Networking effectiveness

What other type of value can I add in this market when people are not really looking to hire?

Off the top of my head:

1. Contributing to their open-source
2. Building a side project with them
3. Engaging with their content if they post to social media

Those are standard tech things - It's hard to fully "playbook" a relationship. Just be genuinely interested in them and see how you can help. It doesn't have to be an engineering thing either. Maybe they're looking for a gym buddy, and you realize that it makes sense for you to start working out as well.

At what point do I ask for a favour which is a referral to a job position?

It's hard to quantify, but the main things are:

1. The relationship has some amount of age on it (>3 months IMHO)
2. You have actually worked on something together
3. You have done something of substantial value for them (even the gym buddy example is pretty valuable IMHO, accountability is important)

Thanks. What if it is someone you worked with like past colleage or manager? Does the above apply to that as well?