Is involving parents in Gen Z's job interviews impacting their independence and future work performance?

In this episode, we delve into the surprising trend of Gen Z candidates bringing their parents to job interviews. 

We analyze a Forbes article discussing how almost 30% of Gen Zers involve their parents in the hiring process and debate the implications of this behavior for both the candidate and the employer. We offer practical advice for employers encountering this dynamic while reflecting on their personal experiences with guiding the younger generation into the workforce.

Highlights:

Generational Shifts in Job Hunting: Explore how today's technology has changed job searching from the door-to-door inquiries of previous generations to online applications and the significant role that parents now play.

Parental Involvement: Understand the startling statistic that 27% of Gen Zers are accompanied by their parents to job interviews, and how this involvement could reflect broader parental behavior trends.

Employer's Perspective: Gain insights into how employers can navigate and assess the merit of a candidate when their parents are overly involved in the interview process, ensuring that they can differentiate between a capable candidate and over-guidance.

Personal Anecdotes: We share our personal experiences with our own children’s job-searching journeys and how they balanced providing support while promoting independence.

Future Workforce Development: Learn why fostering independence and confidence among young job seekers is crucial for their development and how employers can better prepare these candidates to become effective and resourceful employees.

What do you think of this trend?  Would you go on an interview with your child? Share your thoughts with us, as we want to encourage a broader conversation. 

Forbes Article

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Welcome to Blue Collar B's, a podcast that busts the popular myth that we can't find good people, highlighting how the different generations of today, the boomers, Gen X, millennials and Gen Z, are redefining work so that the industrial revolution that started in the US stays in the US.

Hey everyone, welcome back to another episode of Blue Collar B's with your co host here, Bradley, and our other co host, Steve. Steve, there you go. He remembers his name. It's been a bit since we've actually done a live recording here and he actually remembered his name.

Not bad, I know, kudos to me.

It is shocking sometimes very shocking. How's life been for you in Detroit City there, mister Steven Doyle?

Doing really well. It's getting into the nice hot and muggy season. So you know, everybody's enjoying that.

Yeah, it's a blast. Yeah, summer is here in full force. It's like, oh, with all the rain, it was empty the pool, now it's all the hot sunshine, it's like, go fill the pool. Like perfect.

Awesome, right?

It's like, can't win for losing sometimes. Like, come on.

That's right.

Can we just a little bit of rain, keep it full, take care of the evaporation problem. All those fun things. So, yeah, that way my wife can not yell at me for the stairs. Don't have water on it. Okay. There's plenty of water in the pool. It's not a big deal, right?

All those fun, all those fun problems that you need to have with the pool.

So Mister Doyle, today, I've seen this all over LinkedIn as of late too, and this question of Gen Z and parents being involved in the hiring process. And you are so kind to share a Forbes article with us from back in early May of 24 that Chris Westfall wrote saying Gen Zers are asking their parents to help them find jobs, a new survey shows, and you sent that to me. Then all of a sudden one of my marketing partners put that poll out there on LinkedIn saying, hey, how many Gen Z years are you having parents coming? Like, this is weird that this is even talked about, but so let's talk about Gen Z and hiring and parent guidance and things like that because it's, it's bizarre and weird and it needs to be talked about and at least maybe understood so that it doesn't just become a automatic disqualification from a potential superstar future employee, right? Intrigued me about the article. Other than the, other than the title.

Other than the time it was more just the sheer amount of. When I looked at it, you know, it's a little less than 30%, but. So 27% say Gen Z or say that their parents actually accompanied them to an in person interview. That's what blew me away. Like, right there, I was like, what is going on? So then I start. Then we started reading into this article a little bit more and really understanding what's going on. So I have to be, you know, when we look at jobs today, you know, most of us were like, when we were raised, we're like, hey, if I wanted to go get a job, I had to go find out where to go. Look, you know, I couldn't ask mom and dad.

Cause they were too busy at work. Nobody else was around. And we had to, you know, be resourceful and actually go, look, we had to go talk to. Whether they were counselors, we had to go talk to people that we knew, whether it was in church or, you know, out in the public. We'd go knock on doors. Like, you literally had to go door to door and go find a job, you know, whether it was a summer.

Job or hit the grocery store.

Right. You just had to go do that. Now, today, with technology, it makes that a lot easier, a lot more different than when you and I were first out in the job market.

