Friend keeps asking me for a job - getting exhausting!

[fireandice26]

Hi,

I have a friend who wants to work at the company I work at. It's a VERY large company that we all know of. Her area of expertise isn't my field (so she would be in a completely different department).

She asked me every few weeks for a job - as if it is something I can magic up. It's not. It's REALLY not. Then upped it to nearly every time we spoke. Granted; it wasn't EVERY time we spoke - but that said; she would moan about her job and how much she needed a change and how she 'needed someone to help her...' so we would directly or indirectly get onto this topic.

She applied directly via the site and got rejected for three roles. No interview/chat. Just a direct 'no'. She now is looking for a job at another arm (but same parent company) and asked me to refer her. I simply cannot do this - (I'd have even less (than zero) 'pull' at the other arm of the company!!)

Before anyone points out the obvious; yes I have told her MULTIPLE times that getting a job isn't as simple as she thinks it is. She seems to think I can just pass on her CV to my bosses and she'd be moved to the top of the queue... and BAM... the role is hers!

I also told her to please stop asking me as it's making me really uncomfortable and damaging our friendship.

Last week, she brought it up again and upped the ante big time since she's now been let go from her current job. Whilst I get the urgency given the change in her circumstances; AIBU to just distance myself/ghost at this point?

Honestly OP I would just kill her and be done with it. Life is too short to deal with people like this!

Have only read your posts OP, and frankly I'm surprised she isn't under your patio by now.

"AIBU to just distance myself/ghost at this point?"
Not unreasonable in the slightest.

and that it must be my lack of trying/pushing that is the reason she doesn't have a job offer at her feet.

OP I think you've done absolutely everything you could, within the bounds of what's reasoable. PPs have made suggestions of things to say to her or things you could do and you've already done them. There is no magic wand here but she's not getting it because she doesn't want to.

Is she sitting on her arse waiting for a job at your place to land in her lap (courtesy of you) or is she applying for other jobs too. Yours isn't the only company in the world, there are others that need staff too. And rejections from other places might open her eyes a bit when she couldn't blame you.

I certainly wouldn't refer her (even if it was possible for you to do so) because her behaviour over this and refusing to hear no means I doubt what sort of employee she'd be anyway, probably not someone you'd want to be associated with let alone having put your name to a referral - because of course that says that you're endorsing her.

I'd think seriously about ending this 'friendship'. You can't be getting anything fun or positive out of it anymore.

The degree of desperation is irrelevant to the OP's ability to assist her friend.

Your friend sounds exhausting, tell her firmly one last time if she brings it up recruitment doesn’t happen like that and if she persists cut ties and tell her why, I’d be embarrassed to keep pestering someone like that.

She sounds like a nightmare. I'd tell her once more, very firmly, that you can't help and frankly the fact that she keeps asking is a bit rude because it's making it seem like you're not doing enough as her friend when she knows full well you can't do anything about it, that you're really sorry she's in this position and she hopes she finds something soon, but she needs to stop pestering.

And then if she said it even once after that or even hinted at it, I'd tell her to get fucked.

She doesn't make it past Stage 1 - given the competition/bar. It's not a lack of anything from my side. But she thinks if I 'keep asking' and 'keep pushing' the Co will eventually hire her
Thus, in her eyes - she thinks it's up to me to get her a job/fix the fact that she's not getting even a call back

Given your update, @fireandice26, it sounds like only a matter of time before she insists it's your fault she's not yet been successful

Personally I'd want to shut this down before anything like that arises, and as suggested earlier I'd simply say coolly "We've discussed this before haven't we?" and then change the subject

Only if you change it somewhat. My friend received 2 applications for a job she was offering and they were identical

Or it could be that her friend:

A) works in a totally different field and the OP doesn't know what a recruiter in that field is looking for
B) won't make necessary amendments/ thinks friends opinion is wrong
C) is applying for jobs that she isn't experienced or suited to
D) is working in a field where there's tonnes of applicants for each job
E) isn't a good fit for the company OP works at

Just thinking, a pp mentioned their company had an anti nepotism rule.

Perhaps you could tell her that your company has just introduced a similar rule, and that if you recommended her the application would automatically be rejected?

Then you can say it's out of your hands!

It sounds as though she doesn’t like what you’ve told her so has chosen to either ignore it or not believe you.

