A reporter from a major newspaper is writing a story on this topic and is hoping to speak with a parent who’s used a contract with their adult kids. If you’ve done so, and you’re interested in being interviewed for a story, send me an e-mail and I’ll connect you with the reporter.

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I have to say, this one really shocked me. I just find it hard to understand this one — and I can only imagine what my parents’ faces would have looked like if I had ever asked them to pay for my cell phone. I can tell you this — they would have said no. And I really think  they would have been right to do so. It’s one thing for an adult child to benefit from the family landline while living at home (I certainly did this). It’s entirely different for a parent to pay a bill that is clearly not a household expense. Even if the adult child’s phone is part of a family plan, they should still be responsible for their portion of the bill.

And how about this? It doesn’t end at the cell phone bill. Some parents are paying for all the digital goodies that keep their adult children entertained:

• 17% pay for mobile wifi access
• 12% pay for streaming video accounts like Hulu and Netflix
• 10% pay for music services like iTunes and Spotify

All of this (including the cell phone) adds up to about $108 every month, or almost $1,300 per year. That may not sound like a huge amount of money, but it’s certainly not insignificant.

I have to say, none of these services are necessities of life. If a 30-year-old can’t afford these services, maybe he or she should learn to live without them for a few years. When I was in my early twenties, some of these services didn’t exist. But I did pay for my own cell phone — and I had my own account at the video rental place (remember those?), even when I was living at home.

All the stats in this article come from a poll by Harris Interactive as reported by the Wall Street Journal.

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I should start by saying that AdultChildrenLivingatHome.com has no affiliation with this contest whatsoever — I just thought it was something you all would want to hear about. In fact, I’m definitely interested in knowing what you think.

Here’s the scoop. The Canadian rate-finder website RateSupermarket.ca is having a contest for the “Ultimate Mother’s Day Gift.” What’s the prize? A prize package worth about $5,400 designed to help get your adult kid out of your house. They don’t specify what the prize package includes, other than to say it’s “full of grown up goodies” and that it’s designed to “get yourself or your grown child out of the house.”

So, what do you think? Is this really the ultimate Mother’s Day gift? Is $5,400 really enough to get an adult kid out of the house? Will you be entering?

You can find the contest details (and enter, of you’re a Canadian resident and you’re so inclined) here.

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Here are a couple of shots from the show.

(with Claudia and host Nancy Redd)

If you missed the segment, you can watch it anytime here.

The post A chat with Claudia Lonow, creator of “How to Live With Your Parents (For the Rest of Your Life)” appeared first on Adult Children Living at Home.

The letter stirs up mixed feelings in me. Here’s an excerpt:

What makes me extremely bitter is how poorly people of my age and younger have been treated by potential employers…

About a month from now, I’ll likely randomly get an email … telling me that while they really liked me, I wasn’t the right person for the role and they hired someone else. That’s it. The kicker? They likely didn’t hire anyone at all and wasted everyone’s time…

Being willing to work is absolutely USELESS if you can’t get a foot in the door. The economy is only part of the problem.

I have to say, this gets my hackles up — for a couple of reasons. First, I can relate. After all, I’m only five years older than the letter writer. Yes, five years can make a big difference in the economic landscape. But things were not easy when I graduated either. (My first job after graduating from university was working for slightly more than minimum wage at a book store.) I understand that things are hard(er) now — but sometimes you really do have to work for less than you think you’re worth so you can build skills and contacts, which make you worth much more.

But what really irks me is his view of the hiring process — because I’ve been a hiring manager, and I can tell you that I find it hard to believe companies are intentionally wasting their own employees’ time interviewing people for jobs that don’t exist. Hiring is a huge expense for a company, and it takes an almost unbelievable amount of time. At one company I worked for, I think I interviewed pretty much every young writer in Vancouver. Clearly, most of them did not get the job. Maybe they thought I was evil and that we never hired anyone. But here’s the thing: Many of them just had not developed their skills to the point of being hireable — yet. I once hired a writer with very little paid experience because she had an excellent blog that showed she could write. When I asked for samples from more experienced writers and they either didn’t have any, or they were badly written, or they spelled my name or the name of the company wrong in the e-mail they sent them in, well, they didn’t get hired. Sometimes I did a round of hiring and didn’t hire anyone — not because there was no job to fill, but because it would have been way too expensive for the company to bring on a new employee that everyone knew was not going to work out.

