I graduated college nearly 20 years ago and since then I have witnessed many ups and downs in our economy. It has been my observation that when times are good some people are more willing to extend themselves to others than they are when the economy is not so strong. I have noticed this particularly when it comes to networking because I make it a practice to try to connect my clients and friends with any of my contacts who might be able to help them in their job searches. And by "contacts" I mean recruiters, professional colleagues, former co-workers, personal friends, acquaintances, and individuals for whom I have done favors in the past.

When the economy is strong it seems that my contacts are more willing to engage in phone conversations or even meet with job seekers whom I refer to them. [I should mention that I don't make random referrals - referrals are always well thought out are are appropriately introduced once permission is obtained.] On the other hand when people start to fear for their jobs or when the economy heads downhill it seems that they become reluctant to take any time to talk to people who are in the job market. My theory is that when people don't know of any job openings they can feel uncomfortable about talking to someone who is looking for a job. I am not sure why this is but it's a trend I have noticed and I don't like it.

From personal experience I have found that when you extend yourself, even in a small way, to someone who needs a job you have made a friend for life. When I was a recruiter at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago back in 1990, many years before I started my resume writing business, I used to rewrite resumes for good candidates who walked in the door with badly written resumes. To this day, many of those people are still my friends and colleagues. I also returned all candidate phone calls including the dreaded rejection phone calls that I hated making. You know what? I found that while no one likes to hear that they won't be getting a job offer they would rather have a definitive answer than to be ignored.

I also used to refer good candidates who didn't receive offers from my company to contacts in other companies - you can't imagine how appreciative candidates were for a two minute phone call that I made on their behalf. A couple of those candidates have become very rich, successful, and powerful in their respective industries and guess what? They still remember a small kindness in stark contrast to other folks who ignored them or treated them disrespectfully when they were in need of a little help. Now that I have my own business, those people who had nothing to offer me back in 1990 but whom I treated with respect and kindness, send me many referrals.

These days a lot of people are nervous about the economy in general and their jobs in particular so they are starting to get their resumes together. Some people are also just starting to network which, of course, they should have been doing when times were good. But since they didn't I guess they have to start somewhere.

I have recently tried to connect a couple of my clients with some of my connections and my emails have either been ignored or I have gotten a reply that says something like this, "No, I don't want to talk to your client because I don't really know of any jobs in accounting right now. I think I was just lucky when I got my job recently. Sorry." This really annoys me because the contacts to whom I am referring are people whom I have connected with members of my network when they needed it. Quid pro quo my friends.

That is really what is driving this post. When times are tough you have to make the time to help others if you can. If you don't who do think will help you when you are in need? What comes around really does go around.

Yes, its tough to talk to someone who wants to work for your company when there are no job openings. But so what? You aren't responsible for creating jobs...all you have to do is listen and spend few minutes sharing whatever you know about your company or the job market or whatever it is the job seeker is asking about. You are just one link in the chain of contacts and information that a job seeker is gathering on his/her way to finding a new job.

Take the time (even if you think you don't have information to share) to be as helpful as you can to job seekers referred to you. Most of the time you will find that your 15 minute investment was time well spent. People in need are very grateful for the help they get and they often have very long memories.