I have to say that since the article interviewed HR Professionals, I truly have no confidence that any of the incidents actually occurred.

Perhaps the only people more incompetent than today's millenials are today's HR Professionals.

I believe it because I've experienced it! I interview ~30 candidates a year for 5 internship positions (I'm not in HR, I'm the hiring manager). My two worst:

1. A young man who brough his mother to the interview. I sent her to the waiting room, although really there was no point in interviewing him in any case.

2. A young lady who brought a "cheat sheet" that was one page, written in tiny handwriting. She used this sheet to answer all of my questions, both technical and fit, by reading off prepared answers from her sheet. After I asked her to flip it over she was lost, and shocked.

Really, how does is a 22 year old think this is appropriate?

Ill believe it but i do not believe these are typical. Tho my mom was a bir helicoptery when i was in grad school... Had to tell her it was NOT helpful

Why are HR professionals interviewing candidates? Do those HR pros have any knowledge of the skills required to do a job? And isn't an interview by a HR professional the last stage after a candidate has been technically assessed and found to be technically suitable for the job in previous rounds? If the candidates were as bad as the HR professionals are making it out to be, how come they were not eliminated in the rounds before the interview by the HR pros? I especially ask this in the context of the mangerial post in avery dennisons r&d where he must have definitely cleared previous rounds. And his near certain chance was ruined by taking a phone call that too when talking to HR? Most people consider HR to be not worth their time and that might have been a reason to be casual about it while the guy might have been far more careful in the previous rounds because there he would have been dealing with people who actually did some work and had some real knowledge.

And if the interview is done directly by a HR pro, then these examples are obviously just the exceptions. How many people indulge in all these antics and are rejected versus the number of people who do not and are rejected by the HR pros?

Seriously, this piece of reporting raises far more questions than answers

"A young man who brought his mother to the interview" - did you know whether he brought his mother to the interview or his mother brought him? Maybe he did not have a car and so his mother drove him to the interview.

Most people consider HR to be not worth their time and that might have been a reason to be casual about it while the guy might have been far more careful in the previous rounds because there he would have been dealing with people who actually did some work and had some real knowledge.

In which case the dummy still dropped the ball. Whether he considered HR not to be worth his time, or even if HR really wasn't worth his time, his disrespect was more than enough to eliminate him.

Forget the Millennials for a minute; what kind of idiot PARENT thinks it is okay to "tag-along" to his/her 20-something's job interview?

I mean, it isn't like their child's first day of kindergarten . . . Or maybe, in the parent's eyes it is?

I believe it totally. Every so often we'll advertise for entry-level positions and we'll get mothers calling us about their children applying. Please note these are for jobs that require the applicant be over 18, and that is stated on the ad. (Never fathers calling, just mothers.)

I have been in HR before, and in all of the companies I worked for, HR people did NOT do interviews, except if the head of the HR department was hiring an HR rep; the manager of the department that the job was for did the interviews. HR got involved AFTER the candidate was offered the position, processing paperwork, setting up payroll info, that sort of thing.

Of course, this was back in the day when parents did NOT accompany ANYone to an interview. I blame the liberal idiots who started inserting themselves into everyone else's lives, insisting that everyone was "their own special snowflake" and giving out prizes for failure. This proliferation of over-inflated senses of entitlement is what is killing any chance this country has to right itself. Well, that and the Kardashians.

Yeah, I've done some interviewing in my time. Although I haven't seen anything as bizarre as the incidents quoted (taking a cat to the interview? Who thinks of that?), I will say that a lot of interviewees today are not well prepared, even ones interviewing for professional positions. To be somewhat fair to them, no one -- not their parents, not their schools -- is telling them what they need to know or do. I've interviewed computer science grads from schools whose names you would recognize, who didn't know anything about basic CS concepts. I don't know if the schools didn't bother to teach these things, or if the students were never required to learn them, but nonetheless.

The weirdest one I ever had was the young lady with an IT degree from a local two-year school. She came dressed in a very short skirt. During the course of the interview, I stood up to write something on my white board. When I did this, she came over and sat on the edge of my desk, and she wasn't terribly modest about how she did it. She stayed there for the rest of the interview. My co-workers gave me a ribbing about it afterwards. (No, we didn't hire her.)

The fact that the interview appeared in an HR publication doesn't necessarily imply that the interview was being done by HR people...they may have been reporting what they heard from the hiring manager.

