You & Your Career - Help from your folks

Message Bookmarked

Bookmark Removed

How much help were your parents when it came to deciding on a career, applying for jobs and so forth?

― MarkH (MarkH), Wednesday, 19 May 2004 17:43 (twenty-two years ago)

I'd say that in terms of giving me general support and encouragement, mine were very good indeed. But in terms of specific advice, help with how to get thru an interview etc they were no help at all. I should stress this is of no fault of their own and I'll go into more detail anon.

― MarkH (MarkH), Wednesday, 19 May 2004 17:44 (twenty-two years ago)

not much but i didn't need them i guess. i had a fairly good idea of what i wanted to do and how to go about moving into that. they recognised my talents and seemed happy leaving me to decide and didn't try and force me into something i didn't want to do (even when i was on the dole) or to follow in their footsteps (not that desirable to be honest) so for that alone i thank them.

― stevem (blueski), Wednesday, 19 May 2004 17:47 (twenty-two years ago)

No help whatsoever. When I was having trouble finding a job right out of school, my ever-helpful dad suggested joining the Navy.

― QUOTATIONS FROM MY DAD (hstencil), Wednesday, 19 May 2004 17:47 (twenty-two years ago)

They are Jewish parents. What do you think?

― @d@ml (nordicskilla), Wednesday, 19 May 2004 17:50 (twenty-two years ago)

No help whatsoever. When I was having trouble finding a job right out of school, my ever

Yep. Except I actually did it.

― Spinktor, Wednesday, 19 May 2004 17:52 (twenty-two years ago)

Didnt catch that whole post for whatever reason...

― Spinktor, Wednesday, 19 May 2004 17:53 (twenty-two years ago)

none

― kyle (akmonday), Wednesday, 19 May 2004 17:54 (twenty-two years ago)

I spent much of my childhood listening to stories from my dad about how much he hated being in the Navy, so I thought his advice was a bit suspect.

― QUOTATIONS FROM MY DAD (hstencil), Wednesday, 19 May 2004 17:58 (twenty-two years ago)

My dad would help me roll newpapers on Sunday mornings sometimes, and would drive me around on my route if it rained. That was about it. It's not your parents job to help you find work, that's a big part of leaving the nest.

― andy, Wednesday, 19 May 2004 18:20 (twenty-two years ago)

'don't accept less than 20,000/year for any job'-my mom
Ummmm...okay?

― Morley Timmons (Donna Brown), Wednesday, 19 May 2004 18:23 (twenty-two years ago)

My parents, um, are really sweet people. That's about it.

― The Huckle-Buck (Horace Mann), Wednesday, 19 May 2004 18:25 (twenty-two years ago)

My Dad married twice with an eight year gap between divorcing his first wife and marrying my Mum. This meant that he was 50 when I was born and retired when I was 14. He probably hadn't been to an interview for at least 10 years before retirement. He'd worked as a hospital administrator for 25 years prior to retiring. He had never had to compile a CV and - perhaps as crucially - never used computers in his job; book-keeping in the NHS was all done manually in the mid-eighties so far as I can make out.

My mother worked as a librarian until 1969 then left and never went back to work - after that she was a "domestic engineer". She became a library assistant straight from school at the age of 16 and had never known what it was like to do any other kind of job. So she hadn't had to compile a CV either - she just moved bewtween different libraries in the Palmers Green and Southgate areas, maybe getting promoted a couple of times.

These things meant that my parents prolly didn't know much more about applying for jobs in the early nineties and the skills which were valued than I did and may even had given me counter-prductive advice on a couple of occasions.

― MarkH (MarkH), Wednesday, 19 May 2004 18:26 (twenty-two years ago)

My parents were deceased by the time I had to go find a job. Lesson: Life is a cruel bitch.

― brg30 (brg30), Wednesday, 19 May 2004 18:38 (twenty-two years ago)

I'm sorry to hear that, brg30, coz whilst my parents weren't able to give me practical advice, they were at least there to wish me good luck with interviews and to commiserate with me when I didn't get jobs. I agree with Andy up to a point - it isn't yr parents' responsibility to get you a job, but many parents will offer assistance as much as they feel able....I suppose there are parallels with education - it isn't parents' responsibility to test you before an exam and help you devise a revision strategy, but many will do so.

