Get-to-know-you questions for work

Get-to-know-you question of the day · (UTC)

What’s one thing people are usually surprised to learn about you?

Post it in the team channel or read it out to open the meeting. A new one every day at 00:00 UTC, drawn from the 46 questions in the work, fun coworker, and team meeting sets below.

Get-to-know-you questions for work that are safe to ask a coworker you met this morning, plus deeper sets for teams that already trust each other. Post today’s question, or pick a set for your room.

Where did you grow up, and what’s one thing you love about it?

121 questions in this set — nothing repeats until you have seen them all. No sign-up, no limits.

121 get-to-know-you questions for work

Get-to-know-you questions for work

  1. 1Where did you grow up, and what’s one thing you love about it?
  2. 2What was your first job ever?
  3. 3What did you want to be when you were ten?
  4. 4What’s a hobby you could talk about for an hour?
  5. 5What’s the best trip you’ve ever taken?
  6. 6What skill are you currently trying to learn?
  7. 7Who has influenced you the most professionally?
  8. 8What’s your hidden talent?
  9. 9What’s a book, show, or game you’d recommend to anyone?
  10. 10What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever received?
  11. 11If you could live in any city for a year, which one?
  12. 12What’s a food from your childhood you still crave?
  13. 13What’s something you’ve made that you’re proud of?
  14. 14What language would you love to speak fluently?
  15. 15What’s your favorite way to spend a day off?
  16. 16What’s one thing on your bucket list?
  17. 17What was your first screen name, and what’s the story behind it?
  18. 18If you didn’t work in your current field, what would you be doing?
  19. 19What’s a small purchase that improved your life way more than expected?
  20. 20What’s one thing people are usually surprised to learn about you?
  21. 21What’s a place you’d go back to immediately if you could?
  22. 22What’s something you learned recently that surprised you?
  23. 23Who in your life would you call first with good news?
  24. 24What’s a habit you’ve kept for years that actually works?

Fun get-to-know-you questions for coworkers

  1. 1What’s the best thing you’ve ever eaten at your desk?
  2. 2What app on your phone would surprise us most?
  3. 3What’s your usual coffee or tea order, and how long has it been the same?
  4. 4What’s a skill from an old job that you still use outside work?
  5. 5Which fictional workplace would you most like to work in for a week?
  6. 6What’s the last thing you got unreasonably excited about?
  7. 7What’s your favorite way to waste ten minutes?
  8. 8What’s a hobby you tried once and never again?
  9. 9What would your perfect out-of-office message say?
  10. 10What’s one thing that is always in your bag?
  11. 11What’s the best concert, game, or live show you’ve been to?
  12. 12Which TV show would you happily rewatch from the very start?

Funny get-to-know-you questions for coworkers

  1. 1What’s your most-used excuse, and does it still work?
  2. 2What would your walk-up song be if life had one?
  3. 3What’s the silliest thing you’re genuinely competitive about?
  4. 4What nickname did you have that you’d rather forget?
  5. 5What’s your signature “I’m bad at this” activity?
  6. 6What’s the most unhinged thing in your camera roll right now?
  7. 7What’s your weirdest habit that you’ve fully normalized?
  8. 8What household item are you inexplicably fussy about?
  9. 9What’s the silliest reason you’ve ever cried?
  10. 10What’s a talent you’ve invented a name for?
  11. 11What would the reality show about your life be called?
  12. 12What’s your most-repeated phrase, according to people who know you?
  13. 13What’s the pettiest revenge you’ve ever taken?
  14. 14What do you do that your friends find hilarious and you find completely normal?
  15. 15What’s the silliest thing you’ve bought on impulse in the last year?
  16. 16What’s the most ridiculous thing you’re saving “just in case”?

