can I ask coworkers why they didn’t hire my daughter?

by Alison Green on September 16, 2024

A reader writes:

My daughter applied for a job at the firm where I’m currently employed, in a department supervised by three very good friends of mine. I’ve known them all for over 20 years. I consider them great coworkers and friends. My neighbor also applied for the job. My neighbor has been out of work for over 11 years and lived off his parents. My daughter has a master’s degree, great connections, and is currently working. Neither of them have any experience in the field. My daughter has worked with several friends of mine and all told me she was the best employee they ever had.

They interviewed my neighbor, who said the interview was general and easy, and they hired him within a week. They interviewed my daughter, who said the interview was pointed and in one instance, one of my friends who interviewed her laughed at her when she said she could help him with a particular job he wanted accomplished, and she has not had a call back.

Needless to say, I am angry. I have never involved myself in her employment at this organization or anywhere else. However, I’m baffled. I see these people every day as we are in the same office, although we do not work in the same division. Is it unprofessional to ask them why they did not hire my hard-working daughter but hired a person who hasn’t worked in years and lives off his elderly mother?

I answer this question over at Inc. today, where I’m revisiting letters that have been buried in the archives here from years ago (and sometimes updating/expanding my answers to them). You can read it here.

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{ 162 comments }

{ 162 comments… read them below }

    1. Caramel & Cheddar*

      Yeah, this seems like really misplaced judgement and projection on the part of LW because her daughter didn’t get the job. You’re allowed to be disappointed your friends didn’t hire your daughter, LW, but characterizing your neighbour this way isn’t going to change anything about the result.

      1. Susannah*

        Oh, excellent point.
        Not that it’s OK to hold it against someone for not being employed (for pay) for awhile. But that makes even more sense…

      2. MigraineMonth*

        I was wondering what evidence LW was basing her statement off of, or if she was making assumptions based on her culture/the neighbor’s gender/etc.

        I moved back in with my parents after getting a college degree, which my white middle-class peers and I thought was a sign of failure. People I met from lower-class or immigrant backgrounds were far more likely to see it positively: I was being a good daughter, coming back home and taking care of my parents after all they’d sacrificed for me.

        1. Lizzie*

          Same here. I did it for two reasons; proximity to the industry I wanted to work in, and not wanting to live with other people. I lived at home until I was 30, paying rent for most of it, and taking care of both my mom and grandmother, who had health issues during that time. I also was downsized during this time, and went back to school to change careers, so I was temping and working PT, so wasn’t able to afford to move out.

          I was also one of the only one of my friends who did this, and while I don’t know what they thought about it, I sometimes thought I was a failure, but in hindsight, it worked for all of us.
          But once I finished school, and got a job making significantly more, I moved out. And today, I’m close to retirement, with decent savings both for now and for retirement.

      3. Professional Cat Lady*

        No no, he’s a man; men aren’t caregivers, they’re providers, so a man who lives with his parents is just a mooch. I don’t make the rules **shrug**
        /s, hopefully obviously.

      4. NotAnotherManager!*

        Yeah, my favorite aunt “mooched” off my grandparents by living with them as an adult, maintaining the home, and helping them stay at home where they wanted to be after they were no longer able to do it alone. She also worked during this time, until she had to take a leave of absence to shuttle between medical care facilities multiple times on a daily basis. I don’t know LW’s neighbor’s situation, but it’s pretty likely she doesn’t either.

        (And yes, I do want to punch my least favorite aunt in the face every time she, who didn’t lift a finger to help when my grandparents were ill/dying, go on and on about how my caregiving aunt wasn’t a “real” adult and didn’t know what it was like to be “on her own” at family gatherings. Ingrate did manage to go around the house and make a list of all the valuables she wanted before they were even gone, though.)

    3. Jaina Solo*

      Yeah, LW is giving very entitled vibes and doesn’t seem like a reliable narrator. Plus, who knows what happened in the daughter’s interview–maybe she was the weaker candidate?

  2. TracyXP*

    I get that you can’t really ask the daughter wasn’t hired, but can the mom ask for advice that she can pass on to daughter to help her interview in the future? I think it would be better coming from the daughter, but was curious if it would be OK for mom to do since she is good friends with the coworkers.

    1. CityMouse*

      Maybe, but LW being so angry here probably would result in that not going well. It’s also bad for the mom to ask for feedback, that would be something the daughter needs to do herself.

      1. higheredrefugee*

        I would ask LW to take a deeper look at her anger too. Is there any chance LW is known as a meddler or has outsize reactions that they knew may be more likely to surface if they hired her daughter? I know this is speculative, but anger is a pretty dramatic response to a fairly normal business decision to which LW was not privy.

    2. Jennifer Strange*

      I wouldn’t. The daughter is the one applying for the job, and she is an adult at this point, so she needs to be the one to ask for feedback. Otherwise she runs the risk of looking childish by going through her mom.

      1. ferrina*

        If you have an existing connection, it can sometimes be okay to have that connection ask for feedback on your behalf. I’ve played that role when a friend applied to my company and was not hired.

        But I agree with CityMouse’s comment above- LW is too emotionally invested right now. Anything LW says is going to sound defensive and might make them look unprofessional (which could extend to the daughter). Best thing for LW to do is stay out of it.

        1. Cookie Monster*

          I agree that in certain situations it’s fine to go through the connection, but in this particular situation, where the connection is the mom, I wouldn’t. I would still come off like the daughter is not her own person yet and/or the mom is too overbearing.