Yeah, because I had tablets to go through, right?

Yeah.

Stone tablets.

Yes, exactly. Not. Not digital tablets. Right. Stone tablets for.

Yes. The. The want ads in the newspaper were the, how do you find a job and apply for a job? That's what it was. And.

Yeah. So looking at this, it just. It started blowing me away, but then, you know, I was, you know, kind of also reminded of, you know, somewhat of this article when, you know, my. My daughter, who is 16, you know, started, you know, hey, I want to get a summer job. Okay, well, what are you going to do? Well, why don't you help me? Um, because you can go do it, but you can do all of this. This is what you need to go do.

So you're. You're part of the 45. You're part of the. Let's see if we do the math correctly. So 45, -100 that would put you in the 55 percentile of the fathers who don't help their kids find work. 45% of the fathers. Oh, according to this article, 45% of the fathers were supporting and finding. Helping their.

Their gen Z ers find work where 76% of the moms were helpful and supportive. So you're part of the 55% crowd. That's. Go figure it out on the five.

Oh, yeah, I want her to actually figure it out. I'm not going to give her the, you know, you know, I'm not going to do the work for her. She's got to do it herself. So, yeah, you correct. I am. I am part of that 55% that will say, go figure it out. I'll help guide you along the way, but I'm not doing the work, work for you at all. And that's where this article for me started to get me was.

What about. What about the introduction? What about the opportunity. Right. To create the, you know, you know, through church or whatever, you know, the guy that owns the car wash and he's looking for some help. Would you make the introduction for your daughter or would you tell her to go talk to him?

I won't necessarily do the introduction. I want her to actually go up and actually introduce herself. I want her to have that confidence that, yeah, I can go up and have a conversation with somebody without someone introducing me to someone else. So I want her to develop that. And while I am there in the wings watching and observing and seeing how things go.

Hang on, this is. This is. Asshole alert. Timeout. Whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop. Asshole alert.

Hang on, hold on.

Okay, this is the asshole alert.

Go for it.

Here. Here it comes. So sort of like back in training. Exactly.

A hole alert. For sure.

You want her to feel that experience you felt?

Yeah, I want her to feel the awkwardness and feel the frustration, like, because the more we do that, the more comfortable we get. Right. We have to. We're doing something new for the first time, and so we have to be uncomfortable. If we never put ourselves in that. That opportunity to be uncomfortable, to try something new, we're going to shut down every time we do that. Guess what? Unfortunately, I'm not going to live forever. You know, we're not going to be there for our kids forever.

They have to figure some things out on their own. And that's more of what, that's where this whole article just blew my mind. With the sheer number of parents that are literally going into interviews and answering questions for their kids, it's like, are you getting hired here or is your kid getting hired here?

I was shocked when I read through the article. I was absolutely shocked. The number of people and the fact of the matter that the parents would actually engage with the hiring manager or the HR person during the interview process. Yes. Why didn't you put the list of questions together for your son or daughter to ask while you were going through it? Help them prepare, walk them through. Do the mock interview, make that happen? I mean, yeah, I was. It's. It's mind blowing to that space.

But as a employer, when you see that we have clients in different industries, different things, if you have one of your clients that has an employee that's looking to hire and they have a potential candidate to do this, what's your take on what you're going to offer your client to do in that situation?

My take on this, it's a. Like they mentioned in this article, it truly is a package deal. It's the question then comes, what do you actually see in this employee that you actually need in your business to fill the gap for why you're hiring? Because if you're filling this gap as a warm body, fine, perfect. You found one. But if you're trying to find somebody that's a self starter to actively go and do things, this is not your person at all.

I'm gonna be double. I mean, go for it here, right?

Yeah, go.

There are. There are many parents that are going to live vicariously through their children. They do it through all of. Right, correct. Dance, sports, activities, acting, the school plays, whatever it is, they're. They want this to be the best for their student and for their child.

Correct.

Isn't this just potentially that next. Same piece of that? And it might not be the actual behavior of the young adult, but the behavioral parent that might be part of this problem. Now, this. This article is very skewed that this is a. This is a correct, not a parent problem. This is a child problem, a Gen Z problem, not a potential millennial slash young Gen Z parent issue.

Yep.

