Few things are as mortifying to a youngster than their parents trying to butt in on their behalf: a dad berating the coach for not playing his kid more, for instance, or a mom showing up unannounced to their dorm and embarrassing them in front of your roommates.
So-called “helicopter” parents have always existed, but they’re now sticking their nose into their kid’s professional lives in ways that sound vaguely ludicrous.
At least, that’s according to bosses and recruiters that the Wall Street Journal spoke to, who complain that their Gen Z new hires are coming with the hefty baggage of overbearing parents.
These not-so-genial genitors are hounding hiring managers, shadowing their kid’s Zoom calls off-camera, and even applying for jobs on their behalf, per the paper’s reporting, leaving their employers flabbergasted. One said that some parents are even calling in sick for their adult children.
Steven Clark, CEO of an Alaska-based staffing firm, said he’s gotten calls from parents demanding to know why their child didn’t get a job.
“The first time it happened, I was appalled,” he told the WSJ. “Since then it’s become more of a here-we-go-again reaction.”
When he fired a 24-year-old who kept showing up late on his first week at a construction job, the kid’s mother called to confront him.
“I said, ‘Look, you know, this is between us and your son. He’s the employee,’” Clark recalled.
Per the reporting, Clark’s experience has become such a recurring phenomenon that it was discussed at the human resources group SHRM’s conference, the largest HR group in the world, earlier this summer. More than half of the 250 professionals in the room raised their hands when asked if a parent had called them on behalf of a young employee or job candidate, per the WSJ.
Jasmine Escalera, head career coach at the résumé service Zety, called the phenomenon “co-piloting.” In a recent survey of 1,000 Gen Zers, the company found that a mind-boggling 20 percent had a parent come with them to a job interview.
Again, helicopter parents aren’t new, and there’s a risk that this gets turned into even more Gen Z bashing. But maybe in an age when smartphones keep them in constant contact with their children, helicopter parents have become more extreme and emboldened. (Just ask the teachers who had to deal with parents freaking out when their kid’s phones were taken away.) And maybe some Gen Zers are undersocialized and under-prepared after their education was disrupted by a global pandemic. There’s also the small matter of their corhort entering what’s one of the worst job markets in decades. Anxieties are high for young jobseekers and their parents alike.
This all may be true, but sometimes moms and dads just need to let their baby birds leave the nest.
“Parents should not be calling employers to check on their application status or ask questions on behalf of their child,” Lynne Alba, a director of talent acquisition and physician recruitment at a large health system on Long Island, told the WSJ.
More on generational trends: Gen Z Appears to Be Reversing No-Drinking Trend, Now Lurching Toward Alcoholism
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