It’s nice to be nice.

It doesn’t always lead to any positive repercussions in the short-term, but helping out someone in need will make you feel good – and karma will help you out in the long-run too.

That’s exactly what the woman in this story noticed, after she needed help but was rejected.

Read on to find out what happened.

Leave me on read when I need job search advice? I can’t help you with your job search either

A couple of years ago when my husband got a job in another country, I decided to give up my well paying job to be with him and for us to have a better quality of life.

Now this country is in Europe, and learning the local language was an important requirement for any jobs outside tech, unless it was in an international company.

My husband has a tech job and it didn’t have a language requirement, but since my job field was not in tech, I knew about this and started learning the language before we even moved there.

This was all common knowledge.

Let’s see how things worked out for her after the move.

After we moved, I started sending LinkedIn requests to fellow immigrants from my home country hoping to get job search advice.

I was going through a depressing period with a horrible job market and zero interviews in four months, and I didn’t know what I was doing wrong.

I also continued to learn the local language full time, and had a lot more time to do that since I was out of a job.

During this time I connected with a lady on LinkedIn, let’s call her Susan, who worked in the same field as me.

Read on to find out how Susan responded to her request for advice.

I thanked Susan for accepting my connection request, explained my situation and asked her if she had any tips or advice on finding a job as she was someone who went through the same journey herself.

Susan replied with “Learn the local language, I don’t know if I can help in any other way!”

I thanked her and asked if she would be open to meeting for coffee or a phone call.

She said the next two months were really busy, but she might be able to meet after that.

Let’s see if Susan came through for her.

I tried messaging her after that asking her specific questions about training, certification and resume points and got left on read.

I was desperate for a job and was feeling quite ****** about myself. I messaged a couple more times and even wished her a happy new year over the four months that followed and still got left on read.

Luckily, I finally managed to learn the local language really well and impressed interviewers and landed a job a year later.

I love my current job and it’s a very nice company with good work culture.

And then, the tables turned.

Earlier this year, Susan lost her job due to budget cuts (I found this out from her “open to work” LinkedIn post).

Coincidentally my manager was hiring for a role that would be perfect for Susan and I had just reposted that on my LinkedIn.

Well what do you know… Susan messaged me asking for a referral and told me how much she cares about my company’s vision and mission.

She said that she would love to apply for the role and is happy to share her resume. All this after leaving me on read multiple times!

Let’s see how the woman decided to reply to Susan’s message.

Now I didn’t want to be like her and leave her on read.

I replied with a generic “Hi Susan Thank you for your interest! Please apply on our career website. We are reviewing all applications on an ongoing basis and will get back to you as soon as possible. All the best.”

Last I checked, she still hasn’t found a job. Tough market.

Well, not my problem!

What goes around comes around, and karma got Susan in the end.

Sure she might’ve been busy – she might even have been too busy to help out at that time.

But sending a thoughtful message, and not just leaving someone on read, doesn’t take that much time at all.

Let’s see what folks on Reddit made of this.

This person commended her for not just ghosting.

But others thought that neither of them were really in the right or wrong.

While this person found the whole thing quite ironic.

Susan didn’t want to help out, and therefore she didn’t receive any help in return.

Of course she was under no obligation to help just because of nationality, but it wouldn’t have cost her anything to do so in the moment, especially when it was quite clear someone was struggling.

It really cost her in the long run though!

If you liked that story, check out this post about an oblivious CEO who tells a web developer to “act his wage”… and it results in 30% of the workforce being laid off.