Would You / or Have You ever use your contacts, or asked somebody else i.e. husband/friend/aunt, to use their contacts to benefit your child with, for example: a job interview, internship, place on the U12 basketball team, backstage pass, concert tickets etc. something your child would not be able to, or find it very difficult to achieve without an insider ‘advantage’?
Yes, that’s called networking. I have no problem with that.
Of course. Agree with @MaineLonghorn. I will do just about anything to help my kids get ahead… Just not pay $250,000 for it since I don’t have it 
(in reference to the school scandal thread).
LOl! Even if you knew that by asking for the ‘advantage’ it would be likely your child would get it as a favor to you i.e. the internship ? Not judging, because I have asked, knowing I would receive 
All of the things mentioned in the OP are things I would do for good friends, not just my D.
@momo2x2018. We put feelers out to people we know for my son’s internship. He was on LinkedIn etc. My friend works at Microsoft and my son is putting on a tech conference. He put him in touch with the person from Microsoft that is the liason for his school. Funny thing is the Microsoft person asked about my son to a professor that is like my son’s mentor… Lol… Anyway, my son didn’t even use him… and decided to do a study abroad engineering program since it will be his only chance to do study abroad. He might be doing 2 programs back to back the whole summer.
A friend works for the automotive parts company that is the leader in this industry and he said, “my boss hires the interns, let me know if there’s anything we can do”. So he gave me his bosses email to give to my son.
I have no problem with that sort of thing. Doesn’t guarantee anything.
I agree. I’ve helped set up internship interviews for friends’ kids at the TV station where S1 works. And my SIL’s sister got both my boys part-time jobs with her employer, a large grocery chain.
Yes, but not just for our kids. we’ve used the “knowing someone” advantage to help ourselves, our friends, relatives, people who asked for a favor etc. But I can’t say that the opportunity was ever a “guarantee”. The people still had to be qualified.
We did have a questionable (in my mind) youth sports experience though. My husband was a head coach for an elite U14 football team (many more kids tried out than made the team). As one of his last picks, my husband selected the son of the U14 elite baseball coach. Now at that point, all the all-star players had been selected and the remaining pool contained kids with similar skill levels. The season ended up being A+, we won the championship, the baseball coach’s son had an amazing year - developed as a player and made lots of friends, etc. Fast forward 6 months, and the U14 baseball coach selects my son to fill the single available spot on his team (all the players returned from the year before except one). Now my son was a great baseball player but there were so many great kids vying for that spot. Even though nothing was discussed between my husband and the other coach, I always felt a little weird about the whole situation. And I know that it was “discussed” by the parents of kids who did not make the team.
I would certainly never do anything criminal to gain an advantage for my kids, but I did speak to connections to help secure interviews for my daughters when they were applying for internships when nearing the end of their college educations. But they passed the interviews and got the jobs themselves with their own qualifications. And both later parlayed their internship experience and the connections they formed on their own into offers for full time jobs after graduation.
Most of my “string-pulling” didn’t work out. In most cases there were no good opportunities available or my daughters were not qualified for the positions that were open. But eventually things clicked for them, and I’m happy that I was able to help.
Back in the day my dad did much the same for me when I was just starting out. Nothing nefarious. He just checked around with people he knew to see who had opportunities and asked them if they would be interested in giving me a look.
As others have said, that’s just normal networking.
I would never ask anybody to consider my kid for a job if I knew he’s not qualified for the job. If he is, sure. I recommend friends and acquaintances to other friends all the time.
I actually have an opposite experience too. My son’s research mentor works for the same research institution where I used to work, so people would naturally assume I introduced them, while in fact I had absolutely nothing to do with this.
Never have. We don’t have any of those kind of connections.
I will say that when people say “I wouldn’t do anything illegal, but…” I always wonder if ethical and legal are considered the same thing. Not implying anyone is saying anything unethical, just weird to me when illegal is frequently used as the dividing line.
Also, people may be qualified for these nudges, but there’s no question that they do push other, non-connected, qualified young people to the back of the line. I get that’s how the world works, but it does make it harder for the unconnected.
Yes, it is harder for the unconnected. OTOH, high schools kids email my husband all the time with no connections and he tries to accommodate at least one a summer. Both my brothers do computer related stuff and I asked if my oldest could do some job-shadowing with them in 8th or 9th grade. My older brother ended up not being around most of the week we had agreed on, but my younger brother’s firm was so impressed by him at the end of the week that they gave him a gift certificate and hired him for a real job the following summer. I wish I could have done more for the younger brother, but it was harder since he had no idea what he was interested in and less obvious skills.
Totally!
Yes, agree it’s networking.
I helped both of mine get their first jobs (in HS, at a restaurant), via my personal connections.
Neither has used anything I have to offer for post-grad employment or internships, however.
PS: Backstage/VIP passes to certain events, that I can sometimes do, and I’ve done it for both kids.
I would and I do all the time. Networking is how many things in the business world actually work. That helps get them in the door. Up to them to stay there.
How did you find your doctor in a new town? Dentist? Auto mechanic? Wasn’t it through referrals from your friends? What the OP is suggesting is a referral system. @garland , are you saying that, if you were out of work, you wouldn’t ask your friends/acquaintances, work contacts if they knew of openings? You’d just rely on what’s posted on the internet, which are generally filled before they even go up? How is asking for that information for your kid any different?
This is also known as “white privilege.” White people – and I’m only using that ethnic group because that’s the expression that’s used – have contacts that others often don’t. It perpetuates itself.
All except the sports team, yes. Though I would expect to obtain for my mentees what I received in my youth, which is an opportunity to compete for an internship. I would never expect to just hand them an internship unless I were the employer.
@chedva Suggesting a place to apply to work would be different from calling up someone and sending them there to get a position because I’m buddies with the boss and calling in a favor. I don’t expect a doctor to see my friend’s kid because they see mine. I expect that the recommendation is just a way for someone to choose their doctor. A recommendation to use a service is, I think, obviously different than a request to give my friends’ kid, or my kid, a job or internship, or even get an interview that a just as qualified but not connected kid doesn’t get because mine came first.
Not a place on a team if tryouts are involved. Everything else, I haven’t but don’t see a problem with any of it. Probably not ask outright for an internship but definitely ask for consideration for it.