        2. Cmdrshprd*

          I think when it is a friend/network connection it is okay, but as a close personal familial connection, I don’t think it would be okay, because it puts pressure on the person and they may not feel like they can be honest. Especially when the family member is also working there. A close family member could maybe get away with asking if they did not work there.

        3. Jennifer Strange*

          I think there’s a difference between a friend asking and a parent asking. With a friend the two of you are peers on the same plane. With a parent it runs the risk of infantilizing the child and making them look like, well, a child rather than a competent adult.

      3. H3llifIknow*

        Yeah and Mom needs to remember that *shockingly* NOT everyone loves/admires your kid as much as YOU do. She wasn’t the right fit. Let it gooooooooooooooo.

      4. The Bill Murray Disagreement*

        It’s not exactly the same (especially since the LW in this case has some pretty strong reactions to the situation), but this is similar to referring a person into an organization. I have definitely asked colleagues if they’d be open to sharing feedback about a referral I made if they weren’t selected for the job.

        Now that I’ve typed that out though, I realize it’s still really weird to put colleagues in a situation where they may need to share unflattering feedback about someone’s child. So I guess I am torn. If someone was seemingly super matter-of-fact and dispassionate in the asking and if they had demonstrated not overreacting to information, I’d say proceed with caution.

        I also don’t understand why the LW didn’t just advise their daughter to ask for feedback. Maybe for the same reason they jumped to such extreme conclusions about fairness.

    4. Pastor Petty Labelle*

      No because it is the daughter’s job search not Mom’s.

      It is quite possible that Mom’s attitude is exactly why the daughter wasn’t hired. They were afraid any feedback they had to give would be reported to Mom and she would act out.

      Mom, the best thing you can do for your child and yourself is act like this never happened.

      1. Smithy*

        Yes. I will share that from personal experience – early in my career I had my mom put me in the direction of interviews with her colleagues. And sometimes during those interviews my nerves/anxiety over the situation made me interview particularly weakly.

        My mom’s network was often giving her the benefit of the doubt by interviewing me, and then I’d find myself interviewing for a job that was more of a stretch in terms of education/interest. The result of this would often increase my interviewing anxiety, and I can easily see how I can across weaker than other candidates. But then in reporting back to mom, I’m not exactly going to highlight that fact.

        As it turned out, after whiffing a few of these types of interviews, I eventually had an opportunity where I did interview successfully. So in many ways, my mom not making it awkward with her network as well as not challenging me on the failed attempts – one eventually did work out. I became a more confident interviewer, and my mom burned no bridges in her network. While not on purpose, in many ways I think that being intentionally left in the dark allowed my mom to both continue to have respect and faith in her network AND respect and faith in how I was job hunting.

        1. Paint N Drip*

          Perhaps OP’s daughter is in a similar boat that the interview carried extra weight and thus created extra anxiety, or perhaps she’s just newer at interviewing period! In my mind someone having a Master’s degree has a level of professionalism, but it’s pretty normal for someone to be recently graduate-degreed but have limited or no professional work experience (beyond a student summer type job)

          1. Smithy*

            My situation was all post getting a master’s degree. Depending on the individual, an MA can happen right after undergrad or after only a year or two of work experience. I also got my MA with people in their late 20’s/early 30’s who had genuine professional experience. So where I was post-graduate degree when it came to interviewing was in no way comparable to them. Add in how the parent – child relationship can heighten complex emotions when tied to a job interview.

            I have a lot of empathy to people in this situation because while I never wanted my “mom to get me a job” – I also really needed a job and was struggling to find one. And my mom really wanted to help out.

            All to say….I think finding a way where everyone can preserve a little dignity helps all. Let the daughter be able to tell mom she was treated unfairly and that’s why she wasn’t employed. Let the coworker never have to explain why the fit wasn’t right. All of that helps the mother preserve both.

      2. Baunilha*

        +1000. I can speak from experience on this one, since my very first job was an entry-level job at the company my mom was a higher-up. The only thing she did was tell me about the opening so I could apply on my own. From the interview process to the time I left the company, she kept her distance and let me be, so most people didn’t even know we were related.
        While I was there, I was the junior llama groomer, not my mother’s daughter.

    5. BoratVoiceMyWife*

      that would reflect tremendously poorly on both mother and daughter. if daughter is a college graduate with an established career, it falls on her to request feedback, not her mother. frankly I would be tremendously embarrassed if my mom asked people why I wasn’t chosen for a job.

      she needs to let go of the leash and stay out of her daughter’s professional business. frankly it’s probably lucky for the daughter that she didn’t get the damn job if this is the way her mother “advocates” for her.

    6. chocolate lover*

      the mother was judgmental of the neighbor and immediately jumped to being angry that her child didn’t get the job. It’s entirely possible that they didn’t her the daughter because of who her mother was. friends or not, maybe they were concerned exactly about this type of interference.

    7. ursula*

      I would not be comfortable giving most of my friends feedback about their kids in any context, much less useful feedback (ie that addresses shortcomings). Much less coworkers. Honestly I know it’s common lots of places, but I would be so reluctant to hire a friendly coworkers’ adult child into our office where I would have to manage them. There are a million different relationship problems that could flow from this, in every direction. I wonder if the friends gave the daughter a courtesy interview but knew in advance that they wouldn’t hire her due to the weirdness of it all.

    8. MisterForkbeard*

      This is exactly what I was going to suggest: “I’d like to see if there’s anything my daughter can do better in the future. If you’re comfortable telling me, can you give me some insight on areas for improvement?”

      Since she has a previously existing relationship with these folks, that’s harmless enough to ask.

