Questions to Ask When Networking
Questions to ask while networking with people at roughly your own level: in a coffee chat, over a video call with someone a mutual contact introduced, or at a networking event full of strangers. Built to get past small talk without turning the conversation into an interview.
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The questions
Each question, and why to ask it
What brought you here tonight?
Why ask it
The cheapest possible opener and still the most informative, because people answer it with their current motive: hiring, job hunting, dragged along by a colleague. It also lets someone who does not want to talk give a short answer without either of you losing face.
What are you working on that is taking longer than you expected?
Why ask it
Almost everyone has one, and it produces a real answer where asking what they do produces a title. It also puts you both on the same footing, since the honest answer involves an admission rather than a boast.
How did you end up in this line of work, and was it the plan?
Why ask it
The second clause is what stops this being a resume recital. Most careers were accidental, and the story of the accident is usually more useful to you than the tidy version they give in interviews.
What part of your job would surprise someone outside it?
Why ask it
Gets at the gap between how a role looks and what it involves, which is exactly what you want to know if you are considering a similar move. It is also a question people enjoy, because nobody ever asks it.
What are people in your corner of the field arguing about right now?
Why ask it
Disagreements tell you where a field is actually moving, whereas trends tell you what has already been decided. Someone who cannot name an argument is either new or not paying attention.
What is the busiest season in your work, and where are we in it right now?
Why ask it
Practical and immediately useful: it tells you whether this is a good month to ask them for anything, and it explains a slow reply later. It also shows you understand their work has a shape.
What tool or change in how you work has actually made a difference this year?
Why ask it
The word actually filters out the things they were told to adopt. Expect a small, unglamorous answer, a template, a weekly habit, a change of meeting, which is usually the kind you can copy.
Who do you go to when you are stuck?
Why ask it
Reveals how they are supported and whether their organization has real expertise or just hierarchy. If the answer is nobody, you have learned something about the job as well as the person.
What is a problem in your work you would happily pay someone to solve?
Why ask it
The most direct route to something you might be able to help with, now or later. It also surfaces where money is moving in their part of the industry, which no trend report will tell you as plainly.
Where do you go to learn things about your field?
Why ask it
Specific answers, a particular newsletter, a small community, one conference, are worth more than the general advice you get from asking how they stay current. Vague answers usually mean they learn on the job and nowhere else.
What did you expect this job to be, and what is it really?
Why ask it
A more honest version of asking whether they like their work, and it gives you the gap rather than a verdict. If you are weighing a similar role, this is the answer to write down.
What have you stopped doing that you used to think was necessary?
Why ask it
Draws out earned judgment rather than advice. The things people drop, a report nobody read, a networking habit, a certification, tell you what turned out not to matter in their field.
How do you decide which of these events are worth going to?
Why ask it
A useful and slightly self-aware question to ask at an event, and the answer saves you time and money. It also often ends with them recommending two you had not heard of.
What is the hardest part of hiring in your team at the moment?
Why ask it
Tells you where the shortages are, which is the most actionable career information in the room, and it does not require you to admit you are looking. If they are not hiring, it still reveals what skills they wish they had.
What have I got wrong about your side of the industry?
Why ask it
Offering to be corrected is disarming and gets you a genuinely candid answer. You have to say something specific first for it to work, so use it after you have shared your own read on things.
What is the best thing you have read or listened to lately that relates to your work?
Why ask it
A concrete recommendation is easier to give than an opinion, and it gives you a reason to make contact again once you have read it. Their choice also tells you how they think.
What would you want to be doing in two years if nothing was in the way?
Why ask it
Phrasing it as if nothing was in the way gets past the realistic answer they give their manager. It also reveals what they would need to get there, which is often the thing you or someone you know could provide.
What kind of introduction would actually be useful to you right now?
Why ask it
Asking before offering means you do not waste anyone's time on a connection they do not want. Most people are surprised by this question, which is why it tends to be remembered.
Who else here do you think I should meet?
Why ask it
Turns one conversation into two and gives you both a graceful way to move on. The name they choose also tells you who they respect, which is worth noting.
Is it worth staying in touch, and how do you prefer to do that?
Why ask it
Direct, and it gives them a real option to decline, which makes a yes mean something. Asking about the channel matters too: some people answer email within a day and ignore social messages entirely.
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.
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.
What do people come to you for help with most often?
Why ask it
This locates their actual expertise, which is frequently narrower and odder than their title suggests. It is also the most useful thing to remember about them, because it tells you when to get back in touch.
