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.

And that’s the hard truth of it - people like to say that any experience is good experience, but it isn’t true. It’s more likely to lock you in the same cycle of shit work.

Some of you are barking mad if you think this would go down on anyone's CV as a 'boring data entry job'. Want to know what these kids will really say?

I was employed by a professional services firm on a fixed term contract to undertake manual data entry for the purposes of maintaining a client database. This role placed me in a position of trust in which I was required to understand and fulfil the requirements of client confidentiality. I worked efficiently and with attention to detail in a professional environment where record keeping was of great importance. I quickly became familiar with the use of a new IT system and was able to navigate this successfully. [quote]

And any interviewer worth their salt would see through that bullshit in 10 seconds. The job is for two weeks. It will take one sharp question to find out they were just keying in bits of data and were not required to use any skill whatsoever. Someone working in a sandwich bar during their summer holiday could put an equally grandiose spin on it, implying they were practically managing the place and inputting to its future marketing plans.
Interviewers usually aren't stupid.

Except that the first example would be true and the second one would be jargon-filled bullshit. Shockingly, some jobs are better preparation for the real world than others. When I’ve hired for entry level jobs, I’d have gone for the one with relevant, if short, work experience.

Right, user1485342611. So whatever the kids actually put down is irrelevant. It's not going to make their CV look impressive either way.

No Diego but whatever you put on your CV has to stand up to questioning by an interviewer. So you can enhance and elaborate all you like but, in this case it would be very quickly obvious that you had spent two weeks inputting data with no skill required. If asked by the interviewer how the company had established you were a person that could be trusted with highly confidential data what would you answer? You can't say that they had worked with you before, you had come recommended by your previous employer or anything like that if you're a full time student. Any good interviewer would quickly surmise the real situation.
Nothing wrong with a couple of weeks work entering data but it's unlikely to be a game changer if you're later applying for work with a law firm.

Really dinosaurs? I'm guessing you haven't done graduate recruitment for a professional services firm

It is technically nepotism but even as someone who grew up working class/first in the family to go to university etc. I can't get worked up about it.

It happens in all walks of life, I used to get waitressing shifts off my auntie. I've also noticed the man who lives next door to my parents mainly employs the other neighbourhood late teens boys as labourers for his removal business.

What really annoys me isn't a couple of weeks of filing but months long unpaid internships!

@MissVanjie That cartoon came into my head when I was reading this thread yesterday - it sums this situation up perfectly.

We are moving offices. I have recruited a mix of kids related to staff and I put a call into the local charity group. Yesterday the guy delivering our beer said his son was looking for work experience. I gave him my business card and said I would love to see his resume. I got it at 8pm. He starts his internship with us tomorrow. We pay our interns $20/hr (not a huge amount for NYC but it is a lot compared to other internships which pay nothing).

Nepotism is a huge issue and something which most people don't realize is happening when they do it, which is what I think happened to the OP.

Even if she had felt it was nepotism, it was still a practical and efficient solution. It would have been ridiculous to spend several weeks advertising, sifting through CVs and interviewing for a two week, non skilled job.

When I worked as a civil servant it was quite usual to get ‘casuals’ in to do a few weeks work if there was a special exercise that had to be completed quickly and the first port of call would always be to staff asking if they had any family members available.
Certainly not cost effective to go through a recruitment exercise.

MissVanjie you really do talk a lot of claptrap sometimes.
Are you honestly saying that if I had a house design business and my daughter went to university SPECIFICALLY to train as an architect to enable her to take over my business and I employed my son as the build site foreman despite not being the best man for the job - then I shouldn't be allowed to make these choices for my own family for my own business??? A business with no state funding and no shareholders except me. A business where the decision to employ who I employ is mine and mine alone - where mistakes made in that business BECAUSE I haven't run a recruitment programme 'through HR and picked the best person for the job' are entirely my responsibility (and cost) ?

I can tell you now. If anyone presumed to tell me who I could and couldn't employ would be told to fottfsofatfosm.

When the state wants to pay my wage bill I will listen to their 'rules' on recruitment. Not before.

In my world it would be immoral not to employ my family not to mention bloody stupid. They have an investment in making the business work over anything a 'selected' employee could bring to it.

Have skim-read the thread but yes of course it's nepotism and I would take a dim view of it as well

Can I just say that

tosspot bingo

is the most beautiful phrase I’ve heard this year.

So what would be your solution Johnny. That every tiny job that comes up in a private company, requiring someone for a couple of weeks, must be advertised and interviewed for?

I mean it clearly is nepotism as you said yourself, it is your child and the children of others doing the work, and you didn't advertise to anyone else. Having said that it is also the most sensible thing to do seeing as it is a temporary job and unskilled. People love making things either "right" or "wrong". I wouldn't worry about it, and I'm sure most people would do the same thing.

This really is at the weaker end of nepotism.

I have worked in some “sexy” industries and I can tell you that it is absolutely rife in those. At the BBC there are so many familiar names: yes, people go through the proper recruitment process but when you find who has got the job ( particularly more lowly, entry-level type ones) it’s “Hmmm, that name is somewhat familiar...”

In advertising, if the major client mentions their ds wants to work there, the agency is flippin’ jumping to let them work there in order to please (and not lose) that client.

Unpaid Internships are also much easier to do if your parents live in London and you don’t have accommodation and commuting costs. A young person from, say, Swindon couldn’t afford to do an internship in London.

But data entry for two weeks? No, that’s not worth getting worked up over.

I temped in a law firm several times during holiday when I was doing my degree (they knew me and knew I was quick and knew their systems so kept asking me back). The first time they had about sixteen of us in — all doing data entry, some recruited through an agency, and the rest through knowing somebody there (family friend was a partner in my case, but others knew paralegals or people in the post room etc). I know they were paying a lot more for the agency ones than the rest of us, so it's really in their interests.

Even for higher-up roles, they ask for recommendations. The person who suggests you gets a bonus if you're taken on and stay for a year!

Nepotism is one of those things that everyone complains about until we are the ones who benefit. I got my present job because I knew the CEO socially. Isn't that a form of nepotism? It doesn't mean I'm not good at my job.

I'm leaving that position soon to set up my own company. I've headhunted some people to join me - exciting new talents whose careers I've followed for a few years. Is that nepotism?

I think that as long as your company provides appropriate opportunities to the wider group of young people - then where's the harm in letting a few people whose parents work there do a couple of weeks mundane and dull work?

I’m a solicitor.

I’ll cut the shite. When it comes to my kids I don’t give much of a fuck about “social mobility” and how kids without lawyer parents might not get the opportunity.

Whatever.

DrDoMore

Okaaaay Rosie

I work damn hard in my job. If I can use it to get my kids a foot in the door, then I will.

Spot on DrDoMore
Seems like some folk need to meet the real world.