Get-to-know-you questions for new employees

  1. 1What made you curious about this role in the first place?
  2. 2What’s one thing you’re hoping to learn in your first three months here?
  3. 3What’s something from your last job you’d like to bring with you?
  4. 4Did you do anything to celebrate getting this job?
  5. 5Who made you feel welcome at a past job, and what did they do?
  6. 6What do onboarding documents usually forget to tell people?
  7. 7Which part of the job are you most looking forward to?
  8. 8What’s something about you that isn’t on your résumé?
  9. 9What’s a question you’ve been wanting to ask but haven’t yet?
  10. 10What’s the first thing you set up on a new laptop?
  11. 11What did you think this team did before you joined, and how close were you?
  12. 12What’s one thing you’d like to be asked to help with?

Get-to-know-you questions for new team members

  1. 1How do you like to get feedback: in the moment or saved for later?
  2. 2What’s the best way to tell you something is urgent?
  3. 3How do you prefer to ask for help: a message, a call, or a tap on the shoulder?
  4. 4What does a meeting need for you to think it was worth it?
  5. 5What’s something a previous team did that you’d love us to try?
  6. 6What did your best manager do that the others didn’t?
  7. 7How do you like to start your workday?
  8. 8What kind of problem do you enjoy being stuck on?
  9. 9When you go quiet in a meeting, what does it usually mean?
  10. 10What’s a pet peeve at work that we should know about early?
  11. 11Which hours of your week are hardest to give up for meetings?
  12. 12What’s the best way to disagree with you?

Get-to-know-you questions for team meetings

  1. 1What’s one thing you did this weekend that you’d recommend?
  2. 2What’s the most useful keyboard shortcut you know?
  3. 3What’s one errand you’ve been putting off all week?
  4. 4Which day of the week is secretly your favorite?
  5. 5What’s a snack you’d recommend to the whole team?
  6. 6What’s on your calendar this month that isn’t a meeting?
  7. 7What’s a word or phrase you’ve picked up from this team?
  8. 8Where would you take a visitor to your town for an afternoon?
  9. 9What’s a song you’ve had on repeat lately?
  10. 10What’s a small thing you’d like more of next week?

Virtual get-to-know-you questions for remote teams

  1. 1What’s the view from where you’re sitting right now?
  2. 2What’s the earliest or latest you’ve joined a call because of time zones?
  3. 3What time is it where you are, and what would you usually be doing now?
  4. 4What’s the best thing a remote team you were on did to stay in touch?
  5. 5What’s on the wall behind you, and is it there on purpose?
  6. 6What’s your sign that it’s time to log off for the day?
  7. 7What does your commute look like now, if you have one?
  8. 8What’s your favorite thing about working remotely, and what do you miss about an office?
  9. 9What would make a video call feel more like being in the same room?
  10. 10What’s one thing about where you live that most of us wouldn’t know?

Get-to-know-you questions for team building

  1. 1What’s the best decision you made this year?
  2. 2What’s something difficult you’re proud of having handled?
  3. 3What does a “good day at work” actually look like for you?
  4. 4What motivates you more: praise, progress, or purpose?
  5. 5What’s one thing this team does that you’d brag about elsewhere?
  6. 6When do you do your best thinking — and are we protecting that time?
  7. 7What’s a professional risk you’d like to take someday?
  8. 8What’s one thing you wish more people asked you about?
  9. 9What part of your job would you happily do for free?
  10. 10What do you want to be true about your work a year from now?

Get-to-know-you questions for small groups

  1. 1What’s the story behind your name?
  2. 2What’s something you changed your mind about in the last year?
  3. 3What’s the best meal you’ve had recently, and where?
  4. 4What tiny thing instantly improves your day?
  5. 5What’s a tradition — family, cultural, personal — you love?
  6. 6What’s the most spontaneous thing you’ve ever done?
  7. 7If you could have dinner with anyone living, who?
  8. 8What’s a compliment you received that stuck with you?
  9. 9What were you completely obsessed with as a teenager?
  10. 10What’s your favorite family recipe or dish?
  11. 11What’s one thing you’re better at than you give yourself credit for?
  12. 12What place feels most like home to you?
  13. 13What’s a risk you took that paid off?
  14. 14What’s your favorite season, and what does it smell like?
  15. 15What would your perfect Saturday look like, hour by hour?