      1. Artemesia*

        NOT harmless. It is entirely unprofessional and announces that she will be a meddling presence monitoring how they manage her daughter should they hire in future. It is never okay to meddle in your kid’s professional life except perhaps if you are finding a placement for a mentally handicapped individual who needs special treatment and a special niche and support.

      2. Anonymous Educator*

        To the extent such feedback could be helpful, there’s nothing stopping the daughter herself from contacting the hiring manager and asking for feedback. There’s zero reason it has to be or should be the mom asking co-workers for feedback on the daughter’s candidacy/interviewing.

        Candidates do sometimes ask for feedback, and if it makes any sense to get/give feedback, that should all be between the daughter and the hiring committee.

      3. KJC*

        Imagine if your mom, whoever she is, called your workplace and asked them to tell her about your performance, and they did. Would that feel ok for them to tell her, or like a violation to you? I suspect most of us would feel that violated our privacy.

    9. Potsie*

      Nope. We are talking about an adult with an advanced degree who is already employed. If she wants feedback, she can ask for it herself. Interfering will infantilize her and cement the idea that hiring the daughter will invite interference from her mom.

    10. CubeFarmer*

      Absolutely not. The last thing I would want in that situation is an applicant’s parent nosing around in the hiring process.

    12. Irish Teacher.*

      Given that she’s the mom, I’d be wary. It could come across a bit like a parent asking the teacher at the parent-teacher meeting what her kid needs to do to improve. Yeah, the fact that they are friends does make it a bit different, but I’d still err on the side of caution, because “what can I tell my child they should do differently?” could come across as a bit infantalising, in a way it might not if one was asking for a spouse or friend or sibling

    13. Artemesia*

      no Mom does not need to meddle in her daughter’s job search. This kind of ‘help’ will end up getting her blacklisted at this firm and hurt her reputation. Even if it was a terrible hire, she needs to keep her nose out of her daughter’s career. There is no scenario in which this is warranted.

    15. learnedthehardway*

      If her daughter is old enough to do the interview, she’s old enough to ask for feedback herself.

      The mother should stay out of it.

    17. AcademiaNut*

      I think you have to ask this *before* the interview. Then it’s clear that it isn’t a normal job interview, but a favour to a colleague or friend on behalf of a child who is learning job norms, and the interviewer can proceed accordingly. Interjecting yourself into a normal job interview after the process puts an unfair pressure on the interviewer.

    18. JZ*

      the daughter should be the one asking for that feedback, not the mom. mom just comes off as helicopter mom that way.

  3. Chairman of the Bored*

    If you know your friends and trust their judgment then it’s reasonable to assume that they made a good decision for a fair reason.

    Perhaps that reason was them knowing that the applicant’s parent is overly invested in her career and likely to make routine workplace decisions more fraught and difficult than they would otherwise be?

    2. ferrina*

      My thoughts went that direction too. I would be worried about a parent/child in close quarters under the best of circumstances. They both would have to be incredibly scrupulously professional in order for me to be okay with it.

      If this current situation is indicative of the LW’s usual behavior, I’d say the coworkers were right to be wary. What would happen if the VP threw Daughter under the bus? Or if Daughter messed something up but thought she did it right? Or if Daughter miscommunicated? What about resource allocation- will LW favor Daughter over others? Performance reviews or feedback? This might be a case of bullet dodged for the coworkers.

    3. Pizza Rat*

      Especially when you consider the daughter has worked for the parent’s other friends. That raised a red flag for me.

    4. allathian*

      I wouldn’t have hired the daughter either, simply based on the LW’s reaction. She’s way too invested in her daughter’s career.

  4. Dust Bunny*

    Or maybe your neighbor was helping his parents, or working from home, or had health concerns that made it hard to keep a job and he’s now doing better, and maybe he has experience or expertise that you don’t know about? Maybe your daughter’s qualifications aren’t that relevant to the job (my dad has a lot more degrees than I do but in a completely different field. If we were applying to certain jobs my experience would definitely give me an edge over his Ph.D.).

    MYOB and absolutely do not ask.

    1. ecnaseener*

      And hey, maybe he was just “living off” of his parents’ money for no particular reason. That’s between them as a family and still irrelevant to his candidacy.

      You’ve gotta love LW’s “logic” here — dripping with contempt for this guy not having a job for so long, and then when he does get a job that’s somehow wrong too.

      1. Margaret Cavendish*

        And also criticizing the neighbour for “living off his mom” – while at the same time putting her daughter in a position that someone might think she was living off her mom.

      3. Starbuck*

        Yeah, it’s such a weird catch-22, like if he spent time as a stereotype dude basement dweller, that’s bad and he should get a job, but then when he tries to get a job – that’s also bad and he doesn’t deserve it? Makes no sense.

    2. MigraineMonth*

      From the letter, it sounds like the daughter has a current job, experience and an advanced degree… all doing something unrelated to the job she applied to.

      Maybe it’s unfair, but if your resume makes it look like you’re not particularly interested in the job you applied for, that can hurt your candidacy more than not having relevant experience. If the daughter is trying to change careers, she at least needs to make that explicit in her cover letter, talk it up in her interviews, and be prepared for more rejection than usual.

  5. PollyQ*

    FYI — the LW participated in the comments and eventually revealed that the daughter had withdrawn her candidacy, which neatly answers the question of why she wasn’t hired.

    1. Pastor Petty Labelle*

      So why is Mom so upset? Daughter chose to withdraw her candidacy. Maybe daughter didn’t like how the interview went, maybe daughter didn’t like the benefits offered, or she just realized it didn’t fit her career path.

      Mom needs to let this go.

      1. Dust Bunny*

        Because Mom is the kind of person who would write in to AAM hoping to get support for the idea that she should demand to know why her friends didn’t hire her presumably-competent adult daughter.

