Interns Mom called me
Just curious if anyone else has had any similar experience???
Just a few hours ago I had one of our summer intern's mom call me and ask if there was anything I could do to help get her son a job post graduation (he didn't receive a return offer from our bank). I of course was shocked by the outreach and didn't know what to say. I said I would be helpful in anyway that I could and that he should be looking for other adjacent roles + networking.
I was just really caught off guard by the whole thing.
Has anyone else gone through anything similar or have any wild intern crashout stories?
What part of the economic cycle is that?
“Mommy I didn’t get a return offer”
Gen Z is the only time I've ever heard of kids having their parents literally accompany them to job interviews. Some of them are so pathetic and coddled it's a genuinely impressive achievement. Never happened to me personally but I have a friend at a LMM firm in the northeast who said a summer interviewee actually asked whether they were allowed to have mom in the room WITH THEM when they were interviewing because it helped them destress. Needless to say the kid didn't get the offer.
I've heard some wild shit on this site, and that may be the wildest. Just incredible.
Pandemic really f'ed up the mental health of some people I know. Was surprised to see a few childhood friends in recent years for the first time in awhile and they clearly had serious issues (both were older millennials than me). It's sad.
Happened in our team also, one of the parents reached out. They simply know that the economy is down or the parents were unemployed themselves. It's a bad time for finding jobs in some areas and they are willing to do whatever it takes to help their kid.
My parents would have never done this for me, which was a different era (just a few years back lol)
Easy to dunk on this kid but there reallllllly isn't that much difference between him and mommy reaching out, and the 90% of nepo hires where kids dad has a close connection with someone high up in the bank or company.
Intent is the same, execution is different, but only one is acceptable. Probably just a class thing
There's a lot of difference. Which is why one of them has happened for 100 years, and another started happening only in the last few years. I don't like either of them, but there's something seriously wrong with the kid/parents if this type of phone call is happening after age 16.
Honestly this is a pretty thoughtful point. Not a perfect comparison, but close enough that it made me reconsider my initial visceral reaction
First of all, I'd like to say that I wholeheartedly agree with you and SB'd you. As part of a balanced breakfast, I wanted to provide one bit of commentary. The key difference between the Nepo-Outreach and the Mommy-Calling is that the Nepo-Outreach is typically predicated on prior business connections, so it's not entirely out of the blue to be reaching out to principals of the firm. The Mommy-Calling is generally someone not in the finance profession who has no business or connections to bring to the firm who is purely an interloper in a hiring situation between the firm and the candidate. At least with the Nepo-Outreach, there may be some other ancillary business angle or catch-up that makes the call feel more natural. I really agree with you on the classist stuff, but thought that the discussion would be lacking without what I hope you'll consider a valid counterpoint of some merit.
Totally understand you being shocked and I don't know how much power you solely have for helping someone get a job (esp. in this market) aside from telling him who to contact etc or you may having some heads ups for which Banks are recruiting. Only reason I can think why their parent is contacting you is possibly culture or not understanding banking. For a lot of bankers who's parents weren't in finance, understandably they have a very limited knowledge of how recruiting and the whole industry works. They probably are thinking their child isn't networking properly so felt the need to reach out. Non-finance parents just assume that knowing xyz person at xyz bank can automatically land a job, which will take some explaining to them on how that doesn't work in this generation.
Bro, I don’t care if I were a janitor or fast food worker. I’d be mortified if my mom called my boss on my behalf. Sounds like a tiger mom with a complete goober of a kid.
Hey, I planted my pear tree three years ago man. Not my fault none have grown yet.
Growing pears is where it's at.
Tell the parents they should have started their kid in IB prep classes in 1st grade like everyone else.
Assuming it was phat?
you could offer her to help him out and come to your place for an all-nighter
The only return offer I have for you is the post coitus uber waiting outside my appointment door
Interns or some young workers in general, seems their parents have taken the "helicopter parent" to a truly new level.
My man is a concierge/doorman at a residential building. Recently they needed a relief for one of their porters that was out having a medical procedure. Twenty-something year old that's on the relief sheet is contacted and turns up, with his father in tow. Kid claims he doesn't know porter's work, as he's only done doorman reliefs in the past.
Uhm, why would you say you could relieve someone if you didn't know how to do their duties?!
The father proceeded to walk around the entire building, doing the porter gig: cleaning windows, wiping down gym equipment, moving recycling from apartment floors to basement, etc. - none of it rocket science, but he should have been directing his kid. Instead, his son followed him around as the father did all the work whilst the son texted on his phone.
There are also several workers there who do all that's possible not to use the computer system in regards to scanning packages, dry cleaning other deliveries, etc., as their skills are limited, instead of trying to realize that the more you do something, the more familiar and confident you'll get in doing it.
Then there are those making minimal effort to learn English and want my man to regularly translate for them. The only time he can get them to focus or embrace learning anything is when he says how if they learn English, they can then be offered doorman reliefs, which pay more than porter relief work.
Golden scene hahaha
The mom calling in place of her son is tame, while in Uni I've heard a horror story from a friend in the careers department about how an intern's mothers stormed into the C-suite exec offices to yell at them for "underpaying" their Child.
mind you the student was earning UAED7000 where the average is 2000
You’re a good guy because you didn’t milf the situation
Honestly not too surprising. It's tough to see fellow Gen Z peers/friends struggle with entering the work force (especially post-pandemic). I have several friends who are/were stellar academics, but struggle with the soft skills and attitude needed for job hunting. Also seems to be an enormous fear of rejection which definitely holds them back and is probably a big factor in why parents are getting involved like this. There definitely appears to be a gap forming in my generation where you have the people who grind and have a whatever it takes attitude versus the people who can't get past the fact that just a degree/pure academics won't cut it anymore.
If I were you I’d try my hardest to get him blackballed from the entire industry, and then tell him to his face that he needs to stop having his mommy do things on his behalf as a presumably 21yo man. So pathetic.
I have instructed our employees not to accept calls or communications from relatives ( parents, ex-wives, whatever) of other employees, and to report such attempts to HR. It avoids potential legal issues and drama.
Guys, I really wouldn't be too hard on the kid. Do we know for a fact that he told his mom to do this? The helicopter parenting has gotten so bad nowadays that some parents go out of their way to do things for their kids, to a point where even their kids are embarrassed.
This stuff happens in cycles. The boomers (Gen Z's parent's parents) were more hands off, so now our parents are annoyingly involved in our lives. Consider this before you judge or god forbid blacklist the kid.
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