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‘Beta yeh le tera khana,’ this is the line my mom uses to barge into my room every time I am on a video call with my friends. And no, she doesn’t stop there. After that, she unexpectedly joins our conversation and asks all my friends how ‘productively’ are they using their time during the lockdown. However, while I find it funny that she does so during my ‘me time’, I would be really pissed off if she ever disturbed me during my work calls.
Speaking of which, for a 19-year-old guy, whose mom appeared during his virtual interview, things didn’t go as planned. A hiring manager, looking for a summer intern at a tech company, recently posted about a rather bizarre job interview he conducted online. Sharing his experience on Reddit, he wrote, how he had to schedule a virtual interview instead of a physical one because of the pandemic. The manager mentioned how he had shortlisted the boy, who was between his freshman and sophomore years of college, for the job.
But when the manager commenced the interview by introducing himself, the boy’s mother interrupted the meeting and started introducing herself instead. She then went on to talk about her son’s work ethic. And, even though the manager found it a little odd, he politely requested the mom to let her son speak. However, not taking the hint, she kept coming into the camera frame during the interview and interrupting her son to answer questions on his behalf. After a few technical questions, that the boy answered correctly, the manager decided to cut the interview fairly short.
However, the manager’s unsolicited encounter with the boy’s mother didn’t end there. He further wrote,
I thought that was all over and done with until I’d gotten an email from a woman, a month later, asking about her son’s application, she seemed offended he hadn’t gotten an acceptance or rejection. It bothered me, I felt bad for the kid honestly.
Way back when I was a teenager, my mom used to pull the same shit, but luckily she only did that when I was 15 and working for a day-camp, not when I was an adult applying for engineering jobs. But I felt like this poor kid was getting his chances ruined because his mom wasn’t giving him the chance to apply on his own.
I sent an email back saying I was not at liberty to send information about an application to anybody but the applicant. I also asked HR to send an email to the kid saying sorry but we were not making him an offer. (It is something we usually do, but his rejection email must have slipped through the cracks with all the COVID craziness.)
Anyway, after we sent that, I got a phone call from his mom, she had a forwarded copy of the email, and she was demanding answers. I said that I could not comment on the guy’s performance in the interview with her as she was not the applicant. If he wanted to reach out to me I was happy to give him some feedback.
However, I could say that regardless of his performance, her presence in the interview took him out of consideration for the position. We were looking for an independent and self-driven person for the position, and for that reason, it is important to see an applicant speak for themselves, follow-up themselves, etc.
I also said that, as a piece of advice, every hiring manager I’ve met in my career who sees someone other than the applicant answering questions during an interview, following up on the applicant’s behalf, etc… Would also put their resume in the “do not hire” pile. Since, while the applicant may be skilled and motivated, they need the ability to demonstrate those traits themselves.
She fucking blew up at me over that, kinda cussing me out to the point where I hung up.
Several people requested the interviewer to mail the guy about how his mother’s over-involvement cost him his job:Â
There was a good chance the guy would have been selected for the internship if his mother hadn’t interrupted the interview. Well, while caring for your child is important, it’s also advisable to let them grow as independent individuals. You need to have a little faith in your kid’s talent and abilities. Don’t you think so? Tell us!
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