(The usage of the term "hiring manager" may be confusing. In most companies, it refers to the manager who is responsible for getting the work done and needs the person hired...not the HR individual. The proper term for the HR person who seeks out and sometimes interviews candidates is "recruiter.")

None surprise me, I've been involved on both sides of the interviewing process.
I do have to admit one time my Mom was there for a job interview for a factory job. I was 15 at the time, and needed a ride there, and she wouldn' stay at the car. Didn't get the job.

On the interviewer side: To me the main surprising thing was, how blank the previous job experience is on most 20-somethings resumes. Sure flipping burgers isn't glamorous, or babysitting, but it shows to the interviewer that you actually could be trusted to show up. That is half of what an interviewer cares about. You do a real diservice to yourself in not having some kind of a job before graduation.
As to the HR department being involved in hiring, it depends on the place. Usually they do a first cut of the resumes, but weren't involved again till,it was at the job offer part. But I can see in some places where special skills aren't needed HR doing the entire interview process.

Sadly, I believe this. I noticed a change in medical students, of all people. One medical student wanted the university to pay his speeding ticket and get him a lawyer because he had to hurry back to campus for class. True story.

The HR department of my former company did the first round of interviews to weed out the worthless ones, like people who bring cats to interviews. There have always been people who blow the interview in spectacular ways, so I'm not sure anything has changed except the details.

Sure flipping burgers isn't glamorous, or babysitting, but it shows to the interviewer that you actually could be trusted to show up.

When I was applying for my first job, I was advised not to include pre-professional work because it was unrelated to the job at hand. Fortunately, I had lots of internships under my belt, but these people might just be getting bad advice.

Did that Levis commercial about 'all you need is jeans and your attitude because you are it' ever air here in the US?
I've got it here.
http://americanhousewifeinlondon.blogspot.com/2012/12/how-bacon-rolls-and-levis-goforth.html
'You're the leader of the world, holding onto the thread that makes it all happen.' Seriously. That's the ad pitch. They bring cats to interviews because they think the company is lucky to be interviewing them.

Timely, I teach Business and Entrepreneurship in a Nevada High School. I spend 9 weeks on this topic for each class. I start with Interest Inventories and Career Description and we narrow it down to actual jobs the kids can apply for or the entry level positions they plan to look for. I teach them to write a very plain direct resume, that targets the job description and even create a cover letter in case it is called for. Then we watch interviews, have HR and Hiring professionals guest lecture, and role play different interviews with students in both positions. My students will even write the interview questions. This area was deemed so important by the state that every Career and Technical Education class must meet the standards in this are along with their main focus, I am lucky that is is part of my focus. The state standards are here: http://cteae.nv.gov/Resources/Career_and_Technical_Education/CTE_Documents/
There are places where this is being taught, but most “Academic” students will never see it unless they stumble upon the Placement Center at their Universities and take advantage of it.

Monica P.
"When I was applying for my first job, I was advised not to include pre-professional work because it was unrelated to the job at hand. Fortunately, I had lots of internships under my belt, but these people might just be getting bad advice. "

Much of that bad advice is coming from people who have never hired anyone. Looking at an interview from their perspective is a very different view.
If you have several past jobs sure leave some unrelated ones out. But have something there.

Since few people have done hiring, but many people have gone on first dates or on-line dating. There are a lot of similarities. Think of hiring like dating with you initially looking for red flags or green flags in the other person. In front of you is a 30 yr old who has never had a date before in his life? Big red flag, as opposed to "Sure I've dated, but I'm looking for something more serious now." You don't need to name them all, or give a lot of detail. And sure can leave out that drunken one night stand. But have dated before 30.

In general, an enployer spends less than a minute looking over a resume, for the first cut. If it survives the first cut it will get a minute read.

Hi Amy, folks should see the brazen youth of portland, oregon. They range from young retirement communities to spoiled middle-schoolers. Overpriviliged youth with little to no concept of employment. The GQ article on them barely touched on how spoiled these kids really are. It's not all of them but enough, as was stated earlier. Young people here, sadly, are the children of parents who shouldn't have had sex.

Problem with resume/interviewing advice...

There ain't no damn telling who you'll be sitting across from. It's a crapshoot.

I've been in hiring stages where some gorgeous, utterly gorgeous resume would come along, and coworkers (and especially managers) would be swooning.