For the letter writer, I don’t know what the answer is. I know it’s tough out there. I know it can seem bleak, if not impossible. You’re right that by sheer virtue of the time you were born and graduated, you face a tougher road than those 20, 10, or even 5 years older than you. I would just urge you to keep going. And don’t believe the system is out to get you. Make what you can out of the opportunities you’re given. And hope for a little (or a lot) of luck along the way.

For another perspective, here’s another letter from a 29-year-old “job-haver” who wrote Rob to respond to the first letter. As I read it, I kept saying, right out loud, “YES!” A couple of his excerpts:

Applying for hundreds of jobs, over the Internet, in a wide variety of fields…  is the shotgun approach, and it is a big mistake…

This is hard to swallow, but the people who will get their dream jobs are already doing their dream jobs before they get hired. You wanna be an accountant? Start doing your friends’ taxes. You wanna work in an ad agency? Make spec ads for your friends’ and family’s small businesses. Wanna be a journalist? Start making YouTube videos. Mechanic? Fix some cars. Teacher? Tutor poor kids. Yeah, you gotta make money. So sling coffee. And be darn well passionate about it. Find a coffee shop you love and pitch yourself to them, so you can make a few bucks an hour to support your weekends of doing your dream job for free. That’s how economies work. People do things. Real things in the real world with grease and sweat and moving parts and grit. Your credentials are theory.

I could not agree more.

The post On the difficulties finding work in today’s economy: Two perspectives appeared first on Adult Children Living at Home.

Specifically, they are looking for a family with a boomerang kid living at home  faced with the dilemma of moving on.

Here’s some information about the show from the producers:

The Audience is a transformative, caring and compassionate social series.  Each one-hour episode focuses on an individual or family who is struggling with a life-changing decision and is at a crossroads in their life.  For one week, the individual is followed by “The Audience” 50 insightful people from diverse backgrounds. “The Audience” puts their heads together, debates the dilemma, and comes up with the best possible solution… the wisdom of the crowd.  At the end of the week, “The Audience” presents its considered, collective, and thoughtful advice to the individual.

For more information about the show, or if your family wants to get involved, you can get in touch with the producers directly by email at theaudience@forcefour.com or on facebook.

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UPDATE: Generation Jobless is now viewable online within Canada at http://www.cbc.ca/player/Shows/ID/2330990900/

———–
Today, the unemployment rate for Canada’s twenty-somethings hovers just under 15%, which is nearly double the national average. Why are so many of today’s college and university graduates unable to forge their way into the job market? The new CBC documentary Generation Jobless takes a critical look at the growing problem and the serious ramifications it will have on the lives of every Canadian regardless of age, gender, education or income. Can we fix a broken system or are we destined to betray an entire generation?

Generation Jobless explores the harsh realities Canada’s twenty-somethings face when they try to gain a toehold in the workplace: unprecedented competition from their parents’ generation, and an economy that is being transformed by globalization and automation. Generation Jobless also looks to Switzerland for a solution, where youth unemployment is 2.8% — the lowest in the developed world. In this country, a strategic alliance between government, educators and employers ensures that almost all young people find their place in the job market. If Switzerland can achieve this, why can’t Canada?
Several experts weigh in on what many are calling the most important social issue of our time.
———-

You can watch the trailer for Generation Jobless below.

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From research done by Gary Insch, Joyce Heames and Nancy McIntyre at the College of Business and Economics at West Virginia University:

• Nearly 70% of students found it “somewhat” or “very appropriate” to receive help from their parents when writing a resume or a cover letter.
• 20% thought it was fine to have their parents contact a prospective employer.

And according to a poll of employers by Michigan State University (this one is a bit dated, as it comes from 2007, but I suspect the trend is for parental involvement to be increasing rather than decreasing):

• 40% of employers had dealt with parents contacting the company to obtain information
• 31% had dealt with parents submitting resumes on behalf of their children
• 15% had dealt with parents complaining if the company did not hire their child
• 12% had dealt with parents trying to negotiate their children’s salary and benefits
• 4% had seen parents attend their children’s job interviews!

As part of the survey, one employer even felt compelled to offer the following advice to parents: “Please tell your student that you have submitted a resume to a company. We have called a student from our resume pool only to find they did not know anything about our company and were not interested in a position with us.”

A note from the report to those parents who think they are helping by being directly involved in their adult children’s job search: “Many [employers] responded that they take parental presence in the job search as a negative and would like to see less parental ‘interference.’”

If you’re looking for legitimately helpful ways to assist your adult children in the job hunt, check out my tips in the article How to Help Adult Children Living at Home Find a Job.

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