        1. Reebee*

          This is unnecessarily disrespectful, and exactly the kind of retort that I imagine discourages people from writing in. I mean, “…is the kind of person who…”? What is that supposed to mean?

          1. Meep*

            Politely, the original letter was dripping with disrespect from the jump. She unnecessarily trashed her neighbor for things she knows nothing about because her daughter didn’t get the job.

      2. Caramel & Cheddar*

        There were apparently two positions open and it sounded like she was mad that Neighbour was hired within the week while it was radio silence for the daughter. But if the daughter withdrew from the hiring process, I’m not surprised they didn’t contact her further, so LW is still having a really confusing reaction unless they wrote the letter before any of those details came to light.

      3. Hlao-roo*

        The letter-writer commented several times with the username LW and twice with the username Lilly. I think this part of one of her comments (that I initially missed because it was under “Lilly”) explains both why the daughter withdrew her candidacy and why the letter-writer was upset:

        [My daughter] confided to me that the supervisor, when interviewing her, brought up a project that he wanted to work on. She responded that if hired she would be happy to help him with it. At that, he tossed his head back and laughed in her face. She didn’t want to tell me this because she knew I’ve been friends with him for 20 years. She told me she told her co-workers about this and they were all appalled by his behavior. She has since rescinded her application for the position. I agree that she made the correct choice.

        No one should be treated with disrespect, especially an alumnus who will repeat this to other alumni and any one who would potentially want to attend this school. I have also confided in other friends/managers on campus who know me and them. They are equally shocked.

        So the daughter withdrew her candidacy because she felt one of the interviewers disrespected her, and the mom is upset because she thinks one of her coworkers disrespected her daughter.

        (I’m personally skeptical that the laugh was intentionally disrespectful, but that interpretation does explain the daughter’s actions and the mom’s feelings.)

        1. Margaret Cavendish*

          We’re several degrees away from knowing what actually happened in that interview! What the interviewer actually did, how the daughter interpreted it in the moment, how she reported it to her parent, and how her parent reported it to us. So I’m not inclined to take he tossed his head back and laughed in her face at face value.

          But even so, it sounds like this role wasn’t a good fit for the daughter – for lots of reasons. I hope she did eventually find something, and that she and her parent have come to an agreement about personal and professional boundaries.

        2. CityMouse*

          Yeah there are some instances where saying “Oh I’d love to help on that project” and you laugh because that project is a giant mess that everyone who’s touched has hated.

          1. Paint N Drip*

            And this is apparently in academia, so I can imagine there could also be an element of ‘this is going to be a clusterfk with various political BS and seemingly-unlimited red tape’ where you can only laugh

          2. MigraineMonth*

            Yeah, I have a couple of projects that I wouldn’t let a new hire within 20 feet of, because no one deserves to get sucked into the toxic morass of office politics. It’s too late for me, but I can at least scream for others to save themselves.

            I’d like to think I wouldn’t react too inappropriately in interviews, but I can see myself saying, “Ohhhh no, you definitely wouldn’t be working on that project” without fully explaining.

            1. Starbuck*

              Yeah that’s an unfortunate and weird trap to put candidates in. If you mention any work or projects during an interview, of course candidates are going to take an interest and assume it’s fair game for them to address and then at best be confused when you reject even the notion of that.

        3. What_the_What*

          “(I’m personally skeptical that the laugh was intentionally disrespectful, but that interpretation does explain the daughter’s actions and the mom’s feelings.)”

          I agree. I would see it as more of a “yeah I’m currently mapping the entire genome” and the daughter being like “Oh I’m a librarian, I’d love to help with that,” and him just sort of laughing at either the audacity or the naivete of assuming it was in her wheelhouse. Sometimes those sorts of responses just…break through.

          1. Irish Teacher.*

            It could also just have been a failure in communication. Like daughter said, “that job was way beyond my qualifications. I think they were laughing in my face,” meaning that they only interviewed her to please the mom and she felt they weren’t taking her candidacy seriously and mom misheard or misinterpreted and took the “laughing in my face” literally.

            Or it could be any one of a number of other things. The LW wasn’t there and is assuming motivation based on the word of somebody else, somebody who seems to have had a bad experience in the interview and therefore might be inclined to think the worst.

          1. Hlao-roo*

            Above the commenting box (the one you type in), there’s a link to the site’s commenting rules. If you scroll through the rules, there’s a list of “Other things to know” and the last item on the list is “How can I use HTML in my comments?” That will show you how to do bold, italics, strikethroughs, and blockquote (what I did in my previous comment) in your comments.

      4. Observer*

        So why is Mom so upset? Daughter chose to withdraw her candidacy.

        Yeah, that was bizarre. Mom was apparently upset that no one followed up to find out why Daughter withdrew her candidacy. And also because in her view, the interviewer was very rude. So rude, in fact, that she wants to report that even aside from the issue of the “incorrect” (in the LW’s estimation) hiring decision. And she is also *convinced* that when daughter shares the story it will make SUCH a bad impression that is could negatively affect donor / alumni relations.

    2. Dust Bunny*

      Oh, right–I remember this letter but I’d forgotten that it was the one where the daughter took herself out of the running.

    3. Caramel & Cheddar*

      Not only that, but there were two jobs available, so it wasn’t even like the neighbour that LW disparaged got hired instead of the daughter!

    4. Cyndi*

      Reading her comments on the original post and oh jeez, she really went ahead and made this worse before Allison had even posted a response.