What kind of problem makes you want to clear your calendar?
Why ask it
This gets at what they actually enjoy, in enough detail to act on. If you later bring them a problem of exactly that shape, you have a reason to talk that is not networking, which is how these relationships survive.
What's changed most in your field in the last couple of years?
Why ask it
Asking about a fixed recent window gets a concrete answer instead of a list of buzzwords. Listen for whether they describe the change as a threat or as work they are enjoying, since that reveals where they sit in it.
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.
Who's doing work in this area that you think is underrated?
Why ask it
This gets you names rather than opinions, and the names are ones you would not find by searching. It also shows what they think good work looks like, which is more revealing than asking directly.
What's a tool or process you'd get rid of tomorrow if you could?
Why ask it
Complaints are specific, memorable and honest, and nobody is guarded about software. You will also learn how their organization actually works: what is bought centrally, what is worked around, what nobody will fix.
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.
What did you have to learn on the job that nobody teaches?
Why ask it
Expect scoping work, managing a client's expectations, reading a contract, saying no to a request from above. What they name is usually what separates competent people from struggling ones in that role.
What's a job in this field that's better than it sounds, and one that's worse?
Why ask it
Insiders know which titles are quietly good and which are a treadmill, and the pairing makes it easy to be candid about both. This is the closest thing to inside information you will get from a first conversation.
How did you find your current role? Was it even advertised?
Why ask it
A large share of jobs at this level move through people rather than postings. Whichever answer you get tells you where to spend your own effort, and the story usually names the person who made it happen.
What would have to happen for you to leave?
Why ask it
Ask this only once the conversation is comfortable. The answer identifies what they are missing, money, scope, a manager, a commute, and people who name something concrete are usually closer to leaving than they let on.
Who's been the most useful person in your career, and how did you meet them?
Why ask it
The second half is the part that matters. Most such relationships start in ordinary places, a shared project, a bad job, a former colleague two employers ago, which is a useful corrective to the idea that events are where careers get made.
How do you keep in touch with people you've liked working with?
Why ask it
Some people have a real system and will describe it; others admit they are bad at it, which is itself permission to be direct about following up. Either way you learn which channel they actually read.
What are you trying to get better at right now?
Why ask it
This puts you on level ground rather than in the role of supplicant. It also frequently surfaces something you can help with, an introduction, a template, a book you both wanted, which gives the relationship a reason to continue.
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.
Working a room without dreading it
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
How to run the conversation
Pick one useful question and hold it in reserve
You do not need twenty. Choose the one thing you would genuinely like to know from someone in their position, and use small talk to get to a point where asking it is natural.
Give something before you ask for anything
A relevant observation, a name, an article, a warning about a vendor. The exchange only feels balanced if you have contributed something, and it does not have to be large.
Leave a conversation cleanly
Say plainly that you want to let them meet other people, or offer to introduce them to someone. Standing in one conversation all evening out of politeness is the most common way people waste an event.
Write two lines afterwards, the same week
Name the specific thing you talked about, add anything you promised, and stop. A short message with no request attached is what makes you recognizable the next time.
Choosing questions for the setting
At a networking event where nobody has long
- 1What brought you here tonight?
- 2What are you working on that is taking longer than you expected?
- 3Who else here do you think I should meet?
A coffee chat you asked for
- 1How did you end up in this line of work, and was it the plan?
- 2What did you expect this job to be, and what is it really?
- 3What is the hardest part of hiring in your team at the moment?
- 4Is it worth staying in touch, and how do you prefer to do that?
Someone in a field next to yours
- 1What are people in your corner of the field arguing about right now?
- 2What have I got wrong about your side of the industry?
- 3What is a problem in your work you would happily pay someone to solve?
Common mistakes
Opening with what do you do
It invites a rehearsed answer and sorts people by status before you have learned anything. Ask what they are working on, or what brought them here, and the same information arrives in a more usable form.
Collecting contacts instead of conversations
Twenty business cards and no memory of any of the people is a wasted evening. Three conversations you can follow up on specifically will do more for you than a full pocket.
Asking for a favor before there is a relationship
A referral request in the first five minutes puts the other person on the spot and usually ends the conversation. Ask instead who you should talk to, which is easy to answer and often leads to the same place.
Only talking to people more senior than you
Peers move, and in five years they are the people making hiring decisions. The conversations that pay off are frequently with the person who seemed least useful at the time.