Our D helped polish S’s cover letter as well as cover letters of several cousins. She’s a pretty good editor. We were never asked for our input.
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My proofreading was simple proofreading … I didn’t suggest any substantive changes, just made sure that grammar and spelling were correct.
My older kids definitely helped their siblings with resumes and proofreading (my husband has been with the same company fir 53+ years, I haven’t worked in 25+ years, so we probably aren’t the most helpful). They are 22, 22, 24, 27 and 28, so on similar pages.
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My kids didn’t let us look at their college applications or essays. They did get proofreading/editing help from their friends and S got some for school and counselor. We offered but they wanted to guide their own path. As they both ended up with results they were happy with, we have no complaints.
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We discussed some job searches with the kids. That is about it. Helping them understand the offers. My sons job interview for his current job out of college was like 4 tests and then 3 interviews. Nothing for us to do but listen when he said “I am progressing and have another interview with X team now”. Lol
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Our 22 grad had to sit through 4 polygraph tests, each lasted hours. I sure as heck wasn’t participating in those. LOL!
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I agree with both you and @abasket. I don’t know of a single young adult who has ever brought a parent to an interview or who would want a parent to be there. Talk about sabotaging your kids job prospects. For the record, I don’t think resumetemplate.com is a very reliable news source. Lol. But - I don’t doubt that this type of thing could be happening on some level. There is no shortage of crazy parents who are willing to cross boundaries. My sister is a law school professor. She has had parents contacting her about their kids grades in her class. She also serves on the hiring committee and recently had a younger guy (in his mid 30s) show up for an interview for a faculty position in sweatpants and a Mickey Mouse T-shirt. He obviously didn’t run his wardrobe choice by his mom.
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What happened during the first 3 that they had to do a 4th 
…
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We were quite involved with S21’s recent job search. We left him to his own devices, and his school’s internship office, to secure an internship at which he was unsuccessful. Now that he’s graduated when he started job searching dh became quite involved in helping him to polish his resume, recommending steps he could take, places to look for jobs etc. Dh also reached out to his friend and business network to find people who would be willing to sit down with ds to do coffee chats and informational interviews. Every day dh was following up with ds with suggestions and making sure he was following up with the people he had been in contact with. These were all supports that ideally his school’s internship office would have provided but did not. Ds is also very introverted and was really lacking in self-confidence so he really needed some additional scaffolding. In the end he managed to find his own job but all the work that dh had him doing speaking to people and polishing his resume really paid off.
He’s now 4 weeks into his job and is really starting to hit his stride. I only wish we had taken these steps when he was internship hunting.
As for ds19 he’s currently in grad school but we will not be at all involved when he starts job searching. He’ll be very unlikely to need our help. Dh did set up an informational interview for him with a work colleague last year so he could learn more about some non-academic career applications of what he’s studying, but that’s likely to be the extent of our involvement.
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We were pleased that S decided to get to job fairs from freshman year in college. They had job fairs at the school of engineering regularly and he had us mail up his blue blazer that he wore for HS graduation so he could attend and look fashionable enough (I believe free food may have also been served).
I think the job fairs were helpful as he was offered two different internships to start after his sophomore year of college—one at our local electric company and one at local college. He chose the latter, since it allowed him to take off for a chunk of time in the middle of the summer to go to Taiwan with his sister and his cousin. The electric company said that was not possible. The next summer, he interned at NASA. Those internships were helpful at giving him an edge in landing career offers for his SR year.
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That’s very nice. I’d heard that NASA has dramatically cut back on hiring new grads. Was that last year or this year?
The Army told our son what his job was/is/will be with no help from us.
Army. Taking the guesswork out of life since 1775.
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Same here. They shared the results of the job searches after they had the jobs.
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No involvement here. Found S23’s Linkedin and it’s impressive except for one grammatical error. Keeping my lip zipped until he asks.
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@Greatpyrmom, are you looking for contemporary experiences or historical perspectives as well?
My involvement in my daughter’s job searches has been similar to gwnorth. I have reviewed and helped format/edit resumes, LinkedIn profiles, and cover letters. I have done internet searches to help locate job listings (I actually found the job she has now when was looking for a new job.) I have helped her by doing mock interviews and listen to her practice presentations she had to do for job interviews.
I know many parents who have also reached out to their friends and families to see if their companies were hiring. In a tough market, it is helpful to network with everybody (even if they are your parent’s connections).
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I was primarily inquiring about how involved parents currently are in their kids’ job hunts. The mods broke this topic off from the “job prospects for '24 and '25 grads and beyond” thread. Had I known I was starting a new topic I would have made clear I am interested in how parents are helping their kids navigate the uncertainties we are facing now - tariffs, cuts to government funding, the rise of AI. I have an older kid who graduated into a very different job market in 2021. As fascinating as it is to hear about experiences from several years ago, I’m not sure how applicable or useful those anecdotes are. I’m sure there are plenty students still finding permanent positions without any input from their parent but I am observing a lot of parents I know involving themselves much more than they were a few years back .Just within my S22’s friend group, I am seeing fewer internships translate into permanent job offers and it’s causing a lot of anxiety for both parents and students alike. I was just curious how common it is for parents to take an active role and to what degree that parental role may be. Most people I know arent hesitating to use their networks to help their children whether they want to publicly admit that or not.
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My experience is somewhat different since both spouse and I are self-employed and have been for decades (the last job I interviewed for was in 1995!) so we have very little to teach our kids about the job market. However we both have PhDs and we were very involved with helping S18 apply for grad fellowships (Truman, Marshall etc), which are a very involved process and required a lot of forethought to create an attractive resume during college.
He did fine with jobs/internships on his own (AFAIK he only applied to one company for his junior year internship and got that job, which he’s still doing) but he’s now the one who has helped his siblings with resume, cover letter and interview advice since he’s quite involved in recruitment for the entry level positions at his current firm. We do help S23 with emails to ask about opportunities and have identified some things that would look good on his resume (he’s also interested in grad school/research).
That was my impression from your original post. Thanks for clarifying.
Agreed. It’s a very different landscape right now.
You may want to update the title to makes it clear that you’re looking for current experiences.
My daughter recently finished her graduate degree (required for her field) and we talk about this all the time. I did not help her with the actual job search, but our conversation about what is happening definitely helped her make the decision she did. It is different now than just a few short years ago.
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