      1. Pay no attention...*

        Yeah, she just wanted validation that certainly they should have offered a job to the daughter immediately and the OP was just so “BAFFLED” (multiple times) that they didn’t. The denigrating of the neighbor was not her intention according to her — except that it certainly couldn’t be anything else — and she kept taking credit for him getting a job and she was just so happy for him and his family. They’re SAVED!

        1. Katherine*

          Omg yes, she was baffled! It was kind of like that Zoolander “but why male models?” scene. Commenters give dozens of good reasons why this may have happened, LW continues to say “yes, I understand, I’m just baffled.” Commenters continue to offer explanations, LW remains baffled. And the neighbor hadn’t worked in 11 years, what a lazy sack of shit, but also he parked cars, what an unimpressive job- somehow he both had and did not have a job, but really she was happy he got the job, just…..baffled.

          2. Pay no attention...*

            I thought it was like Princess Bride: INCONCEIVABLE! I don’t think that word means what you think it means — she both understands and is extremely confused? The neighbor is both a lazy freeloading sack who hasn’t worked in years, except he has a job…she is happy to help him get the job but astounded that he was hired.

    7. CityMouse*

      This is so weird. Of course someone who withdrew her candidacy wasn’t hired? Can you imagine? “Why didn’t you hire my daughter? Well, we only hire people who actually want to be hired”.

  6. Former Retail Lifer*

    I would not want to hire the child of a good friend for this exact reason. Mom, your daughter is an adult. Don’t interfere. Just because they’re your friends doesn’t make it any of your business.

    1. Heidi*

      Yeah, if the hiring managers know the candidate’s mother well and suspects she is the type of person who would interfere on her child’s behalf, that would not make me want to hire the candidate, I’m afraid. I bet the daughter will be fine, though, just not in this role.

    2. El l*

      I wondered if the following happened here: They saw daughter’s application, didn’t want to hire a colleagues daughter because nepotism, and then thought they’d better interview daughter out of respect to OP.

      (They may have gone to these contortions in the absence of a clear nepotism policy)

      1. MigraineMonth*

        For those considering a similar tack, if you are concerned about nepotism DO NOT do the interview! As we see here, it just makes things worse.

      2. HA2*

        Nope. LW commented and said that the daughter had actually withdrawn her candidacy herself, because she thought the interviewer had laughed at her during the interview.

  7. I Need Coffee.*

    Your gut response to their decision may be the exact reason they chose to hire someone else. They might have felt there would be too many potential conflicts.

  8. juliebulie*

    I remember this one. I thought maybe there’d be an update, like her daughter couldn’t find a job and it turned out that she was really cocky, or grossly overqualified, and the neighbor was just the kind of person they wanted for the position.

    1. juliebulie*

      Turns out there were updates from LW in the comments to the original post. Daughter had withdrawn from consideration. I think that’s a great reason not to hire her, aside from her helicoptering mother.

  9. jenniferalys*

    LW you answered your own question. They probably sensed that you would try to insert yourself into even more things if she were hired.

  10. Czhorat*

    as a parent, I get where the LW is coming from. I believe in my kids and want to advocate for them and for them to have all of the successes they deserve.

    I also know that, what Allison said is very true – I don’t know the whole story, don’t know if the “pointed” interview was a matter of perception, the daughter presenting herself poorly, or genuine bias.

    at the end of the day we have to let our offspring succeed or struggle on their own merits. Can we smooth the way a bit, offer introductions, give counsel? of course. That needs to have it’s limits for both their sake and our professional reputations.

    it isn’t easy

  11. Haijlee*

    I would not hire the child of one of my friends. Just because I don’t want that relationship to come in the way of work. Even if the child was the best candidate. It just has too much potential for controversy or problems in too many “what if..” scenarios.

    1. Pastor Petty Labelle*

      The highly qualified woman took herself out of the running. What were they supposed to do, chase her down and demand she take the job?

      We also only have OP’s word for him being unqualified. Unless she saw his resume, she doesn’t know if he was unqualified for this particular job. Given her reaction, when her daughter chose to take herself out of the running, she might not be the best narrative of facts.

    2. Dust Bunny*

      The daughter excluded herself.

      Also, I very much doubt that the LW is familiar with the extent of the neighbor’s work history.

    5. blah*

      LW has a biased description of the neighbor’s experience and capabilities. Please don’t jump to sexism when it doesn’t apply to this situation. The “highly qualified woman” in this case could have simply bungled the interview, or expected to fly through easy-peasy because the interview panel were all friends with her mom.

      1. Lab Rabbit*

        Calling out sexism when there is no sexism is part of the reason why a lot of people don’t take accusations of sexism seriously when there is actual sexism in play.

    7. Office Plant Queen*

      So every woman who’s taken a decade off of working to be a primary caregiver to children is automatically unqualified too, simply for not having worked recently?

      We do not know anything about the neighbor’s qualifications. We only have LW’s disparaging word that he has been unemployed for over a decade – he may well have been working part time, been in school for some of that time, been caring for his parents, or been too ill to work. Or maybe he was working full time at a stigmatized job that he didn’t feel like sharing with his neighbor. Or yes, maybe he simply wasn’t working because he had the privilege not to – I’d love to have that privilege myself!

      But even if he doesn’t have as high of qualifications as the daughter, there are many cases where having fewer qualifications is better. I have a master’s degree, and nobody in their right mind would hire me for an entry level position. They also wouldn’t hire me for a role in, say, finance, even though my degree is adjacent to that field, because I remember very little about finance and that would come out in an interview

      1. KateM*

        In the original letter, there was “my neighbor parks cars at an amusement park part-time” about three rows after “my neighbor has been out of work for over 11 years”, so yeah, he did work part-time at the time when he got this new full-time job.

