22 years and never worked / how to motivate?

[halfthesun]

Hello, step son has graduated and moved back home which is wonderful. However he isn't motivated to complete CV and apply for jobs. He hasn't worked one day in his life and his dad gives him an allowance. He wants to upgrade his car. He had no money so expects dad to pay. I think he needs to get a job and be self sufficient. I have just had this conversation with my DH and I feel that I have interfered. Really unsure if I have been unreasonable. Please let me know your thoughts. TIA

The title says it all really. He’s never worked. From what others have said having a degree is all very well but he needs a job literally doing anything to improve his employability. Did he not even have a weekend job at school or a holiday job at uni?

Pull the plug on the WiFi and sell the gaming station.

How are things now @halfthesun? Has your DH been able to see that he is doing DS absolutely no favours and in fact, DH's behaviour could actually be quite harmful in this situation?

Perhaps DH is worried about DS but he's doing him absolutely no favours.

Ideally DH needs to stop the allowance now. It's disrespectful to your DS who is the same age and is earning and contributing.

Ideally you'd need to get DH to agree to stop the allowance, give his DS a deadline to get his CV up dated and either get a job or sign on. I'd say 30th is a good date, that gives him two weeks to get his CV finished and apply for a lot of jobs.

If he does end up signing on, I'd also get switching off the Wi-Fi at around 10 pm or changing the password so that everyone else can use it but him.

Gradcracker has vacancies on now. Could DH have a look at those with him?

And I don't say this often but perhaps show DH this thread?

Your DH is totally enabling him! “It’s still the summer holidays”, Jesus Christ, my 15 year old managed to work over the summer holidays and he’s working today. He literally has more work experience than this 22 year old 😵.

I don’t know what the answer is now as he’s really messed up, enabled by your DH, I guess getting any job would be a starting point.

Wow it seems very unfair that your DS is paying you rent, while your DSS is gaming and living off an allowance.

It may have been this article or a similar one that I read the other week, which also pointed out that there are jobs that employers are struggling to fill because the young graduates are not skilled in the right areas.

someone up thread has spoken about engineering roles going unfilled because people don’t meet the level required.

I remember in my early 20’s helping out with the graduate program at my employer. ( having recently been on it). Even though it was massively oversubscribed, a lot of the applications were half arsed and zero effort put in. I was quite shocked. It made me realise that it isn’t as hard as it looks from the outside. I had done all the right things- tailored my CV, researched the company, spell checked my application etc etc. and also made efforts to get relevant experience.

I’m also not sure this problem is new. I graduated in the late 90’s and it still took some of my cohort over a year to get a job in a relevant area. ( RG uni that people on this site wet themselves to get their kids into) One friend finished top of her year- with a first. She was working in a shop for a year and gaining relevant work experience by volunteering. This was obviously for a very competitive area where there was only a handful of jobs- and even if only the top performer from each uni applied, would be massively oversubscribed.

everyone has managed to have a successful career in their chosen field.

I think that parents sometimes fuel this. It’s like collective amnesia. It’s easy to think your kid is wonderful and should walk into a job because you’ve seen how hard they work, but that’s the case for tens of thousands of graduates every year.

Absolutely this!

So people are just too 'above' warehouse work or care work. No wonder the care system and hospitality in this country is so shit when its referrred to as 'dead end work'. No job is dead end. It fulfills a purpose, services customers or society in some way, pays a wage, develops skills and gets people off their arses.

Some of the rubbish excuses on this site and this thread about young adults nto working infuriate me. We are infantilising young adults, its bad for them and bad for society

Oh wait, someone will come along and say his brain isnt developed enough yet, blah blah blah.

I understand an allowance while studying full time. I even understand (to an extent) wanting to focus on his studies, which has resulted in a first class degree. But he has negated the advantage of a first by neglecting placement and work experience.

Step one would be stopping the allowance and getting him to sign on. He will be expected to look for work and participate in job seeking activities (eg CV writing, interview practice). And there is an external person driving it, which takes some of the pressure off the family relationships.

As others have said, a part time job delivering pizzas is better than nothing while he finds his career job.

He has a car and an allowance?

The allowance has to stop. He’ll never work if it doesn’t.

What you havent said OP is what his fathers expectation is.

I dont come from a culture where paying an allowance is the norm. So it seems unusual to me but clearly not unusal to your husband, is he ok with this, does he expect it just to continue, is he not bothered about his son's work abilities or prospects?

What conversations has he had about it, either with you or the son?

As others have said, a part time job delivering pizzas is better than nothing while he finds his career job. Indeed. And he's lucky enough to have a car to do those deliveries in.

He has had it very good because his father does not mind giving him the money he needs

My brother ( another country for that matter ) pulled up the farm work from age of 13 and heavy duties from the age of 16 and was given money yes but he worked hard. He knew his rights also in the family business and when he turned 18 became self sufficient ( me also - my only ever dream was to grow up and earn any salary but just to be away from this farming middle ages routine).

Whatever you are taught and seen in life.

your husband treated him like an incapable baby all his life, so this is what his son has become.

Getting a degree is only half of what's needed - being able to demonstrate that you can work effectively with other people is usually quite an important requirement - having never worked and focused on getting a first suggests someone who is focused and single-minded - that is not usually something employers are exclusively looking for. I have seen this in very successful graduates with PhD's in Maths for example - they have not developed their social skills, they are terrified of failing at work. They are well practised and excel at the academics but real life scares the shit out of them - you have to get him out of his comfort zone - and even voluntary work will go some way to achieving that. It not the actual work that matters, it's getting him off the sofa and doing something that gives him a little self-worth - his degree is done now, it can't sustain his self-esteem - real-life beckons.

Engineering is a hard job and requires to have your manliness and shit together and be able to be out and about in all weathers. May be send him to do park runs first, then make him make his breakfast, then throw him out and let him start scraping the pennies and wobble his head a bit.

Good afternoon, thank you for all your responses, really helpful. Thankfully both his mum and dad have had chats and he understands that it is much better to be in a job while looking for a graduate job. He is applying for jobs in supermarkets ... long application form with many questions re. customer service plus researching and applying for graduate jobs around the country. His dad has got him doing odd jobs around the house in rather than staying in his room all day and DSS seems much happier as a result.

That's a lovely update. I think it is right to intervene if we see them sliding towards what a friend of mine calls 'failure to launch' - those key early twenties years when they have to strike out on their own and put up with poor pay or long hours/commutes/ or dodgy lodgings, just to start living their adult lives while they work out their priorities and desires.

Great update OP 👍

This is what happens when you get all the way to 22 without having worked even a Saturday job. Ridiculous.

How did he fund his beer money when at uni? I think I know the answer...

It's good that he's making some progress. Might be worth one of you sitting with him each week to look at what he's applied for, what's out there and how to tailor his applications.

A positive update!

I understand why the responses have been critical, but a first class degree will have taken work and commitment.

If he is quite academic, maybe a focus on research or teaching jobs might be good.

He does need to earn a living though and an additional point about e.g. a supermarket or a warehouse is, there's some interesting engineering aspects there. DH specialises in manufacturing engineering and that would be relevant for his students.