Gen Z worker's bizarre interview act exposes 'problematic' work trend

A leading Australian recruiter has revealed the interview moment that left him completely stunned. After being in the industry for years, Graham Wynn has seen his fair share of bizarre excuses, remarks and situations.

But the head of Superior People Recruitment told Yahoo Finance about a young woman who recently came for an interview. He said she was in her late teens or early 20s and brought someone with her.

"She came for a job interview and brought her mum," Wynn said. "I told [the mum], 'You can't come in as well'. And she said, 'Well, I just want to make sure she says the right thing'.

"I said, 'That's for her, not for you'."

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Wynn understands that parents just want what's best for their kids but this can have a much bigger impact.

"They're actually taking away the thought process of the kid because they're saying, 'We see how it should be', and they're making sure the child doesn't make a mistake," the recruitment expert explained.

"It's over-parenting. In some ways, I think over-parenting is a bit of a problem.

"They're not allowing the kids to stand on their own two feet and actually, in some way, sugarcoating what the real world is like."

Wynn said not only was the mother getting in the way by trying to help in the interview, but she was also not giving her kid the skills to stand up for themselves.

"That's causing a problem when they get to the workforce because in the workforce your parents aren't there. If you do something wrong there are consequences," he added.

But this isn't an isolated incident.

Parents need to let their kids find their feet

Fellow recruiter Tammie Christofis Ballis recently called out mums and dads for being too involved with their kids' jobs.

She was asked on a livestream by a parent about why their child might not have been getting any shifts at Kmart.

The question left her "perplexed" and she said young workers need to take charge rather than let their parents do all the work.

"I said to her, 'Why are you asking me? You need to be getting your daughter to ask her manager at work', because if they did that, they wouldn't be asking me questions," Ballis said.

"The reason could be anything. It could be shift freezes, maybe the daughter wasn't performing at work, maybe she waits to be told what to do rather than showing initiative. It could be absolutely anything.

"But it showed me that this parent wasn't helping her child. She was just trying to find answers through a random on the internet.

"Get your kid to speak to their manager, they've gotta get used to uncomfortable conversations. They've gotta get used to being a bit confrontational. You can do it professionally and politely, but it's not worth being passive and waiting and never finding out an answer to something that you really want to know.

"Otherwise, their confidence gets shot, they don't work out what the problem is and they keep doing the same thing in the next jobs."

Young workers warned to 'pick up the phone' or lose their shot

Ballis said young Aussies who are hunting for a job also need to be comfortable answering their phones otherwise they'll be left in the dust.

She said there have been numerous occasions where she has tried to reach out to a candidate and has been met with the same response.

“They don’t want to pick up the phone or they want to text. A lot of them say, 'Can you email me and let me know that you’re ringing',” she told Yahoo Finance.

But the recruiter had a blunt message to the Gen Z and millennial workers who operate this way.

“Be an adult, understand that the job market is a competition and if you don’t want to be flexible you’re going to miss out on an opportunity. It’s really that simple," she said.

Ballis said she even had some parents “ringing, chasing up their kid’s job applications” for younger job seekers under 25.

“Come on. They’re a legal adult, under the Privacy Act I’m not allowed to talk to you about it anyway. I don’t care that you’re the mother,” she said.

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