Pathetic, but being of that generation, unsurprising.
No, I have never brought daddy to a job interview. Not even my first, when I was 15 years old. If you can't do anything without your parents holding your hand, you're not ready for a job.
But I think I see why employers are kowtowing to it.
One of them is Northwestern Mutual. Michael Van Grinsven, field-growth and development director at the Milwaukee-based financial firm, says the company does everything it can to accommodate the parents of college-aged interns, including regularly inviting them to the office for open houses.
This makes perfect sense to me. Know why?
The intern system that has developed over the last decade is nothing like the intern system of yore, where you did a semester for college credit, and then you were done, and when you graduated you moved on to a real job in your field.
Now it carries on for years, and employers expect you to be basically free labor into your mid-20's or later.
The parents of millenials are used to the old system. They don't realize what a game this is. And furthermore, they're willing to let their kids live at home into their 30's if need be. And it's not because the kids themselves are lazy -- they aren't, in most cases. It's because they are unwilling to let go and let their kid become an adult.
Encouraging parents to be involved with internships means encouraging parents to put pressure on their children to continue working for free for the "opportunity," when in reality all it's doing is making them look like a sucker on their resume. Future would-be employers will see that sucker's resume, and know that they can pressure the kid into working for free yet again. All the better if they can enlist the parents.
Smart move by companies.
It's a pity the parents don't see it.
And it's even more of a pity that my generation is so helpless and demoralized that they don't think their skills are worth anything.