        1. Katherine*

          Coming here to say the same thing- the LW lost track of why it was SO UNFAIR, and attempted to judge him for his years of unemployment AND his not-good-enough job at the same time.

  13. Jenna Webster*

    My organization has a policy that we will not hire the spouse, parent, child, siblings, grandparents, or grandchildren of current employees. It seems like overkill to me, but this sounds like why we might have such a policy.

      1. Meep*

        My Mom and FIL worked for the same large company (we only found this out after we started dating). He still works there with my sister and my sister-in-law. (All in different departments – programming, HR, and payroll.)

        My mom (the one with the highest title and very popular) was very clear when my sister and SIL applied that she would be giving neither of them references and they could not name drop her to keep things fair.

        At a bare minimum, this needs to be a thing for large companies. Otherwise, agree to this policy for mid- to small companies.

    2. allathian*

      Several married couples work for my employer, and for a while we even had a pair of siblings who worked on the same team because both of them had chosen the same fairly niche field. They had the same surname and lots of people assumed they were married (she was married but kept her maiden name, he wasn’t). Both of them retired last year.

      Most of the employees in my agency have a particular background. Lots of people in this field end up having relationships with others in the same field. I’m on the admin side (comms adjacent) so it doesn’t affect my department, but on the subject matter side there are lots of couples. Granted, there are couples on the admin side as well, but that’s because our agency doesn’t have a policy banning couples from working for the same employer. The only rule is that spouses can’t be in the same chain of command. Theoretically I suppose they could be peers on the same team, but one couldn’t supervise the other. Generally spouses tend to work for different teams, if not departments, just to ensure that any conflicts in the relationship don’t spill over to work.

    3. Database Developer Dude*

      How big is your organization? If I was trying to get a job in Washington, DC (and the surrounding area) and some firm with 25K+ employees didn’t hire me because one of my siblings worked for them in Providence, RI, I’d be more than a little upset. Because I have common sense, I wouldn’t express it to the prospective employer, but I’d still be upset…I’d just keep it to myself.

  14. Falling Diphthong*

    My daughter has worked with several friends of mine and all told me she was the best employee they ever had.

    OP, as a parent: No, this is not a thing. No one is giving you honest feedback highlighting your beloved child’s shortcomings. They are saying pleasant things. They may even be sincere pleasant things! But here, you are just never going to pass as a neutral bystander motivated purely by logic.

    1. MigraineMonth*

      Lol, yes. Also, they should be respecting their report/coworker’s privacy. I would be beyond livid if my manager or coworker brought up performance concerns with *my mom*.

    2. Another Hiring Manager*

      If this had come out during the daughter’s interview, I would immediately decide not to hire her.

    3. Heffalump*

      I wouldn’t tell someone their child was the best employee I’d ever had unless it was true, even if they were a good friend and I wanted to spare their feelings. If the truth was that the child was merely a good employee, I’d say that.

  15. 40 Years In the Hole*

    I wasn’t aware of LW’s feedback re: daughter retracting her candidacy, but my mind initially went to the hiring team thinking that it would seem like nepotism – whether or not there was a company policy. Perhaps daughter figured that as well – or got a better offer elsewhere?

    1. Heffalump*

      I think that if the daughter had gotten a better offer elsewhere, her mother wouldn’t have been so upset by her not getting this job.

  16. What_the_What*

    Honestly, based on Mom’s descriptions here and her obvious upsell of the daughter and judgment of the neighbor, it’s quite possible/probable to me that the daughter may have come across as either OVER qualified (Master’s degree for a job that apparently doesn’t need it) or too arrogant ala, “Oh I can fix that Excel Spreadsheet issue for you. I’m a wiz with formulas.” Whatever. Maybe she wanted more money. Maybe they thought having both of you in such proximity could cause problems. The fact is, we all get turned down for a job at some point. You need to let your anger go before it poisons your relationships with your colleagues.

  17. pally*

    Nothing in the way of specifics was mentioned about the job requirements.

    I’m thinking that daughter was viewed as overqualified, and they passed thinking that she would get bored quickly in the position and move on in short order.

    Which means there was nothing amiss with the daughter’s qualifications.

    Glad they did find someone to hire. And that the neighbor has found himself a job. Bet he’s proud of that! He’s got a chance to show his stuff!

    1. Not That Kind of Doctor*

      Yeah, if I were to make up fanfic for this one it would be that the position in question has limited opportunity for growth and they wanted someone who’s happy to have a job and content to stay in their lane.

      1. KateM*

        In the comments, LW stated the daughter wanted the job mostly because of university tuition that comes with it. It’s not surprising to want someone who wants to actually work there.

        2. Meep*

          Well that certainly changes it. And in which case, why is Mom so mad about it? Your daughter was only going to be there for a few years max before she moved on. Let her find a place that makes her fulfilled AND has the tuition reimbursement.

  18. Mesquito*

    I have lived in very small towns before, and I currently work in a small industry, but it seems like there’s an underlying problem when you know all of the people in this story on this level. Maybe there’s nothing that can be done about it, but your firm’s two choices were your neighbor and your daughter? That sounds exhausting, and it could be useful to keep the unusualness of that situation in perspective

  19. A Book about Metals*

    You shouldn’t ask for all the reasons already mentioned, but I also wanted to point out it seems strange for you to be harping on the fact that the other candidate lives off of his mother (completely irrelevant anyway) while you are trying to help out your own child.

  20. Crystal Claire*

    I also think it should be pointed out that a lot of companies probably don’t want to hire family members due to conflict of interest.

