‘Helicopter parents’ crash-land on careers

CHICAGO — Some parents are writing their college-age children’s resumes. Others are acting as their children’s “representatives,” hounding college career counselors, showing up at job fairs and sometimes going as far as calling employers to ask why their son or daughter didn’t get a job.

It’s the next phase in helicopter parenting, a term coined for those who have hovered over their children’s lives from kindergarten to college. Now they are inserting themselves into their children’s job searches — and school officials and employers say it’s a problem that may be hampering some young people’s careers.

“It has now reached epidemic proportions,” says Michael Ellis, director of career and life education at Delaware Valley College, a small private school in Doylestown, Pa.

At the school’s annual job fair last year, he says, one father accompanied his daughter, handed out her resume and answered most of the questions the recruiters were asking the young woman. Even more often, Mr. Ellis receives calls from parents, only to find out later that their soon-to-be college grad was sitting next to the parent, quietly listening.

Jobs counselors at universities across the country say such experiences are commonplace.

“My main concern is the obvious need of the students to develop their independence and confidence,” says Kate Brooks, director of the Liberal Arts Career Services at the University of Texas. “I think it’s great that parents want to share their advice — and even better that students of this age are willing to listen — but I think the boundaries get crossed sometimes.”

Donnell Turner, assistant director of the career center at Loyola University in Chicago, is just starting to notice the trend. He couldn’t believe it when he saw the first of a few parents walk into a recent job fair for students.

“What is she doing here?” he thought to himself. Some students had the same thought.

“My parents are very supportive, but they’re certainly not telling me what to do,” said Ferris Wilson, a senior majoring in accounting and finance at Loyola who navigated the job fair by herself.

That said, she has seen many examples of parents who “dictate every move — even what their kids major in.”

Often parents don’t even know they’re overdoing it. And it’s not just at college.

Barbara Dwyer, a career coach in Sacramento, Calif., says she spoke at a Future Farmers of America meeting and met a mother whose son wanted to raise sheep for a living. The mom excitedly told Ms. Dwyer how she had done extensive research to find out what it would take for her son to get started in the business.

“I asked, ‘Why did you do it?’ And she looked shocked,” Ms. Dwyer says.

Indeed, although many people have heard about the helicopter parent phenomenon, it’s tough to find moms or dads who consider themselves one.

“You know, somebody called me that,” says Diane Krier-Morrow, whose son recently graduated from Saint Louis University and is now teaching English in Taiwan. She came to the Loyola job fair to get information from employers for her son and brought copies of his resume to hand out.

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