Employers are increasingly reporting that parents are job hunting on behalf of their adult children, a development they say has stunned them, according to the New York Post. The surge in hands-on parental involvement is spilling from application prep into interviews and even post-hire office visits, intensifying frustration among managers who say they expect candidates to advocate for themselves, according to Fortune.
A survey by Zety found that 44% of Gen Zers receive parental support in résumé and CV writing, with nearly 50% of young adults asking their parents to write their resumes, while one in five Gen Z candidates have brought a parent to a job interview and 21% have their parents contact prospective employers directly, according to Fortune.
Assisting in negotiation
Other surveys indicate that 20% of parents attend job interviews with their adult children, and some Gen Z job seekers are allowing their parents to negotiate their salary; a third of respondents said their parents assisted in negotiation, with 10% allowing parents to negotiate directly with the boss and 10% of parents negotiating salaries on their behalf, according to Fortune. The pattern continues after hiring: more than half (56%) of Gen Z workers have had parents visit their workplace outside of formal events.
Shark Tank investor Kevin O’Leary warned that candidates who bring a parent to an interview risk their résumé going “right into the garbage,” calling the trend of parents attending interviews a “horrific signal,” according to Fortune.
"Do not send your mother to my office"
The backdrop is a labor market in which millions of Gen Z individuals are struggling with unemployment, with a record number classified as NEETs (not in education, employment, or training). Against that pressure, some employers say parental interventions have crossed professional lines.
In a trending video, a hiring manager addressed the issue directly, stating, “Zoomers, do not send your mother to my office,” according to the New York Post. The same manager continued, “Don’t have your mother call me on my phone, call my assistant, [or] talk to my other staff about you coming to my office to be an intern. If you cannot have a conversation with me, if you cannot have an interview like grown people do without your parents being involved, if that is where your anxiety is, this is not the place for you.”
In another example, a hairdresser described a 20-year-old who brought her mother to a salon interview.
"Dad mode" into his nineties
Not all parents see their engagement as overreach. Presenter Alexander Armstrong, a father of four boys, said he believes he will be sorting out jobs for his children into his nineties and described his “dad mode” as thriving when he is involved in his children’s lives, including making sure they have charged phones for festivals or printing everything “just in case,” such as gig tickets and boarding passes, according to the Mirror.
He once had to teach his son how to cook at university and admits to embracing the stereotype of keeping paper copies of essentials. That outlook aligns with broader sentiment detected in market research: 68% of parents anticipate their children will continue to call them for help for the rest of their lives, according to the Mirror.