The fact that there is an assumption is that this is the way you get jobs, not just by being qualified and applying, might be true, but is one of the reasons for the massive, growing inequality in this country.
It’s easy to be a good person but not notice how ingrained privilege works for you.
I’ve never done it for my kids because I just don’t have contacts in the fields they are interested in. But I have done it for an acquaintance of my daughter who wanted a job as a paralegal. This kid had an excellent resume but didn’t know how to best put that together so I helped with that. I also do volunteer work with my local HS where I help kids from first generation and low income families apply to college and then help them as they navigate internships and jobs. I have connected them to people I know who can help them get those opportunities.
I get what you are saying @garland and I see that side of it, but I also think that the give and take (that we are talking about in this thread) is an essential part of living successfully in a community. It promotes cooperation, accountability, and the idea of “giving back”. And what’s that saying… “no man is an island”. Most people, even when they think they have “done it all on their own,” really haven’t.
Wow, garland. Your thinking is very much contrary traditional job search theory. Long before the current “massive, growing inequality in this country,” if you were laid-off or otherwise looking for a job, placement counselors would tell you to network, Network, NETWORK.
Finding opportunities through people you know is considered to be THE most important and most effective action a job seeker can take.
I know that. I’m just pointing out the ramification. You yourself said your kids got interviews because of connections. That means other, possibly as qualified young people didn’t. I get that’s the norm. I often question norms.
@BSL1199 --I love that ideal of community! And if we lived in a world where everyone in our larger community was at the same or similar level, that would be a great ideal. But we’re not. Helping hands tend to reach across class, not downward, when it comes to networking.
“You yourself said your kids got interviews because of connections. That means other, possibly as qualified young people didn’t.”
Well, in both cases there were no set limits on the number of interview to be given. These were highly-specialized internships (software engineering and biostatistics, respectively). My daughters got interviews and so did everyone else who applied and was reasonably qualified. I’m pretty sure no qualified candidate who applied for those internships was turned away without an interview because my daughters took a slot in the interview schedule that somehow rightfully belonged to them. I think you are stretching to find an injustice where there was none.
This was the question:
So I stand by my stance, that these insider advantages, that you responded to, enforce inequality. If interviews were unlimited, then cool. That’s rarely the case, though.
D1 was applying for an internship at a bulge bracket IB. I called up a good friend to put in a good word for her. My friend contacted his favorite HR person to review D1’s resume. D1 went through the process and was given an offer. My friend then got a call from HR to ask what he could do to make sure she would accept the offer. My friend said, “Oh no, it is all on your to get her to accept. I just recommended her.” D1 did get multiple offers and my friend told her to do what was best for her.
My kids’ private school was very tight knit. The parents at the school often created internships for each other’s kids.
“It’s not what you know, it’s who you know.”
My company gives a referral bonus if someone you recommend is hired. A lot of companies do. So yes, I refer people to HR. If I know the hiring manager, and I feel comfortable with the person’s skills, I may put in a good word. Would I ever directly hire a friend? No. Would I recommend someone? Absolutely. After that, it’s up to them.
I don’t know if these people would have gotten the job or whatever if I had not said anything. I don’t have that kind of pull. But my recommendation/referral didn’t hurt.
Let’s be honest, a great many job offers are the result of knowing someone. If I have two equally qualified candidates and I already know one of them and know they can do the job, that’s who I will hire.
You raise good points here and I have been thinking about them.
I really did help my kids get an interview at the restaurant they worked in in HS. Not what we think of as major parental career help but it was what I could offer and it was definitely more $ than fast food, for them. And I know that my kids are bright and were able to do those jobs, and also that they likely jumped the app pile because in a certain sense, the manager was doing ME, his friend, a favor hiring my kids. From his standpoint, they’d be less likely to blow off work or quit without notice or just suck, because I’d expect them to do well with my friend. They in turn brought in a couple of their friends.
