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- Bunk rooms on all docks tend to hold up to ~8 NPCs so smalltalk normally starts within 10-20 seconds.
- Generally, Administration platforms house station crew, which can help when recruiting Trade Agents.
- In DeVries a handy place is the Engineering platform as groups of NPCs tend to be at the docking platform., although there tend to be fewer NPCs per dock
- In Albion or DeVries a handy spot is the Trade platform since groups can hang around at the end of the first corridor.
- In Fields Of Opportunity|Verdant Profit|TU Overwatch, there are normally many Teladi in the main, central docking area.
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* A score of 7+ or more across 2 or 3 minigames that include no critical failuresminigames. 8+ is required across 2 minigames to access L2 smalltalk (if you require 3 games the L2 'Give..' option is disabled))
** A score or of 4+ on all 3 minigames.
Trade Agents
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NPCs that can offer Trade Updates:
Arms Dealer
Inventory item traders (e.g. eg Food Merchant, Arms Dealer, Recruitment Officer or Black Marketeer).
License broker
Mechanic
Recruitment Officer
Ship Dealer (unconfirmed)
Specialist
Non-hirable station crew , which (they are working on a station (the station) - typically found on Administration platforms (ie Defense Officer, Engineer, Manager or Specialists) - typically found on Administration platforms.
NPCs that never offer Trade Updates:
Architect (even if they are working on plot-rated NPC CVs)
Captain
Marine Officer
Pilot
Station Hirable crew if they are available for hire (ie Defense Officer, Engineer, Manager or Specialistbut NOT Specialists: Specialists will always offer Trade Updates atm (v4b6)).
Discounts for stations or traders
A smalltalking NPC can offer a discount at their station, which offers higher profit margins if taken advantage of.
If After successfully smalltalking with an NPC Trader (e.g. Black Marketeer, Arms Dealer or Mechanic; Recruitment Officers too), will they may offer a choice of station or personal discounts. Station discounts from smalltalk apply on top of any other discounts, such as via Standings (Reputation) or those found outside stations while flying around near the station. Therefore they can all be stacked up to gain a higher profit margin than would otherwise be available.
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These options only point to NPCs with unknown skills, so there could be other NPCs available to hire within range that won't be highlighted if their skills are already known. It makes sense to use these options where there are a lot of NPCs of the type you are interested in (e.g. see sidebar for zone-wide, or station dock menu to check platforms or station population).
Personally, I don't think the time involved in finding skilled employees via smalltalk is particularly worthwhile once we start to have more than a few ships or stations, but it's a mechanic available to us and different people enjoy different things. If I want to find well-skilled NPCs in a vanilla game after gaining some wealth, I tend to just mass-hire random NPCs and put them to work to see their skills that way (firing them if bad). More expensive hires are usually better skilled, but be aware that their cost is based upon their /total/ skill list, not simply the primary skills for their job.. so you could end up with a Captain who is rotten in Navigation and Leadership but excellent in Science & Management.. 
Collecting Virtual Seminars
Completion of the second smalltalk allows us to ask for 'Virtual Seminars', which are unique to Smalltalk. They are available for various potentially important skills, such as Engineering, Leadership and Morale: a Training Manual can be used to add one star to the related skill of any one of your hired NPC's primary, bold-highlighted skills (eg only Engineering for Engineers, but Leadership or Navigation for a Captain), to a maximum of 5 stars. Exactly which Training Manual you may be offered relates to the primary skills or the type of the NPC in question so it is somewhat random, in the sense that it is random as to which NPC may begin a smalltalk. Boarding experience for Marine Officers can only be gained through.. heh.. experience, and it's slow (around +(2d52d6+32)% per successful boarding)! So be warned!
These seminars are only available via the Give (craftable) Gift option, after the first smalltalk was completed with a score of 8+ points in 2 minigames and if the second smalltalk was completed with a score of 4+ points in all 3 minigames. A higher (maximum?) score in the second smalltalk minigame stage can increase the range of seminars, depending upon the smalltalked NPC's class. Otani <Player> can only pick 1 seminar as the prize, no matter how good the score.
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