  21. Catabodua*

    If I had to guess, I’m thinking they don’t want to deal with mom meddling on an ongoing basis. They probably ARE good work friends, value her as a colleague, but they also know exactly who Mom is.

    Why did you give this raise, not that? Why haven’t you promoted her yet?

    1. allathian*

      I agree.

      I have a few friends whose friendship I really value and appreciate, but that doesn’t mean that I’d want to work with either them or their kids…

  22. ElsaBug*

    I can see why you are frustrated, but I want to take issue with “Needless to say, I am angry.” You do not need to take this on. Your daughter is an adult. She didn’t get a job. It happens. It’s not personal to her or to you. No one did this to you. Pushing this could do real damage to your friendships and your own job. It also suggests that your daughter is not mature enough to work in a professional space. I have been in your friends’ position. Regardless of whether you work there or not, no search committee or hiring manager should be talking to applicants’ parents.

  23. N*

    I really hope for the daughter’s sake that she was able to find a job that doesn’t involve her mother and all of her mother’s friends. Seems like there need to be more boundaries here.

    1. Meep*

      Yeah… Right before my mom retired, my sister was interviewed and hired by a coworker/friend of hers. Technically, my mom was above my sister’s grandboss on the food chain. All three agreed that if my sister was hired it would be on her merit and fit alone. Like adults.

      That doesn’t seem to be what is happening here – especially since OP is resulting to insulting said neighbor.

    2. allathian*

      My parents met at college when they were studying for a very niche field in academia. My sister went into the same field, and when she was working on her Master’s degree, she interned for a few months in the organization where our mom worked, and our mom was an intern supervisor, although not the only one. (Our dad had worked for the same organization, but by the time my sister got that far in her career, he’d retired on disability.)

      Our dad had supervised the Ph.D. thesis of my sister’s Ph.D. thesis supervisor, and my sister’s Ph.D. referenced research that our dad had done 30 years earlier. Now my sister’s supervising the Ph.D. research conducted by the child of her Ph.D. supervisor! (This circle will end here because my sister’s happily childfree.) But when you’re in a tiny field, this can happen. There are fewer than 1,000 people with the same specialization as my parents and sisgter in the whole world.

      My parents worked and my sister works for a governmental agency with a strong research-related mission.

  24. SusieQQ*

    Maybe they didn’t hire the daughter because they thought they wouldn’t be able to effectively manage her, given their relationship with LW.

  25. SmellMyFinger*

    Parent asking why kidlet wasn’t hired = proof positive you made the right decision not hiring them.

    ‘Nuff said.

  26. Meep*

    Between this letter and the other letter where Mom, Daughter, Roommate, and Jerry all work in the same office, I am wondering if the important lesson here is not to hire friends and family since things get dicey?

  27. Diane Chambers*

    One summer when I was home from college, I wanted to work at Borders. Yes, I’m old. I was, at the time, majoring in English at one of the top schools in the country. In my 19-year-old mind, this made me a must-hire. Borders did not even call me for an interview. The next time I was at Borders, I saw a kid I knew from childhood working there. He was the “smoke pot behind the gym” type. He wasn’t in school, had been fired when we’d worked together at the mall because he never showed up on time, etc. And there he was, working a job that I didn’t get an interview for. At the time, I was as angry and as self-righteous as this LW. But now, it makes perfect sense. Bookstores don’t care if cashiers like to read. Plus, I was going back to school in a few months, and this guy still lived in town, so he had the potential to be a long-term hire. My point is that the more educated or experienced person isn’t always right for every job. Maybe the daughter was overqualified, and they thought she wouldn’t stay long, but the neighbor was easing back into the workforce so he would probably stay for a while. And as for the daughter getting laughed at …. maybe it was like, the job was to answer phones at a law firm and the daughter offered to also represent clients in court, or something way beyond the scope of the job description, in a way that made it clear she wouldn’t be happy with the actual expectations of the job. You don’t need to be studying English to work at Borders, and I was wrong to think that it would help my candidacy. And maybe you didn’t need a masters’ for whatever this job was, and her great qualifications didn’t help her and actually made her seem like the wrong fit.

    1. KateM*

      LW write in comments: “I don’t think she’ll apply in this office again. The only reason she did is she would like to return to school to get a PhD or second Master’s.” So yeah, daughter’s degree probably didn’t help.

  28. Safely Retired*

    Perhaps when “all the people who worked with your daughter” told HER FATHER she was the best employee they ever had, they were telling little white lies to stay on your good side. This is supported by your comment that you are angry. Disappointment, sure, but anger? YOU WERE NOT THERE. Not in her interview, nor that of your neighbor. So you have no solid basis for being angry, as assuming an outcome is not enough reason. Perhaps those great coworkers and friends of over 20 years have had plenty of time to learn how to handle you without things getting out of hand.
    It is probably a bad idea, but you might ask one of the interviewers if there was anything about your daughter’s interview that she should work on to present herself better. But you probably shouldn’t.

  29. NurseThis*

    I’ve done so much hiring, resume sifting and interviewing in my long work life. To me, any reasonable person in an interviewing capacity is trying to find the best person to fill the job. Who knows, if it was a female heavy team, maybe they wanted some gender balance. Maybe this guy interviews really well and warmly. Maybe his background is stellar.

    I hope LW can let go of the hurt and get beyond this. I once worked for an employer who was the local gold standards for salary and benefits. *Everyone* wanted their kids, nieces and nephews to get hired. It just doesn’t always work that way.

  31. Crencestre*

    “Is it unprofessional to ask them why they did not hire my hard-working daughter but hired a person who hasn’t worked in years and lives off his elderly mother?”

