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How Would Your Job Contribute? Questions to Ask Before Joining
Ask who uses your work, what they can change, and how you would know it helped. Understand a role's contribution before joining the team.
Guide
You may be drawn to a job because the organization is tackling climate change or improving access to healthcare. Before joining, you also need to understand what you would spend your days doing and how that work would help.
Ask the hiring team to follow one responsibility from the job description through to the people who depend on it. What would you do, what would it help them do, and how would you know it was useful? The five questions below help you make that connection, with real examples from carbon-removal purchasing and medical deliveries.
Why is this work needed now?
Ask: "What is difficult for the team today, and what would you want me to help change?"
Stripe Climate lets businesses fund or buy carbon removal through Frontier. Stripe explains the problem behind the approach: early technologies can be expensive and struggle to attract buyers, while wider adoption could help them develop and become cheaper. Purchases are intended to give researchers, entrepreneurs, and investors confidence that a market exists.
That approach makes evaluating suppliers and arranging purchases part of the climate work. If this interests you, ask which obstacle a prospective role would address and who would depend on that work.
A broad answer such as "help tackle climate change" leaves the everyday responsibility unclear. Ask what the team needs to move forward in the next few months.
Who uses the result of the work?
Ask: "Can you walk me through a task, from when I start it to what someone does with the result?"
Zipline's medical-delivery service connects logistics work with health facilities needing supplies. Its description of its delivery system includes inventory management, warehousing, software for preparing orders, and temperature-controlled storage alongside the aircraft.
In its account of a distribution centre in Bayelsa, Nigeria, Zipline describes combining those activities to serve health facilities. Supplies have to be available and properly stored for the delivery service to provide them when needed.
For a role supporting such a service, ask who relies on your work and what happens when something goes wrong. This takes the conversation beyond the visible technology into the work needed to make it useful.
What could I decide, and whose help would I need?
Ask: "Which decisions could I make myself, and where would I need someone else's help or approval?"
Both examples involve work crossing organizational boundaries. Frontier connects buyers and carbon-removal suppliers; Zipline's medical-delivery operations connect with health facilities. For your role, establish who can act on a problem you identify and how you would reach them.
Then ask: "Can you give me an example of something the team changed because of work done in this role?" For a new role, ask which decision its work is expected to inform. Listen for how findings reach someone able to respond. If reports are collected but nobody can explain how they are used, the contribution is still unclear.
How would we know the work was helping?
Ask: "After the first few months, what would you look at to judge how things are going?"
Frontier's purchasing disclosures distinguish agreements to buy future carbon removal from verified delivery. Its offtake agreements set milestones, and the tons must be independently verified before delivery. Frontier also acknowledges that some suppliers may be delayed or fail to deliver.
That distinction changes how you read progress. Signing an agreement can be an important step towards a future result. Ask which step you would influence, how the team checks what happens afterwards, and what it does when expectations are not met.
For a medical-delivery role, ask how the team assesses whether the service meets the health facilities' needs. Find out which results you would be responsible for and how colleagues would help address problems beyond your control.
What happens when priorities compete?
Ask: "Can you give me a recent example of two priorities competing, and how you decided what came first?"
Find out who decides what gets postponed and how that choice affects the role's targets. Would you have time to address problems found through your work? What support would you have when another team needs to act?
Compare the manager's answer with a future colleague's account of a normal week. Resolve conflicting expectations about your responsibilities before accepting.
After the conversation, complete this sentence: "I would do ___; ___ would use that work to ___; we would check whether it helped by ___." Any blank gives you a focused follow-up question. Use the account to judge whether you want to do the work and whether the team can support your contribution.
Frequently asked questions
How can I find out what a job would actually contribute?
Choose one responsibility from the job description and ask the hiring manager who uses that work, what it helps them do, and how the team checks whether it helped. Ask for a recent example of a change that followed from the work. For a new role, ask what decision or activity the work is expected to support.
What if the results depend on decisions I cannot make?
Ask which decisions you would own and whose approval or help you would need for the others. Find out how you would reach those colleagues and resolve competing priorities. Clarify what the manager would hold you responsible for, including how the team would help with problems beyond your control.
How can I judge progress when the final results take time?
Ask what you would be expected to achieve in the first few months, which later result that work should help produce, and how the team will check what happens. Agree which step you can influence and ask what the team does when expectations are not met. Completing a step is useful progress when its connection to the intended result is clear.
Explore the work and the people behind it
Read organization profiles on Scaling Impact, then bring a concrete question about your possible contribution to the team you are considering.