Assuming you have friends in the field looking for work, maybe. However, maintaining a barrier between my personal and professional relationships is worth more

Assuming you have friends in the field looking for work, maybe. However, maintaining a barrier between my personal and professional relationships is worth more than a pittance to me. It's worth $500-2000 to me to keep that barrier in my life and avoid poisoning the friendship if the professional side goes sour. I'd rather help my unemployed friend find work in other ways or even loan them money to help keep them afloat while this was going on (and yes, I've done both). More to the point, my understanding of these referral programs is that companies want to poach talent from other places on the cheap. It's never couched in terms of "help your unemployed friends and get paid" - it's always phrased as "know someone sharp? why not convince them to work for us!" Why should I help them do that? If they offered me some substantial fraction of what they would pay a headhunter for the EXACT SAME SERVICE (actually it's inferior service because I am trained to know who's good - they have no idea), I might be more flexible. $10,000, even after tax, would be enough of a positive impact on my life that it's worth the risk to the friendship. $500 means I'll pass.