Bringing Up Common Acquaintance At Interview Forum

[Anonymous User]

I'm interviewing with someone tomorrow who is an acquaintance of my acquaintance. Acquaintance said I should name drop him to interviewer - told me to tell him he said hi.

What's the best way to work this in without making it seem incredibly forced and awkward?

[ManOfTheMinute]

Get them to unknowingly ask about that connection... how can you steer the conversation to the shared interest that garned that connection?

[Anonymous User]

Acquaintance is board member of local bar association. Interviewer is recently resigned former board member. The only way I can see getting him to unknowingly ask about that connection is to bring up my general networking activities within the city, which would be fine except said bar association is LGBT. It would be a little awkward to bring that up out of nowhere just to induce a question relating to our connection. Especially because I'm interviewing with two people at the same time.

[Balthy]

I would go through 99% of the interview normally. Make him/her like you without the common link. Then, as you're about to leave, before the hand shake, say something like, "Oh, and X says hi." Small talk about common link, thank him/her, leave.

[cinephile]

Sometimes they ask things like why our firm? And then you can say, so-and-so spoke so highly of the culture here.