Me: "Uh, this looks like crap, very prettily fonted up. Not showing relevant experience, and look at [patterns], which to me indicates a problem."

... And usually the interview showed, yep, [pattern] indicated exactly that.

Some people care about years and years prior, some people don't.

We interviewed one guy, who thanked us for every question we asked.

"Thank you for that question... Thank you, that's a very good question..."

Me: "If he talks like that in the office, he'll get strangled." (He didn't get the offer.)

Agree with Nic:

> Ill believe it but i do not believe
> these are typical.

There are always horror stories when young people try to get jobs.

I sincerely believe that in a larger view, people in the West have forgotten that they're supposed to do things for each other, and are supposed to be judged by their efforts... Financially and otherwise.

But this is something else. We all like to cluck about those long-haired punks with their hats on backwards and their rock 'n roll music.

This is something my Mom would do if I didn't fiercely resist her many attempts to insert herself into my professional life. She once asked for the number of my supervisor at a lab because she thought I was working awfully hard and deserved a raise; I told her any attempted call would result in a 6-month penalty wherein she would receive zero contact from me. Crisis averted.

2. A young lady who brought a "cheat sheet" that was one page, written in tiny handwriting. She used this sheet to answer all of my questions, both technical and fit, by reading off prepared answers from her sheet. After I asked her to flip it over she was lost, and shocked. -- Chris at May 2, 2013 1:44 AM

I hope you don't look at someone bringing in a portfolio of relevant information the same way.

I've never run into these type of situations. But I can believe it.

When I had my artisan pastry business, I had to interview all sorts of these young millenial gals. Most of them had useful bachelors degrees but decided they didn't want to work in a cubicle and so they went off to pastry school. What's interesting is they were fantastic in the interview, had stellar resumes and were just spot on with their answers to my questions. Buuuut, when they were hired on, it was a different story. Constant texting, showing up late and asking to leave early to go out to dinner with their boyfriends. Eventually, they would each quit because they needed to make more money (duh) to pay back their culinary school tuition.

This one girl, I'll never forget. She was delightful to interview, super excited to be working with me and couldn't wait to get started, so I hired her to come in on a Thursday. That would be in five days. I saved up a lot of tasks for her as I had a busy weekend, and parties happen then so it was perfect. On Wednesday EVENING, she emails me to tell me she got another job and best of luck to me???? I really suffered that weekend with all my orders, and almost had a breakdown, getting three hours of sleep a night.

Then a few months later I get a linkedin request from her? Doesn't she know that's for people who have actually worked together? I'm tempted to accept her and write a bad recommendation on her wall.

As I wrote recently (somewhere), I was listening to an advice call in show on the radio and one girl...sounded like she was fresh out of college complaining that she didn't get enough pay, time off, and they weren't flexible enough... and they didn't give her the praise she deserved. On question by the host, it sounded like she did OK if not well in all these and had not done anything particularly praise worthy.

Advice is difficult because different people like different things. When I was job hunting I got advice that my resume should be organized many different ways. (Chronological, chrono w/ education & work separate, achievement based by greatness, achievement chrono...) My friend said to leave off individual class (unless they particular applied to the position) I took in grad school and he would be the type of person to hire me, yet the person who did hire me absolutely wanted to see which class I took and the individual grades.

At my employer...the tech interns get a nice salary plus the intern department gets $1000 per intern per month to make the company fun for them.

My under grade school sends out a quarterly magazine to alum and students... they recently ran an article about a fairly recent graduate...he makes $150k, takes 2 months of a year for travel and volunteering - his dog has to come to work with him. I still don't get it - they don't explain how he got the job...and frankly from the article I have no idea why he has all the perks he does. Some company (that was not named) just thought he was the greatest thing since sliced bread.

"Some company (that was not named) just thought he was the greatest thing since sliced bread."

Taking a wild guess, there's nepotism involved.

Good points Gee, most people don't think about the costs and harm a bad or unreliable hire do to a buisness. Interviewing, hiring, training all cost money. most places don't turn a profit on an employee for months after being hired, if they work out.

"college complaining that she didn't get enough pay, time off, and they weren't flexible enough... and they didn't give her the praise she deserved."

Maybe it's because I'm a millenial (barely) but I don't see anything unreasonable with flexibility and frequent feedback - including positive reinforcement for doing something merely correct.

