To think this isn’t nepotism?

[Abergatwenty]

I work for the IT department of a solicitors firm in a large town. We are currently switching from one IT system to another - this means that we’re having to manually transfer a lot of data from the old system to the new.

To help us do this, we have eight 18-21 year olds (including my daughter) working for us for 2 weeks to do the transferring. They are all the children of various people who work for the firm - I just sent out an email asking if anyone had any uni student children home for the holidays who wanted a bit of summer work. We’re paying them minimum wage.

This afternoon in town I bumped into the mother of a girl who my daughter was at school with. She asked what my daughter was up to and I told her she was working at the solicitors with me for a couple of weeks. This mother got very angry about this and thought it wasn’t outrageous that we hadn’t “properly advertised” the jobs so that anyone could apply and had just asked our own kids.

AIBU? The work is time consuming but completely unskilled - we didn’t need to waste time shifting through CVs and A level results to find the most academic people. The only quality required is that we can trust them - we all trust our kids, and we don’t have time to conduct interviews.

Plus, given the number of applications that would come flooding in for anything that even resembles ‘legal work experience’, assessing each applicant and selecting 8 people would have probably taken longer than the actual data transfer job!

And it’s not like the work is going to lead to full time positions - it’s just a 2 weeks, unskilled, minimum wage summer job.

I can't understand why some people are getting worked up about this tbh. Is it because it's a law firm? What about my dad who is a mechanic and paid me min wage to clear out a new garage space for a week, was that unfair privilege too? Should he have advertised the job and collected CVs? Given that the skills needed and reward offered were the same as for OP's daughter?

I dont think people really are getting worked up they are just replying and because of the volume of replies it just feels like that. It is nepotism and i dont think it matters whether or not its at a law firm. It is some sort of work experience, it may be unskilled but not everybody's child is going to have a high flying career.

I don't have a problem with it particularly, but you're being a bit disingenuous to say it wouldn't help them break into law! We know that.

The point is what you dismiss as a two week minimum wage temp job like it's comparable to shelf stacking could easily be tweaked to look pretty nice as additional info on a CV (and no-one who does use it will mention Mummy or Daddy's involvement, or that it was unskilled)... Of course people without access to something like that for their kids could be resentful.

Of course it is nepotism, I'm guessing that you have sussed this by now. But as a pp said, life isn't fair. This is a very common and legal practice.

Yes, definitely nepotism. I agree with others that it's easy to dismiss this kind of opportunity as "just" data entry, but it provides a young person lacking in experience good CV fodder to get more, potentially better work in the future. Essentially any work experience is better than none and I think you underestimate how hard it can be for young people these days to get any experience in the workplace without nepotism. Although not your intention, you've added to this issue.

It is the textbook definition of nepotism, but it sounds like the best option under the circumstances

Given the nature of the work it's not as significant as giving a trainee contract to a relative, but it's certainly nepotism. What do you think nepotism is if it isn't giving jobs to friends and family?

I can totally see why you wouldn't want to run an open application process for it, though.

I rarely say this, but this thread is ridiculous. It's nepotism in the loosest possible sense. Somebody said to their dc, got a job needs doing for a couple of weeks, you can earn yourself a bit of pocket money. Dc said thanks Mum, and cracked on. It's not politics, it's not big business. It's not someone with qualifications being overlooked for the bosses best friends, cousins, nephews. It's a normal firm doing the normal thing. We've got some stuff needs doing, anyone got older kids who can help out. Just like I did in the summer holidays in my Grandmother's office back in the seventies. What company is going to advertise a job that's going to last two weeks? It would cost them more to do that than it would to pay minimum wage for that time.

Nepotism is giving friends and family permanent, high powered positions over and above those better qualified to do the job concerned. This does not constitute nepotism and as I said earlier, few would be clambering those high horses were it a bloody milk round.

No. You’re wrong Gilead - As is every op who ‘doesnt see the harm’. And I suspect those who can’t see why this is wrong have never felt themselves excluded from opportunity?

The OP said The only quality required is that we can trust them - we all trust our kids ...

What other qualities might you ascribe to your own or your colleagues’ children while assuming that other people don’t have them? It is the exclusion that is the point.

And it’s ridiculous to compare this to a morning on a milk round or clearing out an office for your grandma. It’s not the name of the job - it’s whether other people might perceive it as desirable. If it’s desirable then it is wrong to prevent as wide a cross section of society who might be suitable from being able to access that opportunity.

So maybe you wouldn’t put an advert in The Times. But they could have sent a flyer to the local sixth form or whatever.

What disappoints me is the number of people here who don’t get it ...

‘As is every pp’ not op!

It's nepotism in the loosest possible sense.

I agree.

First of all you were right not to advertise. It is costly and time consuming to recruit and you would have no return on investment for the type and length of work on offer.

Two weeks of data entry NMW work is not a significant advantage.

I went on a course recently for Job Search productivity and an interesting fact they shared was that only 22% of job seekers find work through newspaper ads, the internet or search firms.

Nepotism for sure. But, this job is not something that will give these children an undue advantage over the others. Relax OP. And hope the kids are not moaning yet.

Abergatwenty

Hope you are clearer about the dictionary definition of nepotism now. I can see both sides of the arguments and would encourage you to let us know what outreach activities your firm currently does.