For good or ill, I spend time (maybe too much time) replaying the past with one or more criteria altered - what if x had happened ect ect. What if my mother had gone back to work, what if my Dad had accepted the offer of a job in teaching when he was demobbed from the RAF and so on....

― MarkH (MarkH), Wednesday, 19 May 2004 18:45 (twenty-two years ago)

sorry brg30.

― hstencil (hstencil), Wednesday, 19 May 2004 18:50 (twenty-two years ago)

there's also what I might term the Luddite element, in that my parents were suspicious of technology, speshly technology that they had never themselves used. So there was the "No we won't buy you a Sepctrum or Commodore 64....pooters are rubbish" lines in my teenage years, the baulking at the prospect of me doing a Computer Studies 'O' level (I didn't, choosing Chemistry instead) and perhaps more interestingly, a distrust of computers which rubbed of fon me and acted to my detriment in the early days of my degree. "Oh it hasn't worked. Haha. Course not" type of attitude. Odd to think that I have now gone completely the other way and love using new technology, but that's true of a lot of ppl I guess.

Saddest part of all this - no matter how much you try to stress that it is just all down to circumstance, this still comes across as criticism (sigh).

― MarkH (MarkH), Wednesday, 19 May 2004 18:57 (twenty-two years ago)

none.

they never discussed things like careers with me and had no part in any of my decisions or processes.

― Ask For Samantha (thatgirl), Wednesday, 19 May 2004 18:57 (twenty-two years ago)

― Rockist Scientist, Wednesday, 19 May 2004 19:02 (twenty-two years ago)

My parents were supportive but didn't help much early on. I think my dad (who was a career counselor at the Univ of Maryland after he got his masters there, then in HR his whole career) looked over my resume and stuff, but he had no idea whatsoever about the industry I started my "career" in, no contacts, helpful hints, etc. My mom always just wanted me to be happy and not dirt poor, that was the extent of it.

Guess what, now I work with my father & for all practical purposes he's my boss.

― mcd (mcd), Thursday, 20 May 2004 00:39 (twenty-two years ago)

My mum tried to teach me how to type when I was a teenager, when people still actually used typewriters (which now seems bizarre). Apart from that it was things like driving me to job interviews (and to jobs, while I still lived at home, which I much appreciated). They are always supporttive of what I do, I think dad finds the concept of changing roles/careers so often weird though - he thinks its a flighty thing, and Ive tried to explain to him that being in the same unchallenging role for 15 years looks WORSE nowdays, not better.

― Trayce (trayce), Thursday, 20 May 2004 01:16 (twenty-two years ago)

I don't think my mom has ever had a job for more than a year, and she hasn't worked in the last 10, at least.

― Dan I. (Dan I.), Thursday, 20 May 2004 02:33 (twenty-two years ago)

Trayce has highlighted an interesting sea change in attitudes to employment - the old model of stability, reliability, jobs for life vs. the new model - if you stay doing the same thing for ages then you must be stagnating. My mother sometimes said that I should give a job a year or two before moving on to something else; advice which I would never pass on because:

why stay doing something you hate?

if a better opportunity comes up, you should take it or be kicking yrself afterwards.

― MarkH (MarkH), Thursday, 20 May 2004 06:41 (twenty-two years ago)

why stay doing something you hate?

Because you can't get out.

― I Wish You Almanac (Autumn Almanac), Thursday, 20 May 2004 06:45 (twenty-two years ago)

Useless, hence my entire family are now bums.

― penelope_111, Thursday, 20 May 2004 06:46 (twenty-two years ago)

Fairly good, I guess, as far as college and things so far goes. They take an active interest anyway, although this often consists of informing me I won't make much money with my current choice of career. I think as regards interviews they'd be good, my Dad interviews people often enough as far as I know. I dunno, school trained me for them enough I guess.

― Ronan (Ronan), Thursday, 20 May 2004 06:53 (twenty-two years ago)

You must be logged in to post. Please either login here, or if you are not registered, you may register here.