The lateness would bug me. Especially if she did not offer an explanation or call or text about it. That’s your time that she wasted and inconsiderate. I wouldn’t bring it up, unless you meet again. Then ask her to let you know if she is going to be late.
I think a follow up email when you sent her info would have been appropriate.
Recommending her for a specific job isn’t really part of the deal – it’s more about introductions and connections that expand the universe of possibilities for her.
Finding a job by applying to listings (as you did) happens, but it’s not as effective IME as networking.
I’m old, too, and was pressured into writing thank-you notes in my childhood, so, I’d often send emails that were nothing more than a thank-you. I’ve had more than one person tell me – nicely – to stop doing that. They don’t need the extraneous stuff like that.
There may be extenuating circumstances that she is embarrassed about like depressed over losing her job so hard to get out of bed. Or maybe she is a late person in general but gets to work on time, just not for social events.
Yeah, people have different (and sometimes strong) opinions on emails to say, “thanks for sending that”. I’ve been in discussions where some participants felt it was rude not to, and others felt it was rude and somewhere self-aggrandizing to send those emails. “My inbox is already cluttered. You think i want a meaningless email from you, about a task I’ve already completed?!” I don’t know that it lines up “old white guys against others”, there were some old white guys on both sides of the last online discussion i had about that. But i know that opinions differ.
If you are lucky enough to have a skillset that is unique, you’d be fine. But most people know things that a lot of other people know also. If you’ve ever had the pleasure of sorting through a gigantic stack of resumes (after a keyword search) you’d know that a recommendation or contact from someone you trust would put that resume at the top. I hired a lot of new PhDs, both for jobs and as interns, and I used my faculty contacts to get good people. It worked out very well.
Hiring is risky. Reducing that risk with someone recommended is often done. Now, that does cause a problem for people not in the in-crowd, and I’ve noticed clusters of people who look the same as the top manager, often not white males in my industry. It’s something we should be sensistive to.
I conducted an entire meeting about this because emails were getting out of control, and one of the first things to go was “thank you.” We all universally agreed these were more hassle than they were worth.