Demanding Job Search Help Doesnt Mean Youll Get It - Pathfinder Careers

Demanding Job Search Help Doesnt Mean Youll Get It - Pathfinder Careers Demanding Job Search Help Doesnt Mean Youll Get It Recently, I was contacted by a job seeker through Twitter who sent me very urgent missives asking me to please help them, and they instructed me to check my email for a message that they had sent me.  When I got the note, the persons message provided a number of reasons why they couldnt pay for a resume service, but they wanted to see if I could basically provide my services for free.  Unfortunately, I cant because this is how I earn my living to pay my bills. To be fair, I do get a lot of these types of notes on a daily basis, and my heart goes out to all the people that are unemployed and experiencing financial hardship. To that end, I volunteer and donate my time to the Oregon Employment Department teaching classes on how to write resumes to try and help as many people as possible who dont have the resources to pay for these services.  As it happens, this person lives back East and they obviously cant take advantage of this class so I wrote back  and offered some specific resources that were free and would be very helpful to help them get on their feet. And you know what? I didnt get even an acknowledgement or thank you from that person.  That part I can live with. Some people dont get common courtesy when someone went out of their way to help them, and we can write that off to poor upbringing, laziness, or general lack of manners. But what this person did next really exposed the obstacle between themselves and their job search success:  I  got another message via Twitter with a demand: Are you going to help me? Yes or No? I need to move on to other resources if you wont. Excuse me? Demanding job search help doesnt mean you will get it. Especially when you burn bridges along the way. I might have tried to help this person a  little more had they been a little softer and kinder. That doesnt mean they would have scored a free resume but I could have taken more time to help them and offer more quick coaching tips. Which brings me to the point of this post: There are tons of career blog posts out there talking about the VALUE of building relationships with people.  If you take the time to build connections, you will have a better opportunity to activate others who are willing to go to bat for you. Most people, when asked (politely and respectfully) for help, they are more than willing to provide that assistance. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with asking for help; its when you demand it when you put an ultimatum on it that people start to have knee jerk reactions and turn their backs against you. Most of us understand that we cannot expect or demand that others give us what we want.  Like respect, good will has to be earned and is not simply given away.  And in a job search, one needs to build up as much good will as possible to open as many doors as possible. And THAT is the key to a successful job hunt.