It’s nice to know if a position was previously held by somebody else or if it was newly created within the organization, so this is one of the best questions to ask a recruiter.

There’s no right or wrong answer to listen for here, but knowing this type of information is helpful in understanding the big picture.

If this is a backfill, you can follow up by asking what happened to the person that previously held the job. Maybe they were promoted, left the company, transitioned into a new group, etc.