    Why, yes, it WOULD be unprofessional to ask that! It would also make you look less like a professional and more like an over-involved “mama bear” which would not do your workplace reputation any good at all. It might also raise eyebrows (however unfairly!) about your daughter – “Why is she asking her mommy to get her a job?” Alison is right, OP: zip your lip about this, now and in the future.

  32. cloudy with a chance of meatballs*

    Super-short answer: No. You can, but you shouldn’t.

    Answer with context: My adult child is going to the university where I work. I know that FERPA is a thing and I know that my child needs to be advocating for themselves. When it comes to getting help with advising, or seeking help from professors, the only person I think it’s a good idea to be talking to is my child. If your child will listen to you, you can advise them. That’s it.

    It can be hard to watch them not get the job they want or not follow through with things they need to do. But letting our adult offspring learn how to handle stuff themselves has to take priority now.

  34. I'm just here for the cats!!*

    I kind of wonder if the work friends didn’t hire the daughter because they knew or felt like the mother would be interfering. She’s already angry that the interview didn’t go well.

  35. Raida*

    Well it sounds like they applied for two different jobs and got two different hiring panels?

    If not, then I’d *only* go so far as to talk to the one specific person who laughed at her and say “Can I forward your email to Daughter so she can request feedback on the interview? When we discussed how it went she’s described a confusing experience and I’ve told her it’s completely acceptable here at Business to request feedback.”

    But I’d go no further than that because anything else is prying into someone else’s recruitment process that I’m not involved in, and someone else’s employment. I didn’t recommend her, I didn’t get told she was a shoo-in, so I have no skin in the game for this employment.
    I can, professionally, suggest that a person I know request feedback on how an interview went.
    I can, professionally, check in with another staff member before passing along any contact details.
    I can, professionally, warn my coworker that the interview raised an eyebrow or two so they know there could be some scrutiny into how they recruit if it became a pattern or there was a qualified candidate (not in this case) who wanted to challenge the outcome of recruitment.

  36. NepotismRules*

    And this is why most companies have nepotism rules forbidding relatives/couples from working together.

  37. All The Things*

    I feel like many people in this comment section are being very unkind to LW. Yes, the “lives off his elderly mother” was out of place, and questioning the hiring decision is misguided.
    But I have done a fair bit of interviewing in my life, people have said the darnedest things, and I have never, ever laughed at anyone. If there was an innocent reason for laughing that wasn’t completely obvious, I would have expected the interviewers to explain that because we all know that job candidates are nervous and at risk of misinterpreting. I would have been angry at that too.

    1. Diane Chambers*

      Eh, we’re hearing this information thirdhand from a demonstrably unreliable narrator (see, e.g. the neighbor both doesn’t have a job and has a not-good-enough job, she never discusses her daughter’s employment but has been told several times her daughter’s the best employee ever, etc.) so you’ll forgive me if I’m picturing a polite chuckle or nervous laughter, not nightmare-dream-fuel several people at once pointing and laughing at the OP’s daughter.

      1. All The Things*

        Well, I have a hard time imagining a polite chuckle in an interview setting to be honest… of course you can decide for yourself how much you trust the LW, but I feel like this happens a lot online and a fair amount on this website: people question LW’s version of events, they come up with their own version which they decide is more plausible, and then proceed to skewer LW based on this new version of events they have conjured in their own head. Since we don’t know exactly what happened, I think the amount of spite in some of the comments is taking it too far.

  38. Tiger Snake*

    “And really, which is more likely–that something like that explains their decision, or that your good friends of 20 years were jerks to your daughter?”

    Thank you for calling that part out Alison. Sometimes we all get so caught up that we lose the forest for the trees, and that’s a great grounding moment.

  39. Lizzie (with the deaf cat)*

    Maybe the daughter had a realisation that working with her mother’s friends might not be ideal.

  40. WS*

    When you’re job searching it really does feel like rejection is a referendum on you as a person, and in this case on your beloved family member as a person. But it’s not, as hard as it is to remember that.

    1. allathian*

      In this case, it might have been a referendum on the LW/mom. Helicopter parents don’t do their kids any favors when they’re actual kids, and this is even more true when the kids are not only legal adults (some 18 year olds, while technically adults, are extremely immature), but actual adults with some work experience and a Master’s degree.

  41. r..*

    LW, I’ll be blunt here:

    I probably — and with that I mean “almost certainly unless I was extremely convinced she would have a good chance to win national or international professional recognition” — wouldn’t hire your daughter if she were going to be managed by a close personal friend of their parent, no matter how well she does on the interview.

    The potential for conflict of interest, both in appearance and in fact, is simply too great. Your reaction to it quite frankly is a good example why.

    Additionally, if I hired the child of a close personal friend of a manager to work under that manager, I would potentially force a pretty terrible choice on said manager: They could find themselves in a situation where they’d need to choose between their friendship and their professional obligations, and it may not even be the child’s fault.

    Consider, for example, a scenario where the company is not doing well and the manager needs to pick a person to be laid off. All other employees deserve to have this decision be made objectively, especially considering that this problem will never have a good solution, only ever a least-worst solution; and the manager deserves not to have to pick between their own job, and their personal friendships.

    1. Heffalump*

      The commenters have given some good reasons for having a policy of not hiring relatives of current employees. Aside from these reasons, if the LW’s had such a policy, her daughter would never have applied, and she and her daughter wouldn’t have gotten their hopes up.

  42. youngten*

    Hey LW, is it possible that your daughter didn’t get hired because they have been around you for 20 years and know better than to bring on that kind of dynamic in the office?

Comments are closed.