‘I’d be a great fit here. Just ask my mom.’
June 20, 2008 by Sam NarisiPosted in: Entry level recruiting, In This Week's E-Newsletter, Interviewing, Latest News & Views
Generation Y is coming to interview. And they’re bringing their parents.
Due to the phenomena of “helicopter parenting,” odds are when young folks are ready for the working world, their parents are going to be involved in the job hunt somehow.
Often, often parents help their kids look through ads or edit resumes. But some candidates even have gone so far as to bring a parent to an interview, or have one of them call HR to make sure someone saw the resume.
Not everyone minds
Some employers actually have begun embracing the concept. Some Enterprise Rent-a-Car locations, for example, send parents a copy of the offer letter when recent college graduates are hired. Hewlitt Packard has started training HR folks on how to deal with candidates’ parents.
How about your company? Have you seen any signs of increased parental involvement? Would you hire people who brought moms or dads along for an interview? Drop us a comment and let us know what you think.
Tags: Enterprise, Generation Y, helicopter parenting, Hewlitt Packard, parents
June 27th, 2008 at 2:01 pm
We do not talk to parents. We only talk to qualified applicants directly. If an applicant is not secure enough to handle the entire application process themselves we question whether they are mature or responsible enough to be working at all.
In the past we have had the great joy of having parents or spouses call us about their childrens job requirements, pay issues, can they take time off, etc. This puts us in the awkward position of saying that we only discuss these things with the employees themselves.
We definitely would not hire a applicant who brought a parent to the job interview.
June 27th, 2008 at 2:10 pm
I’ve heard of this before – parents coming to the interview – but have never experienced it myself. What do the parents do? Do the employers that are allowing them in ask them questions? If so – what? I don’t see how it would be a benefit at all – parents are emotionally involved with their children so how do they take it when their child isn’t hired? And I would think that an applicant that needs their parents with them may not have the maturity to handle the job.
June 27th, 2008 at 2:18 pm
If a student (high school or college) can’t take the initiative to contact the employer,
then what kind of initiative will they show on the job? This generation has been
mollycoddled ad nauseum and most realistic (and smart) employers will not pander to this attitude.
June 27th, 2008 at 3:06 pm
I don’t think I’d interview someone who’s parent called about a job, nor would I appreciate someone bringing their parents to an interview. I’d rather have candidates who are mature and self-sufficient enough to do their own legwork. Doesn’t really smack of adulthood.
June 27th, 2008 at 4:17 pm
I have had quite a few parents call in to follow up on their son or daughter’s application. Personally, I find it a little off putting that the applicant can’t follow up for themselves. I also had to lay-off a twenty something employee due to budget cuts and 10 minutes after he left my office he was back – with his mother – asking if I could explain it to her so that she would “understand” why he wasn’t going to be coming to work on Monday morning. I found that extemely uncomfortable!
June 30th, 2008 at 7:59 am
Years ago when I was in charge of a department, I received a call from the father of a young woman who inquired if I would hire his daughter for a position. (We did not have any open positions at that time and were not advertising for candidates.) The father went on to say that his daughter just graduated rom college and “couldn’t do anything.” What a recommendation! I wonder if the young woman even knew that her father was making this type of call. Needless to say, the woman was not hired since she had not applied and there were no openings anyway.
June 30th, 2008 at 12:50 pm
What about the confidentiality of employee records? Why would we ever give information to anyone who calls us and wants to discuss a candidate or an employee? This is a really slippery slope that I as an HR professional do not want to try and navigate. I tell anyone who calls me about a candidate or an employee claiming that they are a parent that they need to get information from their son or daughter.
Parents in the interview with their child? Very inappropriate. Next the parents will want to sit in on disicplinary meetings. Will we allow that?
September 12th, 2008 at 12:26 pm
In a previous job, I worked in an industry where 80% of our seasonal workforce was 15 – 19 year olds. In this instance, you almost expect parents to want to be involved (many of them were driven to the interview by mom or dad) but even under this circumstance, I am hiring the applicant (child or not) not the parent and would NOT allow mom or dad to be in the interview. If we had a question about schedule or shift once we had decided we wanted to make and offer, I would invite the parent in to answer those specific questions.
I also have have to deal with situations involving not making and offer or the termination of a “child” and had to call the police to have a mom arrested for assault (and you wonder why their kid is being terminated). One dad came in very angry that we turned his daughter away (after she waited with 30 other kids for an interview) and demanded to know why. I told him we were very clear with her as to the reason and what did his daughter tell him. She had said we just “didn’t have any jobs left” which was not the case. I told him that I told the daughter that we would be glad to interview her when she came back in with appropriate undergarments on (was not wearing any underware and a skirt…pretty obvious when she sat down in the chair adjacent to me). He was mortified, they left and I never saw her again.
Would still rather deal with overzealous parents than spouses.