Helicopter mom signs into son's Zoom interview; causes him to lose his internship. AITA?
"AITA for telling a mom she shouldn’t be in her son’s interview?"
I was pre-screening students for a highly sought after internship. It only has 5 openings a semester. The interview process is an essay, this pre screening interview over Zoom, and 2-3 interviews afterward. This happens normally in the student's college junior year so most candidates are at their least early twenties.
I was interviewing a young man Dave (21) who’s from the online campus. Good grades, great essays, and a portfolio. I get an email that there’s a 3rd party in Zoom from Gmail. It’s not uncommon to have a professor join us to sing the student's praises and I sent the link.
The time comes and it’s the student and his mom. I started to ask the student questions and like clockwork, the mom interrupts him and talks over us both. Then for the achievement the student is most proud of, the mom goes into an almost 30 minute tirade about his 5th graded science fair project.
The allotted time for the interview is 30 minutes and it was set in a calendar invite. With the mom talking, this pre screen is almost at an hour. The student himself has said maybe a dozen words in that hour.
I go to finish up and I said next time maybe let “Dave” speak for himself because it’s not a good look to have a mom answering all of the questions at his age and this far into his degree program. The mom goes off and starts cussing at me, so I closed the window to Zoom.
Days later my supervisor asks me about it because I red flagged the student in our system, meaning that I do not recommend them for any internships and the mom has been emailing and calling the school about me to complain. My supervisor acted like I could have handled that better by being more accommodating to the student and his mom.
Here were the top rated comments from readers:
NTA. There are lots of posts from Ask A Manager on this topic. Adults need to do their own interviews.
Does you supervisor know exactly what happened? Because WTF. You didn’t actually get to interview Dave at all.
The supervisor probably took issue with the fact she allowed this to go on for a full hour without saying anything and gave criticism afterwards opposed to handling the situation at the start of the interview.
When this happens, here's the script- 'Ma'am, it was nice to meet you and we're always happy when a student has a supportive family but this interview is somewhat confidential and has to be conducted 'one-on-one', so I am going to have to ask you to log out' and simply don't proceed until the helicopter flies away.
NTA. The only thing I think you did wrong here was let that go for as long as you did. You are right to tell her but should have done so right at the beginning, not a half hour late. My partner actually has a similar role albeit for hiring people. Here was his advice.
“If a parent appears in an interview like this and does not allow their child to speak, I shut that down as quickly and professionally as possible, because it’s a nightmare.
Say something alone the lines of ‘I appreciate you being here, but this interview is for your child and I ask that you please not answer questions for him or talk over us.’ If they don’t agree, the interview ends. Personally I don’t think saving your words until the very end was smart, but live and learn.”
Very strange for the supervisor to want to accommodate this btw.
Obviously NTA. If he needed his mommy on the call at this age, he is clearly unsuitable for anything you have to offer.