Perhaps where I'm getting tangled is in using the term "friends" instead of past recruits or former hiring managers. Regardless, I still think it's a poor pract

Perhaps where I'm getting tangled is in using the term "friends" instead of past recruits or former hiring managers. Regardless, I still think it's a poor practice, given that -- like rwallace said -- if everyone did it, it would just create even more emails that the OP needed to add to their laundry list.