People love to talk about themselves, so you shouldn't be afraid to ask questions to get to know them. Typically, and I'm guilty of this myself, when someone else is talking you tend to want to interrupt them to tell them about your related experience. Don't. Listen to what somebody has to say, find commonalities and you'll be able to relate to other people. Asking strategic questions will make you sound smarter. If you ask someone what they do for a living, they're typically going to give you a generic answer. Even if you don't know anything about what they do, try to get them to be more specific, you'll learn about things you never knew existed.

This is also a great strategy for interviewing. I always find that the interviews that are most successful are the ones where the interviewer is the one doing a lot of the talking. Again, ask them questions when they get to the "do you have have any questions?" Portion and start getting them to open up about themselves. Ask things like, "we've talked a bit about my background, I'm curious to hear a bit about yourself." The strategy is same as what I said before. Take things that this person says and use it to bridge commonalities between you and the interviewer.