Ask questions that help you understand the work, office and recruiting path rather than questions you could answer from the website.

As a PhD, useful topics include how advanced-degree candidates ramp up, what surprised them about the transition and how technical backgrounds are used in practice.

Two or three thoughtful questions usually create a better conversation than a checklist of ten.

Listen to the answers and follow the thread naturally instead of treating the coffee chat like an interview script. For more detail, see the consulting coffee chat guide.

imo Cold outreach response rates were low for me too. One good conversation was still worth a lot of messages.

Alumni were much easier to approach than completely random consultants. That was my experience.