Q AAM 6 Remember to respond to my post here: You’ve said before that no one can “steal” a job. But what about when you apply for an opening that you only know about because a colleague told you that he applied for it? I just finished a graduate program. I was older than most of my classmates by 10+ years. With a several-year absence from the workforce before the program, I’m being considered for roles more junior than my last one. I am willing to take a step back in order to work again. But a few months ago I didn’t expect I’d be going after the same jobs as younger classmates. Though there are many with my degree, I chose to specialize in a narrow area, so I would be competing against classmates I knew well except that I am a December graduate. Most are spring graduates, so almost everyone I know is employed now. It’s not a field where jobs open up at any particular time of year. A school friend who graduated in May has not found work and has been frustrated. He told me about finally getting a phone interview, and said the company will tell him if he’ll move on based on how the other interviews go. I looked at the listing to see what I could suggest to him. This job really calls for more experience than he has, but it’s a good match for me. I really only looked at it to give him some resume suggestions. The job calls for a lot of the skills I developed over my career, which are likely for someone with a degree in Vanilla Teapots, but aren’t typically associated with our degree in Chocolate Teapots. Training others on using vanilla teapots is also a big part of the job, and I have lots of training experience too (ironically, including teaching him how to make a basic one, but also in paid positions). I imagine it comes across in an interview that his only experience with vanilla teapots is for a class project. It’s not my degree, but I designed, created, and managed vanilla teapots for my jobs. That’s not something I can say to him, of course. There’s no guarantee that I’ll get an interview, but this Chocolate/Vanilla Teapots combo position sounds like it’s a fit for me right now. I applied for it today and am feeling guilty, but probably not quite bad enough that I’ll decline an interview if offered. I would feel slightly better if he had been turned down outright, but he is being put on hold until they see if they have better candidates, so my applying could mean that he gets bumped from the in-person interviews. And worse, it probably wouldn’t be my first choice job as I have an interview coming up for one I think I’d like better, but who knows if I’ll get that. I’m unemployed too with loans coming due and I also really need the work. How do you handle it when you find out about something this way? I really do admire his confidence and drive, and I don’t want to be disrespectful of someone who has been a school friend and might be a colleague someday in our small industry. We don’t socialize but are still friendly enough to share news.