Advice for Talking to the Unemployed

That last post gave me an idea for another post on general advice for talking to the unemployed.

Here are some things to not say:

Have you tried looking at the classifieds? 
Someone actually suggested this.  A. I must be an idiot if going to the classifieds hasn't occurred to me.  B. Going to the classifieds isn't really with the times, is it?  C. The classifieds aren't really helpful to engineers.

Have you looked at [Insert Big Company Name]?
It's amazing how often one hears this.  Again, I must be an idiot if I haven't looked at Medtronic or Boston Scientific or 3M or whatever.  If you're going to suggest a large company, you had better have a contact for me.  I guess it's OK to suggest a small company because there's a chance that I haven't heard of it, though at least for me, I probably have.

Have you looked at [completely unrelated company]?
I ran into a former coworker at a local conference and he suggested that I look into Oracle.  Now, I'm not a programmer and he knows my engineering discipline isn't related to anything Oracle does.  So if you suggest a company to an unemployed person, at least put a second of thought into whether or not it would be relevant.

OK.  Rant over.