Whether you’re hosting a virtual or in-person event, having a guest speaker can be a great way to add a little something extra to your lineup. Guest speakers can help boost the profile of your event, encourage a wider audience to attend, and, most importantly, can help provide extra value to your customers or event attendees.
Why Have Questions to Ask a Guest Speaker?
If you do decide to have a guest speaker at your event, you want to make sure you’re making the most of their time and expertise. Coming up with a list of questions to ask your guest ahead of time will help you be prepared, so on the day of your event, you can dive right in and don’t have to worry about thinking on your feet.
Thinking of these questions can seem overwhelming, so that’s why we’ve come up with this list of great questions to ask guest speakers during your next event. Here are 20 good questions to ask a guest speaker and to spark ideas for other questions you might want to ask.
General Questions to Ask Guest Speakers
No matter what industry you’re in or what kind of event you’re hosting, there are a few questions you can ask your guest to help introduce them and set the stage for your conversation.
Introducing your guest will help set the context for anyone who doesn’t know them and will help your guest get comfortable on stage before diving into the rest of the conversation. Here are a few great questions to ask a guest speaker to kick off your event:
- How long have you worked in this field?
- Describe what your role is and what a typical day looks like.
- How or when did you know this is what you wanted to do?
- Who are some of your role models? Why do you look up to them?
- Is this always what you’ve done, or did you work in a different field before this?
Questions to Ask a Guest Speaker About Their Career
People love to see what career paths can be available to them, so asking your guest speaker about their career and how they’ve gotten where they are today can be a great way to engage your audience and add value.
You can dive into how they got started in this field and what advice they have for someone just getting started. Here are some questions to ask a guest speaker about their career:
- How long have you worked in this field?
- What’s your educational background?
- How did your earlier career choices lead you to where you are today?
- What’s the biggest risk you’ve taken? Did it pay off?
- What are you most proud of in your career?
- What’s the biggest mistake you’ve made in your career? How did you move forward from it?
- Do you have a mentor in this field? How did you connect with them?
- What advice would you give to someone just getting started in this field?
Fun Questions to Ask a Guest Speaker
Even though your event attendees want to learn something from your guest speaker, they also want to get to know them as a person. Asking fun questions will help show that your guest is relatable and add a human element to your event.
Plus, if your guest is a little nervous, you can ask these questions first to help them get comfortable on stage before you get to the main event. Here are some fun questions to ask a guest speaker:
- What fictional character do you most relate to and why?
- What does your perfect weekend day look like?
- How do you work toward work-life balance?
- What did you do after work yesterday?
- What book/app/show would you miss most on a deserted island?
- What does your social media algorithm think you’re obsessed with?
- What’s the weirdest question you’ve ever been asked in an interview?
The Importance of Having Great Questions to Ask a Guest Speaker
Asking your guest speaker great questions can be a game changer for the success of your event. When you have a list of great questions to ask a guest speaker, you can help share their story. Hopefully, this will give the audience some tangible advice they can take and put into practice in their own lives and careers.
Need help finding your next guest? Check out eSpeakers, the number one way to find your next speaker. Once you find your next speaker in our marketplace, make sure you ask them some of these questions so your audience can learn something new and feel a connection to you and your speaker.