Some people are like that - an old boyfriend’s dad kept telling me that my company MUST offer cheap mortgage deals (we were flat hunting before we broke up). It didn’t matter how many times I said I’d looked into it and it wasn’t something they did, he kept going on about it.

if they are an actual friend, I don’t understand why you wouldn’t at least recommend them esp given they have lost their job!

Maybe because...it's clear they wouldn't be very good? Who actually gains from the OP recommending a friend that has been knocked back at an early stage several times already? Not the friend, who still isn't qualified for the job so still won't get it, not HR who have their time wasted, and not the OP who ends up looking daft. Being a friend to somebody doesn't require you to be a mindless cheerleader for them.

Seems like she can't cope with the idea that maybe she's not good enough, and has decided to blame you for her failure to get a job instead. Much easier to come to terms with a lack of success when it's someone else's fault.

Tell her you dont work there anymore. Would she ever find out?

if they are an actual friend, I don’t understand why you wouldn’t at least recommend them esp given they have lost their job!

@Sensiblesal I have actual, real, imperfect friends who I would never recommend to my employers. Some pull sickies, one is a bit lazy, one is quite entitled and requires a lot of boundary management and some are an unknown quantity to me as far as their employability is concerned.

ETA I would feel really embarrassed if my boss employed someone on my recommendation who turned out to be a lemon. I would lose respect in my workplace.

But OP still can't get her her dream job!

Crikey, another one who won't get the message.

This can explain a one-off ask, but after being told no why push it?

Just tell her that your employer is a large organisation in which recruitment is all run through HR and you have absolutely no influence over recruitment decisions made in other teams so are no more help to her than someone who doesn’t work for the company.

It may also be the case that your company has policies in place specifically designed to deter the “nepotism” style of recruitment. Many do. E.g. I’m a lawyer and in my firm there are policies that if clients ask us to give their kid a training contract we have to tell them to apply in the normal way. I was asked to “put in a good word” for the (very able) child of a friend who’s applying for pupillage at a set of chambers I know well, so I did. The polite response made it very clear that their process would not allow for any personal recommendations of that nature and in fact the candidate’s application may have been harmed by the fact that one had been received and there would therefore be a perception of bias.

I have quite a high-profile job in a ‘cool’ industry that a lot of people really want to work in. From the outside it looks like I’ve got it made, although the reality is that I’m on a string of very precarious short term contracts and I am paid peanuts.

Not a week goes by where I don’t get an email or a LinkedIn message (usually multiple) from a student or recent graduate who thinks I can magically give or get them a job. I think there’s still this rhetoric around that it’s ’who you know’, when in reality hiring processes are very strict and formulaic and it’s almost impossible to just ‘get’ someone a job. Networking is very important in my field but it’s not directly how you get a job. You still have to apply and go through all the proper channels!

I’ve had people ask to meet me for a coffee on the pretence of wanting to discuss projects or benefit from my expertise and then they have barely sat down before they are pulling out a CV and pitching for a job I can’t give them. The other day someone I’d barely exchanged two words with at an event a few years ago emailed me under the pretence of asking a question about a project I’m working on, and then ‘casually’ slipped in a mention that she’d recently applied for a role at my workplace. Clearly hoping I’d put in a good word for her, even though I don’t know her and the role isn’t even in my department.

It’s relentless and I really do get how desperate people are, and how lucky I am to have a job (even a precarious one). But the energy they put into these futile attempts at ‘networking’ would be so much better spent on writing actual job applications, or doing some CPD courses to upskill their CVs.

Are you stuck for friends OP?
Honestly, most people would have cut her loose ages ago.
So presumptuous and entitled.

Sorry for my absence. I did indeed lay it out one last time last night (even though I had made it abundantly clear prior - per my OP and PPs). I said I couldn't help further - as well as listed what I already had done in months/years prior (prior to her being made redundant). I said her best bet would be to apply directly - especially as her field is totally different than mine - so I can hardly put in a 'good word' for someone whose field isn't even close to mine. It wouldn't be a good look nor could I genuinely 'vouch' for her. Again; I can't even officially refer someone (not within my arm of the Co). My arm is much more secretive/has a separate hiring process. She messaged me back and said (without making it too 'outing') that she only wanted people in her life that would 'support her'. Needless to say, she was unhappy - and as predicted, she feels aggrieved that I can't 'get her a job'.

I would respond wishing her well in her future endeavours and leave it at that. Cheeky bloody bint.

“She only wants people in her life who are supportive” perfect opportunity to then distance yourself.