How helicopter parenting and other adult errors are making some employers less likely to hire Gen Z employees

A new survey reveals that many employers are steering clear of hiring Gen Z workers, who have not been well served or prepared by the adults in their lives.

Okay, you REALLY need to read the piece I’m going to share, think about it, and then share with friends. It might make you mad or defensive or guilty. But it’s important. This has to be something we confront for the sake of our kids. (And yes, I know I just said the other day that I wasn’t going to be a regular at sending stuff but I also said that I would still pass things along sometimes, I just could no longer commit to doing it regularly):

One of my big themes over the years—and something many, many others have been saying as well—is that when we over-parent—when we helicopter or snowplow parent—we are doing our kids a big disservice and creating a situation that will eventually have serious consequences.

There is always going to be a bill that eventually comes due for helicopter parenting, and it is inevitably a bill our kids will have to pay.

At some point, there will be a problem we can’t fix or manage, inevitably, there will be an authority we can’t cajole, push, persuade, pressure, influence, plead with, etc.

Here is some evidence of that. Employers may well be steering clear of hiring Gen Z employees, and much of this is really more about parenting than about the kids themselves.

My friend Suzanne Lucas, aka the Evil H.R. Lady has this stunning breakdown in a piece she wrote for Workable titled, Reverse ageism: why do companies avoid Gen Z workers? and I strongly encourage you to read the whole thing.

A few highlights, however:

The survey found that many managers prefer working with older, more experienced employees and are willing to pay a premium to ensure that.

Here are some key points from the Intelligent.com study:

• 38% of employers avoid hiring recent college graduates in favor of older employees

• 1 in 5 employers have had a recent college graduate bring a parent to a job interview

• 58% say recent college graduates are unprepared for the workforce

• Nearly half of employers have had to fire a recent college graduate

• 53% say recent college grads struggle with eye contact

• 50% say recent college grads ask for unreasonable compensation

• 47% say candidates show up dressed inappropriately

• 21% say candidates refused to turn on cameras for video interviews

• 63% say new grads can’t handle their workload

Does it surprise you that 20% of the companies surveyed said that they had parents who showed up to job interviews? I will bet you that zero teachers/coaches/etc. are surprised.

Professionally, Suzanne is an HR professional who spends a whole lot of time thinking, writing, and speaking about the workplace and is always worth a read. She is also a mom and understands parenting today. With these two perspectives, she has some blunt and bracing thoughts for the parents, professors, and employers of Gen Z.

There is a lot here that’s especially important for parents. Again, pease, do yourself and your child a favor and read the whole thing here, but Suzanne makes a few key points worth sharing:

A survey conducted by Intelligent.com in December 2023 found that many employers are steering clear of Gen Z employees.

If you ask me, I think the goal is to show how awful Gen Z is, and instead, it demonstrates three things to me:

1. Every generation thinks the next generation is lazy and awful.

2. If all laziness and awfulness of Gen Z is true, boy, Gen X, and Baby Boomers are bad parents.

3. There is something wrong with our universities.

Suzanne feels that a lot of these problems reflect poorly on us—the parents—not on the kids themselves:

And who raised these good-for-nothing Gen Zs who don’t have the sense to put some pants on, turn on their cameras, and cover their tattoos for a job interview? Well, that would be Gen X and the younger boomers.

Yes, it’s ridiculous that we (as a Gen Xer, I feel like I can say “we” here) complain that parents show up for interviews. Who is showing up? It’s not Gen Z that is going to their toddler’s job interviews. It’s the Gen X and Boomer parents. Whose fault is that? Again, not Gen Z.

Why doesn’t Gen Z know how to dress appropriately for a job interview? Perhaps it was because Mommy and Daddy ran to the school to complain about dress codes. When you’re fighting for the right for your son to have his waistband fall below his rear end and your daughter to have her midriff showing, don’t be surprised when your little darlings don’t know how to dress for a job interview.

You’ve spent 22 years saying, ”You be you, honey. Clothes don’t matter.” It turns out children do listen – sometimes.

There’s another source of trouble here:

Where does Gen Z get wildly inappropriate ideas about reasonable salaries? Well, from school, of course. A joint survey from PublicSquare and RedBalloon of business owners found that 91% believe universities “are fostering unrealistic expectations among students regarding post-graduation and professional life.”

Yikes.

Students graduate expecting the salaries of people who have worked for years and the responsibilities to match. Sixty-three percent said salary expectations were off, and 50%had false beliefs about work difficulty.

Parents send their children to university so that their children can get good jobs. That’s clear, but it’s not necessarily what universities are doing. Instead, some universities are fostering an environment where every need is handled.

For instance, at Stanford University, there are more administrators and faculty members than actual students. Businesses run much more lean than that. You’re expected to be responsible for yourself and carry out tedious tasks you don’t want to do.

Overall, work is called work because it’s hard. That’s why people pay you. It’s not all fun and games.

There’s something really important to keep in mind. This is a generation for whom the idea of fairness has come to be incredibly important, with “fair” sometimes being stretched to mean things it really was never intended to convey:

And one more thing; Of course, companies are willing to pay experienced workers more than inexperienced workers. This isn’t discrimination. This is smart. Imagine how people would complain if you paid Emily and Jacob at 22 with one internship, the same salary as Jennifer and Michael with 30 years of experience.

Suzanne is no mere harumphing, “kids-these-days-are-worthless-back-when-I-was-a-kid-we-had-it-together” types. She makes some really important points about kids these days—and how that has been something adults have complained about basically as long as we have recorded history:

Every generation thinks the next generation is lazy and awful.

This really shouldn’t be a shock to anyone. Paul Fairie, a researcher at the University of Calgary, posted a brilliant thread on

Twitter detailing how each generation complains about the younger generation – going back to 1894. He could even have gone further back to sometime around 300-600 BC, when Greeks complained that children “began to be the tyrants, not the slaves, of their households.”

The reality is that younger people will never be as good at being like older people precisely because they are younger. They have to be trained. They have to learn by experience. There’s no royal road to maturity. Complaining about young people just makes you sound, well, old.

Happy parenting! If we can here things like this, carefully consider, then adjust as needed, we are blessing our children’s lives—and when we do things like this, we most certainly have got this!

Best,

Braden