Questions to Ask Senior Management When Networking
Questions for a short conversation with someone several levels above you at a conference, an industry dinner, or an alumni event. Short enough to ask standing up with a drink in your hand, and arranged so the exchange ends with a reason to follow up rather than a request for a job.
The questions
Open any question for the note
What brought you to this event?
Why ask it
Safer than asking what they do, which they have answered forty times already today. It also tells you whether they are here to recruit, to sell, to learn, or because someone made them come, and each calls for a different conversation.
What are you hoping to get out of today?
Why ask it
Occasionally you can actually help, with an introduction or a session recommendation, and being useful in the first two minutes changes the whole dynamic of the conversation.
What does your week actually look like at the moment?
Why ask it
The word actually pulls them off the job description. You find out whether they are in budget season, a crisis, or a quiet stretch, which tells you how much of their attention you have.
What part of your job would surprise someone who only knows your title?
Why ask it
Senior people enjoy this because it lets them correct a misunderstanding. It is also the fastest way to learn what a role at that level really involves before you decide you want one.
What is everyone in your corner of the industry talking about right now?
Why ask it
Puts them in the comfortable position of explaining rather than being tested. The specific topic they choose is more current than anything published, and it gives you something concrete to read afterwards.
What has changed most in your field in the last couple of years?
Why ask it
Watch whether the answer is about technology, money, or people. Senior managers who only name technology are often the last to notice that the customers or the labor market moved.
What do you think the industry is getting wrong at the moment?
Why ask it
A slightly braver question that usually gets a real opinion, because people at this level have been holding it back in meetings. If they will not answer at all, keep the conversation lighter.
Who is doing interesting work that hasn't got much attention yet?
Why ask it
Gets you names of companies and people rather than abstractions, and following up on one of those names is the most natural excuse for a second conversation you will ever get.
How did you end up doing this?
Why ask it
Almost nobody planned it, and the story is usually more accidental than their biography suggests. That is reassuring, and it reveals which moves were deliberate and which were luck.
Was there a job you took that turned out to matter more than it looked at the time?
Why ask it
More useful than asking about their biggest success. The answer tends to be an unglamorous role that gave them a skill or a relationship, which is a better guide to your own next move.
What did you worry about early in your career that turned out not to matter?
Why ask it
Cheap comfort, honestly given. Common answers are the name on the resume, the exact title, and the timeline, and hearing it from someone senior lands differently than reading it.
What skill do you wish you'd built earlier?
Why ask it
Note whether they name a technical skill or a human one. At senior levels the answer is nearly always writing, negotiation, or reading a room, and that pattern is worth taking seriously.
What do you look for when you're hiring someone at my level?
Why ask it
Direct without asking for a job. The answer is usually more specific than any posting, and if it names something you lack, you have learned that for free in a single sentence.
What separates the people who move up from the people who stay where they are?
Why ask it
Managers who make promotion decisions have a clear answer to this and rarely get asked. Listen for whether they describe visible results, judgment under pressure, or simply asking, because each implies a different strategy.
What's the hardest part of the job at your level?
Why ask it
Prevents you from romanticizing the next rung. Answers about isolation, delegating work you used to do yourself, or making decisions with incomplete information are worth knowing before you chase the title.
Who gave you advice that you still use?
Why ask it
Advice attached to a person and a moment sticks. It also opens a warmer part of the conversation, and people often mention the mentor they are still in touch with.
If you were starting in this field today, would you take the same route?
Why ask it
The hesitation before the answer is the interesting part. A quick no usually comes with a specific alternative, and that alternative is the most valuable thing you will hear all evening.
What would you want to know if you were in my position?
Why ask it
Hands them the steering wheel, and senior people frequently point at something you had not thought to ask about, such as which part of the industry is quietly hiring or which credential is now worthless.
Who else here do you think I should talk to?
Why ask it
The single most productive question at any event. A warm handoff from someone senior gets you a conversation you could not have started on your own, and most people are glad to make one.
Would it be all right if I sent you a note next week?
Why ask it
Ask before you walk away, not in an email afterwards. Naming a reason, a follow-up on something specific they said, makes it easy to say yes and easy for them to remember you.
Talking to senior people at events
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
Getting into the conversation
Approach during transitions
The gaps between sessions, the coffee line, and the walk to the next room are easier than interrupting a group. Someone standing alone looking at their phone is usually relieved to be spoken to.
Lead with context, not your resume
One sentence on who you are and why you wanted to speak to them specifically. If your opening could have been said to anyone in the room, it will be received that way.
Have one real question ready
Something you actually want to know, ideally prompted by something they said on stage or wrote recently. It is the difference between being remembered and being a pleasant blur.
Keeping it short on purpose
- Aim for five to seven minutes. Leaving while it is still going well is what makes a second conversation possible.
- Watch their eyes. When they start scanning the room, they have someone else to see, and letting them go gracefully earns more goodwill than one more question.
- Do not queue up your whole list. Two good questions and real listening beats six rapid-fire ones.
- Say the closing line out loud: 'I won't keep you, but thank you, that was genuinely useful.' It ends things cleanly and leaves a good impression.
What to avoid
Asking for a job in the first five minutes
It converts a conversation into a transaction they now have to manage. Ask about the work and the field, and let any opening come from them or from a follow-up conversation.
Handing over a resume at a party
Nobody wants to hold your paperwork while balancing a drink. Get permission to email, then send it if they ask for it.
Contradicting them to seem sharp
Disagreeing can work, but only after you have understood their position. 'What am I missing?' gets you the same standing without the cost.
Talking to only the most senior person present
The people at their level and one below often have more time and more relevant information. Working the room only at the top is visible and it reads badly.
The follow-up that actually works
- 1Send it within 48 hours, while they can still place your face.
- 2Reference one specific thing they said and what you did about it: a book you started, a person you contacted, a change you made.
- 3Ask for nothing in the first message. The point is to exist in their inbox as someone useful rather than as an outstanding request.
- 4Check back in a few months with an update rather than a favor. That is how a single event conversation becomes a relationship.