Again, we can make numbers, say whatever we want. I guess my advice to the client would be, if this were to show up, to start getting very clear and specific to question the candidate, and the parent jumps in, ask the parent to say, okay, let me ask this question. Does. I would ask them both. Okay, candidate, are you able to answer this question, or do you want your parent to answer the question and see what happens, what the candidate does, and then watch the reaction on camera as to whether the parent gets pissed off because now the kid's taking action? Are the kids acting sheepishly or timid, not willing to answer because they might say the wrong thing, and now they're not going to have the praise or acceptance from their parent because they answered the question.

Correct?

I don't know. That's all a candidate problem. I think there are some parent issues here.

Oh, obviously there are parent issues. If your parent is actually going to an interview with your child, like showing up inside the interview with your child, like, that makes, to me, that just is mind blowing. It makes absolutely no sense whatsoever, because if you choose to make this hire, it truly becomes a package deal. And it's not only are you dealing with this employee, and if this employee happens to get upset and they go home and they tell mom and dad, now mom and dad are calling you, trying to figure out what's going on. We're pushing the problem of child development down the road and, like, becoming an actual adult.

So. Well, hey, this is another, this would just be another interesting piece from the educational system. Right? So when your kids go off to college because they're adults, you have no access to any of their information. You do not get their grades, you don't get the report cards, you don't get shit. All you have to do is provide your financial ability to make sure that they can pay. So they want all your financial information, but they're not going to give you anything in return, which is the biggest scam in all of society of, oh, they're an adult, but you need my information so that you think that they can pay for your schooling. Perfect. But you're not going to share information.

So is it maybe an offshoot of, hey, I've spent four years of not being able to get any information about what's going on, that now there's this stranglehold of, well, now I'm going back to be part of your life again because you were gone. And now, now I get to have an impact because I don't have this large university barrier in the way.

Right.

To create that feeling of the parents now back in control of the, of the situation.

Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Couldn't agree more. And I don't want to get political, but because you could go, you go the other way with, with the HIPAA laws, with your kids where they're still on your insurance, you're still paying for it, but as soon as they turn 18.

Correct.

Right.

That's why. So PSA announcement here. If you have children living out of state that are over the age of 18, you need to go get a power of attorney. If they're just young adults living around the country or whatever, if something were to happen to them, you need to have a power attorney signed so that you can get that information from the hospital, the whatever situation that's there. So.

Yep.

For those listening, if you have young people in your lives that are part of that, don't have somebody in their own community to rely, and they don't have a spouse, in laws, grandparents, aunts, uncles in the neighborhood to support them. You need to get that power of attorney sign. Go spend the couple hundred bucks to make that happen. Sorry, we digress. PSA. Sorry, we do.

So, circling back to this article, what else in this article kind of drew you in.

I was fascinated by the job seeker stats that they had in here, saying that last year, unemployment rate for 16 to 24 year olds was 7.9%, the lowest since 1953 compared to 2010, where it's 18% again. Unemployment rates, how many are in the market? How many are trying to get employed? You still have all of that. What does that look like? Because our research from our home building trades foundation indicated that of the high school students that were able to work, that 16, at least 18 year old crowd, only 15% of them were employed in 2022, would actually go out and get a job while they're in high school. So that's that 16 to 18 crowd. And then what are they considering employment? Is working at the university, at the library desk, or at the, you know, dorm, dorm check in. Is that employment or is that not employment? What's that considered? So I guess I'm knowing the numbers, bringing in my high c aspect of things. What does that look like? Because I don't necessarily buy what they're selling in this article as well.

Right.

Because if that was truly the case, we wouldn't see all of the need hiring signs at the McDonald's of the world, all the fast food, all the bars and restaurants, all the other things. We wouldn't see 74 year olds working at Panera at 630 in the morning, doing the opening shift to make ends meet type scenario, just to be out in public. We would have kids doing those jobs. Nothing.

Right?

Senior citizens.

Mm hmm. Right. That leads us to another whole nother topic.

What topic would that be, Steve?

The opposite of the Gen Z in the workforce. Is our boomers still in the.

Lots of them and lots of them going back? Yeah.

Yeah. For various reasons, but we're going to digress again.

Absolutely.

For me, circle.

