Would You Bring Your Dad to an Interview?

Could you imagine taking your parents with you when interviewing for a job?

Or having your mom call your boss about how she thinks you work too many hours?

These are both things that actually happen to some people, courtesy of helicopter parenting for the post-college set.

Smart Money reports on the excruciating details, and we can’t help but wonder, through our admittedly self-conscious cringing, whether this type of extreme parental involvement is actually a good thing.

In Favor of Parents on the Job

Smart Money explains that the zealousness of today’s parents leads to grown children who lack the basic skills to balance a budget, much less convince someone to pay them a salary. So why not have Mom and Dad take over the job search? They’re experienced from doing it themselves, in a time when allegedly no recent grad would have ever asked “old people” for help.

Plus, nowadays parents can have titles like “Social Networking Consultant” and “founder of a coaching service for new grads.” When it comes to job searching, these parents know what they’re talking about! And they’re much closer to their children than they were to their own parents—90% of parents say they give advice to their grown children, as compared to only 50% in the 1980s. Theoretically, this closeness would make grown children more receptive.

Against Parents on the Job

But the thing is that theory and parenting don’t always go together as they should. In fact, the young adults least receptive to their parents’ overtures are those living at home after college. (This should come as no surprise whatsoever to anyone who has ever lived at home after college.)

From the employer perspective, going so far as toting your parents to an interview is incredibly off-putting. Put yourself in their shoes: How can you be trusted to benefit their company on a day-to-day basis when it’s obvious—or at least obvious to them—that you’re worlds away from self-sufficiency?

And wait: Since when was it assumed that Gen Y is, by default, completely incapable of operating as autonomous adults? We know that LearnVesters, no matter how close to their parents, are well-versed in interview etiquette … and can even balance their budgets, thank you very much. (No? Better brush up here.)

Now, excuse us while we go call our mom to thank her for never, ever calling our boss.