When her son Spencer said he planned to be a grocery store clerk after graduating last month from the University of California, Davis, his mother, Shirley Dong, took to social media.
In July, she posted a graduation photo and wrote: “My son Spencer graduated with a degree in communications and is searching for a job while currently doing a summer internship at his local church.”
Ms. Dong, a 56-year-old school nurse in Castro Valley, Calif., added: “He is a hard worker and is very kind!” The leads poured in. “She helped me land my first real interview,” said Mr. Dong, 22, who is job-hunting alongside the internship.
With many college grads sheltering at home since March, parents are stepping in to steer their job searches. Paul McDonald, senior executive director at staffing firm Robert Half, said he is seeing “many parents that are actively involved” as a result of the pandemic.
Shirley Dong and her son, Spencer, whom she praised online as a hard worker and ‘very kind.’
Photo: Rachel DongAbout half of graduating seniors said they enlist parents or relatives in looking for jobs, but only 26% of those said family members were a useful resource, according to 2019 data from the National Association of Colleges and Employers. The numbers are increasing as entry-level jobs become harder to find, said Philip Gardner, head of the Collegiate Employment Research Institute at Michigan State University who researches parental involvement.
Entry-level postings in May fell almost 70% to 14,752 open jobs from 45,531 in May 2019, according to Glassdoor, a site with job reviews and salaries. Members of Generation Z, who were born after 1996, are particularly vulnerable, according to a Pew Research Center study from March. In the survey, 46% of Gen Zers—a higher portion than millennials and other generations—said a member of their household had lost a job or taken a pay cut because of the pandemic.
Help from parents isn’t always welcome, even in a tough job market. Amy Levantin, 56, an attorney in Westport, Conn., is thrilled that her 22-year-old daughter, Jenna, landed a job in nursing, but the hunt had its tense moments.
Jenna, who graduated from the University of Virginia in May, shared with her mother a spreadsheet she created to organize applications for residencies at hospitals across the country. Her mother was helpful when it came to editing her essays, Jenna said, but badgered her about submitting applications early and not waiting for deadlines. “She was freaking out the whole time,” Jenna said. They disagreed over interviews. Ms. Levantin advised her daughter to fly to hospitals for in-person ones while Jenna opted for the virtual route. “I was a little upset about that,” Ms. Levantin said. But it all worked out: This month, Jenna will begin as a nurse resident in the pediatric cardiac intensive care unit at Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt in Nashville.
Jenna Levantin posed in her cap and gown and stethoscope before her virtual graduation in May from the University of Virginia.
Photo: Ryan ThomasAmy Feind Reeves, a Boston career coach has had to set boundaries between her clients aiming to enter the workforce and their nosy parents—who usually foot the bill for her career counseling. Ms. Feind Reeves asks parents not to get involved in writing cover letters or editing résumés. To ease parents’ nerves, she emails updates about their child’s job search without revealing confidential information. She encourages parents to tap their connections for leads. “When a parent gets involved to help network, it goes much, much faster,” she said.
Jennifer Miles, 60, hired Ms. Feind Reeves to help her son, Miles Denney, who graduated in 2019 from Skidmore College and was laid off earlier this year. Ms. Miles, who lives in Cambridge, Mass., said having a career coach has helped their relationship because she can check in with Ms. Feind Reeves and not pester her son about whether he has completed job applications or pursued connections. The check-ins make things less stressful for Ms. Miles, but when she sees her 24-year-old son playing videogames during the day, she can have misgivings: “Sometimes I wonder,” she said, “if I’m making it too comfortable.”
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Unlike a decade ago, when some helicopter parents “were being very overt and explicit,” many parents today worry about appearing pushy, said Prof. Gardner of the Collegiate Employment Research Institute at Michigan State University. “They got such bad raps that they kind of went underground,” he said. Some parents want to let their child feel in control, he said, even if they can’t resist advising on cover letters and interviews as well as making introductions.
Real-estate developer Preston Byrd, 49, helped his daughter Angelica, a student at the University of Memphis, secure a dietetics internship that is likely to turn into a full-time position. In April, after learning that the spouse of a business associate heads a nutrition program at a local hospital, Mr. Byrd passed the information along to his daughter, 21. To avoid the helicopter label, he deliberately didn’t check back with his contact. “I only created the opportunity. I didn’t want to put any influence in it,” said Mr. Byrd, who adds that Angelica spent almost two months pursuing the internship before getting it.
Preston Byrd helped his daughter Angelica secure an internship that is likely to become a full-time job.
Photo: Preston ByrdRachel Spates, whose son Cooper graduates from Auburn University in December, runs “dessert and decisions” nights to help him decide on a career. The 49-year-old education executive in Sharpsburg, Ga., says the low-key approach is meant to encourage Cooper, 22, to research options and not be overwhelmed by choices.
“I knew we had to buckle down and talk about stuff,” Ms. Spates said. Cooper is in charge of financing his next steps and she wants to help “him spend the money more wisely.”
She and her son—a double major in business and communications—talk over dessert after Sunday dinner. So far they have had “peach cobbler and policy jobs” followed by “lemon bars and low-cost law schools.” Coming up: “mudslides and military.” They just added a combo Cooper requested: “building science and brownie sundaes,” Ms. Spates said.
Mr. McDonald, of Robert Half, encourages recent graduates to find a mentor in their field who has experience in the specific type of job search. “Parents have great intentions, but they don’t [always] have experience in the area,” he said.
Sara and Daniel Kutliroff, right, tried to encourage their son, Gavi, left, with a stack of the dozens of rejection letters Daniel received to his job applications in the ’90s.
Photo: Taylor Glascock for The Wall Street JournalSara Kutliroff, 46, a web-content writer in Evanston, Ill., said it can be difficult to identify with her son Gavi’s hunt for work. “When I was searching [for a job], I was looking in a newspaper,” Ms. Kutliroff said. She has reached out to high school buddies for leads in New York, because Gavi, who majored in East Asian studies and psychology at Brandeis University, would like to move to the city and build a career in social work.
Gavi, 24, said he has applied for 30 jobs but thus far only five potential employers have bothered to email rejections. After he was cut from an interview round, his mother wanted to encourage him and dug out a folder of about 60 rejection letters that his father, Daniel, received in the ’90s when trying to find work as an actuary.
But to Gavi, the letters were a reminder of how difficult it is to stand out from other applicants. “To be entirely honest, I didn’t feel that it was completely relevant,” he said, of his father’s experience. “I’ve felt like I’ve had it a bit harder.”
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