Yeah, yeah. I have a friend of my cousin in, my cousin's husband, he's a steam fitter in the union here. We were just at a wedding over the weekend, and he's like, yeah, I can retire in four years. And they just increased the number of hours I can work to still be on the pension every year. So he can get out at a young age, and now he can work 900 and I think it's 920 hours. A year to still receive all this pension medicine and, and get paid at that 920 hours a year. So almost full part time, right? Almost part time work. Essentially.

You still receive and do, do the old double dip where it used to be like 300 hours a year because they wanted you out. So the other guys get all the experience and do. Now there's nobody coming in. So, yes, we digress. What was, what was your most, so this article, I guess on the employer side, the interviewing, the interview side of it, what's your advice? Again? You've indicated a package deal. You've indicated different things. How do you go about dissecting this? Or do you just give up and say, you know what? We're just going to call it what it is and say, yeah, not my cup of tea, because we're gonna run into the, the issue.

Mm hmm.

Where's your take? Where's your take on that? Are you, are you, I'm out immediately.

So I will answer this. I'll answer this in two different ways. One is more of the, the compassionate Steve where, or the empathetic Steve where I would host the interview and I would go through the interview. But like you said, is more targeting. I need the, can, I need to get a receipt, a real good understanding of the actual candidate and how well they are going to be in tune with the mission, the vision, the values of the company. How well are they going to be interacting with other employees? And do they have the right attitude? Because the skills we can develop. So that's what I'm initially assessing in that now in the back of my head, the real me is, is already dismissed them, because if I have to bring, if you have to bring someone else into the interview with you to help you interview, I personally don't have the patience for that because that's telling me you don't have, you don't, you don't have the confidence, you probably don't have the competence, and you're compensating for it with your parents. And if you did the homework, if you actually did your work ahead of time and you actually engage your parents and your parents wanted to help, like we've previously talked about a couple minutes ago, your parents would actually help you walk through, like, interview questions, potentially things that could come up, you know, finding out, you know, hey, this is, this is where you need to go to find out what is the culture like, like, go look on the Internet, go look at reviews.

Go look at what the current employees are saying. That's how I would say you see parents helping their kidney, truly helping their kids out, because once they get out of the, the wings of their parents, they've got to learn to fly. They've got to learn to, you know, pick their shit up and fricking go and be a contributing human to in the society.

Right.

And if we're too cod, if we're too much in coddling them to not help them think through those things, who are we as parents in this society? We're continuing to propagate the problem.

Yeah. When my youngest son left his first job out of college because he wasn't able to get security clearance because Covid wasn't allowing the national security to go give people security clearances because we couldn't talk to people or we, why we couldn't interview people because of COVID on Zoom, I have no idea. But they wouldn't do his background check to give him clearance to work on his stuff. So they ran out of unsecured work and they basically, his job was limited. So he was doing all the things and going out and do all. Yeah, it's like, okay, let's run. Show me the job description. We'll run through a mock interview and we'll go from there.

Here, what's important to you? What's important? And go from there. And, you know, he got an introduction from use his network to go and say, hey, who do you know got his resume in front of some the right people. That person sent it down to HR and said, hey, here you go. And did he get the interview because of the people he knew?

Maybe.

Maybe he got. But at the end of the day, I'm pretty confident he got the interview because of the connections in the network. But then the day he had to get through the interview to win the job, and that was one of his biggest fears going, well, I didn't really earn this job. Like, they're not going to give you all this money just as a favor, right. They're not going to give you.

Correct.

Hundreds of 1000, $100,000 a year of income, total, total benefits. If you're not going to provide value to the company as a favor to somebody who has. That's not how life works.

That's right.

You earn the position and you have to go through that process and go forward. But yes, this was a very bizarre article. The article will be in the show notes. The link will be in the show notes. We'd love to see your comments, sarcastic remarks, etcetera, on the show right when we make the post. So please go out and leave us your feedback on what you think of parents joining Jen's ears and interviews and things like that. So Mister Doyle, thank you again for bringing this article to our attention. It's timely, it's relevant, and have an awesome rest of your day, sir.

You as well, my friend.

Thank you for listening to Blue Collar B's brought to you by vision for business solutions and professional Business Coaching, Inc. If you'd like to learn more on today's topic, just reach out to Steve Doyle or myself, Brad Hurta. Please like share, rate and review this show, as feedback is the only way we can get better. Let's keep blue collar businesses strong for generations to come. And.