i'm just posting on my cousin's account.

Anyways out of all my friends, i graduated first and struggled to find a job. I was depressed because i couldn't find a job, and now i finally got a decent job. Now all my closest friends (4 of them) have all graduated as well and couldn't find a job. Now ALL OF THEM want me to refer them. I don't want to refer them because i've tried SO HARD to find this good job, and i feel upset if they just recently graduated and then use me to refer them so they can get a good job as well without even trying. I don't want to be helpful to them because when I was jobless, none of them offered to refer me to where they worked in the past. And i myself have referred them to where i used to work. And i never got any help back from them. And now all of them just wants to use me AGAIN to help them get this job? no way in hell that's happening. And plus, if i refer them, we'll all be working in the same position. I don't want to compete with them to get promoted.
I just don't want to refer them, but i don't want to sound mean. I don't want to lie either because they might find out. For example, if i lie to them and say the manager doesn't want his employees working with friends, then my friends will say "but employers welcome referrals", or if i lie to them and say my manager isn't hiring, they might insist on dropping off a resume anyway.
What should i do? As you can see, they just like to use me. I always helped them and they never help me back. And now that they've all graduated, they just want to use me to get a job.

um..first of all i don't think you guys are friends? cuz friends help each other out when they are in trouble. you said they didn't offer to refer to you. did you ask for help? anyway if what you say about them is true and you don't want to refer them then don't. just tell them you're busy and don't answer their phone calls..soon enough they'll realize the gist. and who cares what they think of you cuz it sounds to me like you guys are not friends anyway. but let me tell you, you can't stop them from applying cuz you're not the boss and even if you don't compete with them you're gonna compete with other people so why worry about all these nonsense stuff. you need to be confident in yourself. chill!

if you are going to refer them... you should atleast have good REP in the job.

you just started.

Just say you're not comfortable because you're relatively new (meaning that you don't think your name will have much weight anyways).

I don't ask my friends and none of them asked me for help (because I work in a tiny company and don't really have the job they want anyways) but a couple offered to give HR/supervisor of this company my resume when I was whining about work - both of them seem very confident in their positions though

that's some sort of a revenge. and it's not a really good thing to do in my books. honestly, i thought you had a different reason why you don't want to refer your friends (like they're seemingly not competitive enough, etc).

i honestly don't know how not to refer them, because if i were in your position, i would refer my friends BUT tell them to apply to other companies as well for them to have wider options. a touch of concern for them wouldn't hurt.

It sucks that they never offered any help to you before (did you actually ask and/or were they jobs they would have assumed you didn't want? do you know for sure that they wouldn't have done referrals if you'd asked?), but I can understand why they would want to grasp at any connections they have now in a job environment that's still tough. You've all actually graduated now, so having a full-time job is much more important for all of you--before I would assume they were all working part time while you were looking for more after graduating, which is maybe another reason they didn't refer you to their own workplaces--and the majority of jobs are found via networking, not through blind applications. Chances are they're all still going to be looking around whether your refer them to your employer or not, not actually doing no work at all to find a job and just expecting you to hand one to all of them, but it makes complete sense for people to investigate all possible leads, which includes asking friends and relatives for help. It's routine.

I agree with brownman up there that it seems like your main reason is a tit-for-tat sort of thing, with not wanting to compete with them for promotions more like an afterthought, and while the resentment and reluctance that you feel are understandable, I'm not sure that's so great if you don't want to be as bad as you think your friends were. Worse, even, since they probably just didn't think to while you're purposely trying to deny them any help. I would think it over again carefully. If you can't come up with more good reasons to tell them why you won't refer them this time when you've already done it before, they'll most likely continue to not refer you to their own workplaces if you ever need it again in the future. Actually, that may happen even if you do come up with better reasons, since some of your friends may decide they don't want to refer you for those exact same reasons in the future because your reasoning convinced them and they'll assume you'd have problems working with them at their company. If you would have jumped at a friend's job referral in the past, which is what it sounds like, why didn't you have strong objections to working together back then? You didn't care about competing for promotions or anything else before, and now suddenly you do, or is that mostly an excuse to not refer as a form of retaliation? I would understand more if you hadn't been willing to do it in the past, either, and if you hadn't been free of objections to taking jobs on referral yourself in the past if anyone had offered.
Now your friends are just as desperate as you were, and you're in a better position to help them now than I'm guessing they were in to help you back then. I'm sorry that you had a really hard time, but does that mean you want everyone else you know to have to experience the exact same thing? It's not fair, but the world is not fair; it's not really that they should all have to struggle for a long time like you did, it's that you ideally wouldn't have had to, either. I'm sure you would have loved to find a job faster and more easily through a friend who had graduated before you, and probably wouldn't have seen it as coming too easily to you to be "fair" to all the people out searching their butts off around you--you would probably have just felt lucky. We're talking about people needing to find sources of income to stay afloat and start careers after school, here, so this isn't really stuff to be petty about. Friendship involves some give and take, but it's never perfectly balanced.

Still, if you're very sure, I would mention that you've barely even started, so you don't really have much clout in the company to help their chances of getting a job. Honestly, I would have done what brownman said myself, too: refer them casually, but strongly suggest that they apply lots of other places at the same time. What are the chances your company would even hire more than one of them at a time at the most right now? And as you said, they might just drop off a resume anyway, with or without your help. If you tell them you don't want to refer for X reasons (e.g. competition between friends for promotions, etc.) then I would tell them that the reason you wouldn't want to do it now even after referring them to previous employers is because now you're all out of school and completely in the world where work is now your career and serious business, so it's not really the exact same deal. If you do change your mind and agree to refer, even only doing the bare minimum, you can always make it explicit that they have to do the same for you if you ask in the future. Make it clear that you expect this to be reciprocal from now on and not just one-sided, because your friends may not have the running scoreboard in their heads that you do right now and may be totally oblivious to the fact that you feel like they're trying to use you.