How to use get-to-know-you questions for work

Get-to-know-you questions for work fail when the depth does not match the trust in the room. Asking a group that met yesterday “what motivates you more: praise, progress, or purpose?” produces identical safe answers. Asking the same question of a team eighteen months in produces the best conversation of the quarter. Same question, opposite result — so the sets on this page are split by who you are asking and where, and they get deeper toward the end.

Start with the first set or the fun coworker set in any regular meeting: concrete, factual, easy to answer in one sentence. Use the new employee set in someone’s first week, and the new team member set when a team forms or reshuffles — it asks how people like to work, which is what a new colleague most needs to know and least often asks. The team meeting set fits a standup or a staff meeting, and the virtual set is written for cameras and the chat. The team building and small group sets need a scheduled block, such as an offsite or a quarterly reset, and three to six people with time for follow-up questions.

None of these asks about pay, politics, religion, or health, so any of them is safe to read out with a manager in the room. For a quicker warm-up that asks nothing personal, use the icebreaker questions for work or the one-word this or that questions; to open a recurring meeting, a check-in question takes under two minutes.

Facilitator tip

Depth without trust reads as an interrogation. The reliable test before asking a deeper question: would you be comfortable answering it first, in front of this exact group, with your manager present? If not, the room is not ready — and the fix is not a gentler tone, it is a shallower question.

Frequently asked questions

What are good get-to-know-you questions for work?+

Concrete and factual beats abstract and reflective, especially early. “What was your first job ever?” gets a real story; “what are your values?” gets a job-interview answer. Coworkers are managing how they are perceived, so questions with an obvious factual answer feel safe, while questions that ask for self-assessment feel like a test. The first set above is written to that rule.

What are fun get-to-know-you questions for coworkers?+

Ones that let people show personality without disclosing anything private: a walk-up song, a fussy household habit, the silliest thing they are competitive about. They suit teams that are warm but still new — a few weeks in, past the awkward stage, not yet close — and they reset the energy when a serious question has just landed flat. The fun and funny coworker sets above have 28 of them.

What should you ask a new employee to get to know them?+

Start with how they like to work rather than their life story: how they want feedback, how to reach them when something is urgent, what makes a meeting worth their time. Have the existing team answer first, then the new person. Going last means they have heard the range of acceptable answers and are not guessing at the norms. A new joiner should never be the first person asked a deeper question.

How many get-to-know-you questions should I ask at once?+

One, for a normal meeting. These take longer to answer than icebreakers — a real answer to “what’s the best trip you’ve ever taken?” runs 30 to 60 seconds, so one question with ten people is already a ten-minute activity. For onboarding sessions or offsites, three to five works if the whole block is scheduled for it.

How do you use get-to-know-you questions with a remote team?+

Pick questions people can answer from where they sit: the view from the window, the wall behind them, the time where they are. Going round the call one by one is slow with more than six people, so take quick answers in the chat and save spoken ones for small breakout rooms. The virtual set above is written for that, and the question of the day at the top of the page works as a daily post in the team channel.

Get to know how the team works, too

A retrospective is where a new teammate learns how the team really works. Run yours in FocusRetro: a free online board with anonymous cards, blind voting, and action items. Guests join from a link, no account needed.

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More question sets

Icebreaker questions for work

65 questions built for meetings and coworkers — including remote-friendly and seasonal sets.

Check-in questions

62 fast openers for meetings and retros, plus a question-of-the-day set for work.

This or that questions for work

108 one-word either/or questions for work — funny, fun, meeting, team building, and icebreaker sets for a quiet room.

Whiteboard questions for work

198 silent, five-second questions for an office whiteboard — tallies, this-or-that, ratings, one-word answers, and Halloween-to-holiday sets.

Weird icebreaker questions

65 strange, odd, and random questions for groups that are bored of the standard list.

Funny icebreaker questions

93 questions that get real laughs — silly warm-ups, hot takes, hilarious ones for adults, and witty quick-fire rounds.

All icebreaker and check-in questions

Every set in one place — 12 lists and 1216 questions, sorted by situation.

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