It reads as no preparation, and it burns the goodwill that got you the call.
- Talking about yourself for the first ten minutes. They agreed to answer questions, not to hear a pitch.
- Recording or quoting them without asking. Assume anything candid was said in confidence.
- Disappearing after the call, then reappearing only when you need something. The follow-up with nothing attached to it is what builds the relationship.