Some years ago, a friend of mine just finished his masters a couple years after I finished mine and we were catching up on msn and he was talking about looking for work and asked if my company was hiring. Rather than say I'd refer him I recommended that he apply for himself but I did give him a heads up as to what sort of job he should expect and how he should approach the application. In that way I indirectly referred him to the job. Some employers don't like people bringing in friends as it can cause issues with company internal politics. It gives people a power base of sorts. The other difficulty is like you say when you're both competing for promotions.

About your friends asking you for a referral. Have you considered how they look at you? They might see you as a reliable sort who probably don't need their help but one who is the sort of person who they can come to for help. Personally, I rarely ask my friends for favours or help, unless a situation is really sticky, but they all know that they can call on me if they need help, whether it be help moving house or a friendly ear to listen to their latest woes.

Friendship is not about give and take. Some will give more and some will take more, but in the end it's about being there for each other when it hits the fan.

I understand how you feel; it sucks to be used. But not helping out would make you look like a jerk, so you're in a dilemma. I'd probably persuade them from trying to use me by saying that it's for their own good that they don't use me for reference because I just started out and I have no power in the company at all. "You're better off without me helping you" kind of thing lol.

the other reasoning was that he would have to compete with them to get promoted. if i was in her position, i probably wouldn't refer them either because competition among friends in a work atmosphere is the worst.

like someone suggested, just say that since you just started, you don't have much credibility to refer someone yet.

you could always refer them and talk smack about them to your boss so they won't get through the interview process.

But that would just reflect badly upon yourself. Smack talking to the boss is never a good move.

I agree with just letting them know that you have no real standing because you are new, and hope that they get accepted to other companies. This need to retaliate and make others feel the same pain as you, however 'fair' it might be is a bit childish. You said that they never OFFERED to refer you, and that implies that you didnt even ask. How do you expect them to realize that you want a referral without outright stating it?

I actually know how you feel.

I mean I recently graduated as well, and I love my job.
When my friends ask me if they can recommend them to the company I felt like it's kinda unfair - I'm the one who did the hard work and they just "asked" me to recommend them?

Fair enough if they're good, but most of them they haven't even tried their hardest!
If they've done their best then i'd help them out.

It sounds selfish but why would I help someone that doesn't even try?

First, I don't think you are in a strong enough position to actually make a recommendation. In my experience, jobs gained through connections are through people in higher positions (manager, HR, etc). Also you are making your friends out to appear lazy and opportunistic. Are they actually taking advantage of you, or just working every possible job opportunity? I highly doubt they are solely relying on you to give them a job.

Putting the fact aside that you just started, if you don't want to refer them, just say something along the lines of "there's no positions left" or that the company's not hiring for now, and that you'd refer them whenever the company will start hiring again, that's all.

Also, competition would be an issue if your friends graduated from the same field. If the friends are not too close, I wouldn't do it. If it would be best friends, I'd probably refer them, however, making sure that they're not better than me or that their potential would be limited. In the end, it's all about YOU, you have to think about yourself first. Saving your best friend out of a dumphole, to consequently lead to your own doom later on (you getting fired first rather than your friend, for example), is a big nono.

Just tell them you really don't want to, and that you got the job on your own.

Like some of the comments above, you've just started.
It will not do you any good to be recommending friends so early in your career.
If they don't do well, you're blamed. If they do well, you are forgotten.

In times like this, it's better to be selfish than generous.

I also hate it when people keep taking advantage of me and never try to help me in return. I'll tell them straight out that if they want anything from me in the future, they need to show that they deserve it. Most of the time, they don't even realize that they've been taking advantage of everyone around them, so they apologize. Fortunately, these types of people are quite rare.

Real friends help each other and don't hold back. They also don't sabotage potential opportunities for each other. Since you don't treat them as friends, there's no reason to go out of your way to help them.

In any case, you just started working, so it would be risky to recommend others so soon.

Lastly, start making new "close" friends.

i think ur being very mean by not giving them a referral.

u want them to suffer and be jobless just because that's what you went thru? u don't sound like a nice person.

ur also afraid that if they get a job you'll have to compete with them for promotions?

ur gunna have to compete against other co-workers regardless, so for me it wouldn't matter who i'm competing against.

stop being selfish.

There's usually a financial incentive for referrals and if you don't compete against your friends, you'd be competiting against strangers so what's the difference?

If they are friends and you don't want to help them because they'll have it easier, then you are not a good friend.

If when you needed help and they didn't help you, then they are not friends, so no worries about not helping them now. If this is true then I'd just tell them what goes around comes around and be done with it. They're not your friends.

So just ask yourself, if the situation was reversed, would they help you? If not, then no need to help them.

Whatever you do don't tell them flat out that you don't want to help because that will make you look really bad. How does your referral process at your company works anyway? Mine are through a website and I don't think the referral help at all.

I don't get why everyone is being so hard on you. If my "friends" didn't try at all to find a job, didn't help me when I needed one, and then asked me to help them out, I'd be upset just like you are and would be reluctant to give them a referral.

Just like other people said, tell them that you feel uncomfortable doing something like that (because you are new to the job, etc.). No big.

just say no opening... you are not qualified... that's it!

i would just tell them to put in an application. if you just started there, referring probably won't help much. i ignore my friend's request, i assume they're just joking around.

don't refer them. it's a dog eat dog world. and i know personally, it SUCKS to have your friends work with you. competition and rivalry might actually kill your friendship.