Absolutely have done this for my own kids and for others. I do consider whether I would hire the person before making recommendation, and usually caveat with I have no direct knowledge of work.
Many places of employment offer bonuses for referrals that are actually hired. This is not a bad thing if you ask me.
The question is faulty. Tying the ability to circumvent athletic tryouts (which seems unethical) to the ability to connect job seekers and employers creates a question loaded with bias. It’s not unethical to let people know about job openings or for employers to hire a qualified candidate from among their pool of applicants.
College admissions is a game whose outcome can very much depend on connecting with people who know how it works, and CC is the ultimate “insider advantage.” Yet, here we all are…
I am not against this type of networking. That said, no, I never did this on behalf of my kids, nor had any connections anyway. Everything they have done, they sought out on their own. Now, they are in their careers. For my younger one, who is in the performing arts, I see a lot of networking going on, though not where a parent is involved. But she has a large network of peers in the field and they often hire one another for various projects. But that is different in that is creating your own professional network, not where your parents or parents’ friends step in. Again, I’m not opposed to parents using their network. I’m a college counselor, and just yesterday, one of my client’s parents told me of an internship she was able to get for her rising senior daughter this summer through the parent friend. I see it all the time. It’s common. I’m OK with it. I’ll admit that I thought to myself, that’s not how it happened for my own kids. They found and got everything on their own in high school, college, and grad school, and the jobs they got afterward.