As a one-off, there is little harm in this exercise, especially if it turns out your firm spends time and money going into schools and colleges encouraging less privileged young people to consider law and ensuring that your training contracts are awarded in a fair and privilege blind process. If not, now would be a good time to consider what might be possible.

It is nepotism. If it had been advertised then there may have been candidates with previous experience of data entry who could touch type. They would be a better candidate than OPs daughter.

We had this at a charity I worked for, funding given to cover a summer job, charity director's son got the job (no other staff told about the role). When funders found out they made the charity advertise the role and the director's son still got the job!

Grauch It's such a minor opportunity as to not be worth it.
I do know about missing out though, I got sacked from a saturday job in the seventies. Somebody didn't want to be served by the brown girl...

Yes it's nepotism obviously but there is nothing wrong with private enterprises and small businesses keeping these opportunities in the family.

If you are in a situation with this woman again with this being a topic of conversation, ask her whether she would be equally angry with Mr Jones the grocer or Mr Smith the butcher changing the name of the business to Jones&Son or Smith&Son when their son is old enough to start work, and give their son a job as junior partner in the business - should they have advertised for a Junior partner and held an equal-opportunity recruitment process to find the best 18yo for the job rather than their own son? That's exactly the same but worse but no one sane would think it wrong.

Nepotism is wrong when in a public body using tax payer's money for the salaries. Tax payers deserve that each job is filled by someone who is the best person for the job selected through open competition. Private businesses have no such obligation. If the head of a private company wants to give the job of IT manager to a relative with no IT skills or qualifications that is fine - their lookout. Even less of a problem when it's such low-skill work.

The kids in question will benefit though. When companies who do use open competitive recruitment have to choose 5 candidates to interview from 100 applications which all have A-levels but no real work experience, 2 weeks copying and pasting for mum's solicitor firm will at least demonstrate that this is someone capable of getting up in the morning and getting the job done - which is not something you can assume, so it will give them an edge over their peers.

Presicely ...

(That was in response to Gilead.)

Yes it is nepotism. Yes it is unethical. Yes it is giving your kids advantages that other, perhaps poorer kids, can’t get. Shit like this is why despite getting 100 percents in ALL of his A Level modules my DB didn’t get into a single medical school - because lesser students who had GPs / consultants / nurses for parents got them unadvertised experience opportunities.

Tradesmen proudly advertise their family ties. 'Campbell and Sons, est 1976' etc.

Hotels boast they are 'family run'.

But professional people aren't meant to bring their kids into their field of work?

I got my job (very niche area of research) because my mum gave me training in it. If DS wants to join me later I'd be thrilled.

It's nepotism, but it's also an entirely normal way to conduct business and bring your kids up.

My dad plays the guitar. He taught my brother and my nephews to play too.

I feel sorry for people whose parents can't pass on skills or interests but you can't legislate against families doing stuff for each other.

I work in the charitable sector and my manager is a family member. We had to be so, so careful when I was recruited. More recently, we had something come up which required somebody to commit to a couple of extra responsibilities on an ad hoc basis. I'm the only person who can do this, in various capacities and it made no sense to advertise the add on to the role. But we did. I had to apply, interview etc. Nobody would have been disadvantaged had they simply tweaked my contract to reflect the minor change but for the company's integrity, we had to be utterly transparent.

@MorrisZapp
But what if you didn't want to go into that niche area of research but a different one and a less able candidate got the role you should have got because they had parental assistance? What if you are born into a family where there is no opportunity to gain experience or learn trades in any field whatsoever? Should these people just accept that they will be disadvantaged due to nepotism or should we all be pushing towards making the whole process more of a meritocracy?

Yes it's nepotism.

The fact that you don't see it as nepotism is indicative that you take for granted the privileged position your children are in.

Your children can both earn money doing something that looks good on their cv. A kid from a none professional background is most likely to only get paid to work in a supermarket / cafe etc.

Be honest, if some random kid your dc's age sent their cv and asked for 2 weeks unpaid work experience, would they have got anywhere...? I doubt it.

I don't blame parents for doing the best they can for their kids, I will do it too when they're old enough. I found it very difficult to get into an industry that is rife with nepotism and I don't want my kids to struggle like I did. But I am honest with myself and I know what I will be doing is unfair.

I did something similar for a friends mother. The next summer, a temporary secretarial job came up, and the random two week job helped me get the temp secretarial job. The summer after that, when I graduated, a one-year job came up, i got it based on previous experience at a much higher salary and saved for my masters.

The crappy temp admin job done by people's kids was arranged like the one you're describing, the summer job was minimum wage, again unadvertised but involved general secretarial support, the one year job was the only one externally advertised as a more senior role- senior secretarial support, something like that- and because they knew and trusted me I got it, and because it had been externally advertised HR said I had to be paid at the higher rate.

So, while it was a professional firm and I didn't ultimately go into that profession it didn't help me in that sense but it got me a higher paid secretarial job somewhere that showed I had good admin skills and the ability to access confidential information - without the friends mum I would have spent that year working in Tesco. Which would have been fine as I was really just looking for money but I know the office job helped in the post-masters job interviews. I also know if I had wanted to work in office management I could have stayed on and built a career there.

It's minor, it's not illegal, it's how things are done. But it is worth thinking about knock on effects and what happens to people without these connections.