I am currently looking for a new job (potentially in a new industry), so I'm doing cold outreach to people whose experience seems relevant and/or interesting, asking for advice, and usually a phone call in which I can pick their brain
would you also view my emails as spam? if not, would you bother replying?
What I get are emails that say ‘I would love to write articles for your audience, please respond if you would like to see a sample.’ My site clearly doesn’t publish 3rd party articles. And if you were that keen, just send me the damned sample.
You’re okay.
In your specific example I wolud absolutely respond if someone needed a bit of help getting a job or whatever but I would be wary. I have had people pretend that is the case and then they are actually trying to sell me some offshore development team or whatever. So sadly I have to be a bit more guarded than I would normally like.