When it came time for post-college jobs, I didn’t have any connections to offer either kid. But both used connections. One had friends working at the company and was referred (friend got referral bonus, as well).
The other got an offer from a company that only interviewed her initially because her college advisor knew someone and he made a call. She wound up taking a different job she didn’t have an “in” with at all, in the end.
I think of that adviser referral/rec as the type of networking that hardworking kids of unconnected parents can, and should, seek out and use.
Nope. I have connections, my ex has connections, but we have not capitalized on them. My kids have earned their own connections through their own hard work and their own prominent involvement in their unique ECs. I want people to want to work with them because of who they are and what they do. They will never be “so-and-so’s kids” - not if I can help it.
Some of you are hemming and hawing over equal qualifications.
But that is not what the OP asked.
We raised our kids in a bubble where much of this was just on offer. Work colleagues asked husband if our high school kids were available for interesting, good for a resume, summer jobs. They were. Kids were invited backstage to meet celebrities and, once, to participate in a production. At a party, a famous doctor asked me if my college science kid was going to be applying to medical school because, if so, he would like to write him a recommendation and “everyone I ever wrote a recommendation for has gotten in.” This gentleman had never met my son, though he had read about an award son had recently won. Son wasn’t interested in medical school.
VeryHappy is correct. This is privilege. In my mind, I always called it the old boys club.
Garland, I don’t know the answer but the first step must be recognizing it exists.
I’ve been asked to recommend someone for a job through contacts but never would do it unless I would hire the person myself. It wouldn’t reflect well on me.
There are numerous sources for contacts —go make some. Do the work of networking. Figure out how to get from point A to point B.
Do good work and tell people your goals. They’ll admire the work and help you succeed if they can through their network.
College associations, Greek society, internships, jobs, professional assoc, volunteer organizations, community organizations, church, school ties, teachers, classmates, etc. are all contact possibilities.
First day at college my D’s professor said “This is a small industry. Look around this room. These are people who you will run into, work with, you might hire them or they hire you years from now. Don’t burn bridges.”
Hard work — Even mowing someone’s lawn and being conscientious and working hard can get you noticed. I know because we helped our lawn mower out to get his business started.
Our neighbor is a car salesman who gave us such personal service that all our friends bought from him also.
Our house contractor was a carpenter who worked on a friends house and did a truly impressive job. Our friend told us about him and how he wanted to start his own business and we became his first real contracting job. Then he built another 4 or 5 homes all based on our recommendation in quick succession. Chain reaction. Now he has a pretty big commercial business.
Having contacts and networking is not magic nor privilege—-it’s work. But the contact only grants an interview or puts you on someone’s radar. Without talent or qualifications the hiring won’t happen.
I hired D1’s 3 good friends from college at. I have since moved on, but 3 of them are still there and they are top performers. I wouldn’t have hired them if they didn’t qualify, but I did push to get them ahead of other applicants. I am not sure who was leveraging more on the relationship. It was hard to hire good technical people back then and all them graduated from Cornell Engineering school, so I am sure they would have had many options. I think my old company actually lucked out.
Yes. I also extend help to others. I hire friends kids and friends of my kids. I meet people who impress me in public and ask them to interview. I hire people my employees recommend and give them a bonus.
I did turn down an offer to help my d get into a college she loved. If she couldn’t get in on her own we didn’t think she’d thrive. And she didn’t get in and ended up going to a school that fit her well.
Lately I’ve been down a rabbit hole of young influencer blogs and instagram accounts, and thinking about how difficult, if not impossible, it is for unconnected young people to make a career that way. Unlike the youngest billionaire, they don’t start out with a household name, or a star manager. No doubt Kardashian is very hardworking and talented at what she does. Still I find it eye opening.
When we had our thread on Paying for the Party, it seemed to me the most important take away from the book was the advantages of being connected, and how multi-generational it all becomes. Privilege perpetuates itself.