Would YOU pass along a friend-of-friend to the rest of your friends?

[flexagon]

I had a somewhat fascinating conversation this week about the limits of friend-favors and social networks. It was a conversation with my friend RF, and it took place in the context of this linear social network. All connections are social connections but all parties are in the same industry:

JI -- RF -- DY -- (DY's other friends)

And the paraphrased conversation was like this.

RF: (was angry that DY wouldn't introduce JI to her friends in a certain industry segment, after saying she might or would.)
Me: Hmm, how sad, DY is not doing unpaid labor quite as you'd hoped. Maybe you should hook JI up with a headhunter, who does this stuff for a living.
RF: Whaaa? That's a little bit mean. JI isn't even looking for a job, she just wants to make connections.
Me: Wow, so even less potential payoff for DY. Yeah, I can't say that's my scene either. Too much effort, no reward.
RF: I feel it's not about effort, but about DY not wanting to look stupid in front of her friends in case JI isn't very smart.
Me: I, also, would not wish to risk even a smidge of my professional reputation on referring someone I had not met.
RF: Here is the letter JI wrote about what she was looking for. (Letter).
Me: Yeah, I wouldn't pass that along to my friends either. I really, really, wouldn't. No way. That letter makes JI look like a whole lot of work.

We talked some more, and it became clear that, for me and maybe for DY, that extra degree of social separation is an absolute killer. I would personally have talked to JI, as a favor, in DY's place, but without having met her there is no way I'd risk annoying the rest of my professional-friend network.

Likewise, I'm pretty sure I would not meet up with a friend of a friend of a friend. There's too little linkage there. A FoF who turns out to be annoying can be restrained a bit through the friend in the middle, but beyond that it's no better than a random stranger. And I have to focus my energy/time somehow. And my professional reputation is precious, and has taken me a long time to earn.

RF would have made the introductions, though. He would have seen it as a reasonable friend-favor, and would not have seen it as a risk to his professional reputation to pass on an unknown to his friends. That last point interests me, because I don't see why we would differ on that point; could be a gender thing, or a confidence thing (correlated), or something else I'm not seeing.

Would you have done it?

Comments

[nahele-101.livejournal.com]

One degree removed, sure...would have met, and determined if need/desire was to go futher. Two degrees removed? Nope.

[flexagon]

Same here.

[elbren]

I would not have asked it, for sure.
in fact, it was recently offered, and my response was to offer to meet intervening friend first.

I might do it, depending on the reputation of intermediate friend & content of what was being passed along, but it really depends on lots of things.

[elbren]

as for 2nd degree friends, depends on context, if I were looking to meet that sort of person, or the communities where the links were made are small & trustworthy, then maybe.
but I feel like that's a special case, and not something someone would casually ask for.

[flexagon]

Thanks. Yes, I meant to make some note about community size. If the FoF had something very special about them that I knew my friends were looking for, or if all communities were very small and specialized already, that would increase the odds.

[apfelsingail.livejournal.com]

Hah. As someone who is really focusing a lot on networking and sales, and asking people to help me to get to know more people, I've been thinking about this a lot lately.

I don't see this as a binary yes/no. It would really depend.

One degree, sure.

I would want to at least chat a bit with a two degree before I considered passing them on. I might well also add a low-grade disclaimer so it's clear whether or not it's someone I am vouching for- 'hey, this acquaintance is interested in X; don't know him/her terribly well/haven't actually worked with him directly, but she seems like she might be interesting to talk to.'

If they annoyed me or I didn't see some possible value to passing them on to BOTH parties, I'm not going to do it. I'm not going to casually waste the time of my connections. That's definitely a reputation risk.

I also factor in who they want to talk to- if it's someone I consider to be professionally very high-value (i.e., someone who gets asked for things a lot, because they have control over resources), I'm not going to do it unless I am reasonably confident it will be helpful to that person. I mean, I try to do that for everyone, but there are people I am super careful with.

There is the professional reputation issue, but there is also something to be said for paying it forward in networking as well. I guess I actually visualize those relationships as less linear and more, hm, almost radial? Or at least branching and multi-layered.

[flexagon]

It sounds to me like you're doing it right. :-)

I'm also at "one degree, sure" but it falls off fast after that. No doubt I am shaped by working in a highly desired industry, in a highly desired company, where the number of people wanting to find an "in" (or wanting to report bugs and complaints to me, shudder) is far higher than the number of people who stand a useful chance.

[apfelsingail.livejournal.com]

Yeah, you're definitely shaped by that- but if you let it, you could easily spend all your time talking to people about Life At Zillian.

[randysmith]

I'm amused, in that I'm sorta in DY's position; a friend asked me to talk with a friend of theirs about internships at Zillian (sure, 1hr conversation, fun), and that person asked me if I could find someone who'd actually had an intern at Zillian who would be willing to talk to them. I emailed my group mailing list asking for volunteers, and got crickets (which actually surprised me). But I'm not offended by that--everyone makes the best judgement on where they can/should spend their time.

Actually, now that I think about it, even more relevant: I had a friend (LOAL) ask me to refer him to someone at my company ("Just give me a name") about some activist work he was doing, and I wasn't willing to without getting the buy-in of the person who's name I would be giving him. Which I didn't get. So no name passed back.

Which I think means: If I don't think a referral is welcome, I'm not willing to do it, and I'll check in first with the person before making the referral. But if I think I've presented my knowledge or lack of knowledge of the person accurately I'd be willing to refer FOFOFs with the consent of the target.

[flexagon]

But if I think I've presented my knowledge or lack of knowledge of the person accurately I'd be willing to refer FOFOFs with the consent of the target.

You are generous and also respectful of people's choices. Winner! :)

I think I tend to assume that referrals are not welcome, unless I know there's a vacant position of some sort. No doubt I am shaped by working in a highly desired industry, in a highly desired company, and knowing a lot of women who constantly get hit on.

[melebeth]

After meeting someone and liking them I am usually happy to try to make a connection, if the other side of the connection is willing. I won't refer without the meeting and liking except when I REALLY trust the intermediary friend... And that's one hop not two.

[flexagon]

I would totally do one hop: I would meet personally with a friend's friend. After that if I like them, I might help them go one hop further along.

>I won't refer without the meeting and liking except when I REALLY trust the intermediary >friend...

So in DYs place you MIGHT have referred JI to your friends, if you really really trusted RF?

[melebeth]

Yup. I'd need to have a lot of faith in her assessment of JI. And I'd ideally want to chat with her first.

[silentq.livejournal.com]

I'm hesitant about even passing along friends in a professional context - if I haven't worked with them, I can only vouch for their friend-qualities (barring some people who I've worked on projects with). For a FoaF, I'd point them at a specific job posting if I could, but would hesitate to do more than that - the interview process for the position is supposed to determine fit, not me.
That said, as I'm job hunting now, I've been asking friends if they know of job postings, but not really asking for general networking contacts. I'm in a specialised enough subfield that I'm doing a targeted search.