Helicopter Parents Go to Work: Moms
And Dads Are Now Hovering at the Office
March 16, 2006; Page D1

In interviews with a job candidate last year, Deborah D'Attilio, a recruiting manager in San Francisco for Enterprise Rent-A-Car, was surprised when the young woman brought a companion: Her dad.

Saying "he was interested in learning about the work environment," the father sat in the lobby during the interview, Ms. D'Attilio says. Ms. D'Attilio didn't hold it against the candidate and wound up hiring the young woman.

Helicopter parents are going to work. From Vanguard Group and St. Paul Travelers to General Electric and Boeing, managers are getting phone calls from parents asking them to hire their 20-something kids. Candidates are stalling on job offers to consult with their parents. Parents are calling hiring managers to protest pay packages and try to renegotiate, employers say.

"It's unbelievable to me that a parent of a 22-year-old is calling on their behalf," says Allison Keeton, director of college relations for St. Paul Travelers. After taking many calls from parents "telling us how great their children are, how great they'd be for a specific job," she's started calling this generation "the kamikaze parents -- the ones that already mowed down the guidance and admissions offices" and now are moving into the workplace.

Like most employers, Ms. Keeton handles such encounters diplomatically, keeping job negotiations confidential without offending parents. Some employers, however, are also adapting to the trend by altering some parts of the hiring process, sending parents copies of offer letters or including them in recruiting sessions.

Strong parent-child relationships can be a lifelong asset, of course. But there's evidence young adults don't always appreciate all the hovering. And parents who cross the line between mentoring and meddling risk hampering young adults' ability to develop self-reliance.

General Electric made an offer to one recruit last fall, only to get a call the next day from the recruit's mother trying to negotiate an increase in pay, says Steve Canale, manager of recruiting and staffing services. GE didn't rescind the offer, but "we didn't give in to Mom" either, Mr. Canale says. Rich Hartnett, director, global staffing, for Boeing, says one hiring manager was very surprised when a recruit brought his mom right into the interview. Enterprise's Ms. D'Attilio says the mother of another recruit joined a phone call between her and a candidate and began grilling Ms. D'Attilio about benefits.

At Pella Corp., Christine Headington-Hall, strategic staffing manager of the Pella, Iowa, maker of windows and doors, has begun hearing from job candidates' parents too, trying to renegotiate an offer or asking why their child didn't get one. "That's something I haven't faced in 15 years" in the recruiting field, she says. And upon getting an offer at Vanguard Group, seven out of 10 college recruits say, "'Let me talk to my parents. I'll get back to you,'" says Karen Fox, college relations and recruiting manager.

Figuring they can't beat the trend, some employers are joining it. Ferguson Enterprises, a Newport News, Va., building-supplies distributor, last year started offering to send a copy of recruits' offer letters to their parents, says Denise Francum, director of recruiting; "more than half of them say yes." And PNC Financial Services Group invites students' parents to some recruiting events, says Davie Huddleston, vice president, human resources.

In many ways, parents are continuing the intense oversight this generation has been known for all along: challenging poor grades, negotiating with coaches and helping kids register for college. Heavy cellphone and email contact with teens through college is fueling parent involvement beyond the normal breaking-away years; a study at Middlebury College, Middlebury, Vt., set for release at an August meeting of the American Psychological Association, found college freshmen are in contact with their parents more than 10 times a week.

In other cases, parents may fear kids will never leave the nest and want to give them a push; 11% of adults ages 25 to 34 still live with their parents, the Census Bureau says, up from 8.7% in 1980. Alin Steele, Novi, Mich., says the first years out of college for her 23-year-old son and his friends have been so fraught with lousy jobs that don't pay enough to live on that she has seen a need for more parental support. A young adult's job troubles can mean "the parent will end up holding the bag," she says.

Some young adults will resent parental hovering. An online poll of 400 students and young adults last year, by Experience Inc., a Boston career-services firm, found 25% said their parents were "overly involved to the point that their involvement was either annoying or embarrassing."

Striking a balance can be especially difficult when adult children go jobless. When Tita Beal's son Paul Kruger graduated during the recession in 2002 with an advertising degree, she offered him all the contacts and support she could. But the New York mother drew the line after a summer of joblessness and pressed him to find other work. He trained as a bartender and worked at restaurants more than two years before landing a job in advertising.

"She absolutely stuck behind me through that," says Mr. Kruger, 25, now a junior art director at a New York ad agency. But "behind" is the key word; Mr. Kruger did all the calling, job-hunting, interviewing and decision making himself. Parents "should never, ever cross that line," he says. "You've got to push the kid -- not the job."