You've got a huge workforce just coming into the "real world" that has spent the last four years (or more) finally figuring out how to manage their own time and has gotten feedback on how they're doing on a weekly basis. And they were sold on going to college by hearing "Go to college and you'll get a good paying job." Now once they graduate they find there aren't enough good paying jobs for the graduates. The flexibility on being able to decide on how and when you do a task is gone. And unless you really fuck something up, feedback on your performance is relegated to two performance reviews a year.

Offering more feedback is not difficult, it can be done informally even. Flexibility is hard to offer because it requires managing actual results and not just "is her but in her chair before 8? Does she stay until 6?" (And you need to have the former before you can have the latter.) And by offering these you can make up for the fact you can't pay the folks that work for you as much.

No one tells you the rules change. They just call you (and your generation) entitled and ridiculous.

Every generation changes the world. And the generation before it always complains about the entitled kids who want to change the rules just because the rules don't suit them.

Every generation changes the world. And the generation before it always complains about the entitled kids who want to change the rules just because the rules don't suit them.

As long as they stay off my damn lawn, I'm happy.

But you're right. I remember when people were complaining about all these lazy gen-xers who didn't know anything. Then it was gen y. Now it's millenials. From my perspective, Boomers and "Greatest Generation" are some of the most entitled asshats I've encountered. A lot of them seem to think that just because they managed to not die, they deserve some kind of reward.

@ Joe J :
"I do have to admit one time my Mom was there for a job interview for a factory job. I was 15 at the time, and needed a ride there, and she wouldn' stay at the car. Didn't get the job"

Are people who come to drop you expected to wait in the car till you complete the interview and fill out the paperwork? That sounds really rude and inconsiderate. The least I would expect is to allow them to sit in the general area and use the restroom.

@ Old RPM Daddy:
If the guy has cleared previous rounds of interviews done by competent people, then I doubt HR would even have the capability to drop him under any circumstance except salary negotiations not coming to a common ground. In this case, taking a call while talking to the HR does not seem too disrespectful to me and definitely not something which can be a ground for not hiring him especially if the people he is actually going to work with have cleared him.

No other options were given but she would not take the hint.

"If the guy has cleared previous rounds of interviews done by competent people, then I doubt HR would even have the capability to drop him under any circumstance ..."

Not clear if it was HR that dropped him, and I doubt they would have or could have if the other departments had really wanted him. But that's beside the point. He hadn't been hired yet. Putting off non-emergency calls should have been a no-brainer. But he made sure the company understood what was more important to him.

Miss one punctuation mark and change everything should say, No. Other options were given....

"A lot of them seem to think that just because they managed to not die, they deserve some kind of reward."

My father lived through the Great Depression and was on Guadalcanal when Henderson Field was named. I think that's a hell of a lot tougher than anything an Occupy Wall Street whiner has endured. You?

@Elle -
I think flexablity is a good thing and I think employers should offer it whenever reasonable. In many jobs it is not very reasonable or the way it is handled is not. Take my last employer for example - they were extremely family friendly and people had a lot of flexibility around their kids (note not around elderly parents though). The problem was that flexibility came at the other works expense. I had a co-worker who had to take her kid to his game so then I had to pick up her work and work a couple hours of unpaid overtime. This didn't stop till a new system went in that tracked support calls and upper management didn't like the numbers - primarily around my manager (Manager cover me 20(18 completed), Manager covered her 2(2 complete), I covered her 80(71), she covered me 4(0).

If she asked for more feedback I wouldn't think much of it...she used the word praise and it sounded like she knew she was doing it correctly. At most my jobs I got a lot of feedback - at least weekly - though twice a year there was a big deal.

Comparing my gen (X) with millies. For mine, they called us lazy, etc. but it clearly was not true...the Xers just weren't doing what the previous generation wanted - they were clearly working hard but at other things. The Millies seem to just want all the reward - like getting hired in as a CEO with zero experience. It appears to be quite different to me.

I coordinate a college program that employs (part-time) a number of student assistants. Some of the current student assistants are with me whenever we interview other students who want a position in the program. In discussions after the interviews, I find that student interviewers are just as appalled as I am by inappropriate behavior on the part of interviewees. "She had on earbuds and was listening to her iPod. At an interview!"
My point is that while some of these millennials may be clueless about how to conduct themselves, others (the majority I hope) have very good ideas about what is and isn't acceptable.