23-year-old brings his mom to a job interview, lets her answer questions for him: 'I'd ask him how he dealt with a tight deadline, and she'd jump in about how organized he is at home.'

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Emmy Pratt • Writer and Editor
May 23, 2026 12:30 PM EDT

How could he be so foolish?

Job interviews are a tough nut to crack. As the interviewee, it feels like the interviewer has all the power, and you have to read their cues and predict what they want to have a shot at the job. You feel like you have to answer every single question, no matter how silly or pointless. "Are you a morning or a night person?" obviously has a right and a wrong answer when you're interviewing for a job that starts at 8 AM. "What is your biggest weakness?" has so many wrong answers, including but not limited to, "I work too hard." When you're in an interviewing stage of life, you have your four STAR method (Situation, Task, Action, Result) stories rolling around in your head, and you have to be incredibly strategic about which answers you give to which behavioral questions.

While some job interviews are incredibly complex, others are just a formality to make sure that you're not going to be a total nightmare to work with, and that you understand basic workplace etiquette. If you show up to a job interview wearing a sweatshirt and gym shorts, how can the recruiter expect you to know how to dress in a professional setting? If you bring your mom to the job interview, there's a good chance you will bring your mom to work, and that's exactly why the young man in this story didn't get the job he applied for.

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  • A recruiter talks to a mother who is sitting in on her adult son's interview
    via National Cancer Institute

    A recruiter talks to a mother who is sitting in on her adult son's job interview.

    Image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.

  • Am I the bad guy for telling a mom that her sitting in on her son's job interview cost him the job?

    i run a small team and i do most of our hiring myself. a couple of months ago we had an entry level role open up that always pulls in a lot of applicants, so i had a stack of first round interviews booked in over a week.
    via u/LuckyBear40
  • one of them was a 23 year old lad fresh out of uni looking for his first proper job. his cv was genuinely good, right grades, decent placement year, and he came across well on paper. the interview was meant to be a relaxed half hour, just
    via u/LuckyBear40
  • Man in gray suit jacket smiling
    via Danny Ocean

    A young, recent graduate who looks good on paper, but has one fatal flaw. 

    Image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.

  • how he handles a few work situations. he turned up with his mum, which threw me a bit but i figured maybe shed given him a lift and was just waiting, except she came into the
    via u/LuckyBear40
  • room and sat down next to him. and then she didnt stop talking. id ask him how he dealt with a tight deadline and shed jump in about how organised he is at home, id ask if hed ever worked in a team and shed start telling me what a lovely
    via u/LuckyBear40
  • group of friends he has. he smiled and nodded along but barely got a sentence out himself. i tried three or four times to bring it back to him and she just talked straight over me every time. by the
    via u/LuckyBear40
  • end id had maybe two answers from him and about thirty from her, and honestly i knew within ten minutes i wasnt going to be putting him through. we wrapped up, i said wed be in touch, and off they went.
    via u/LuckyBear40
  • a couple of weeks later, after id already offered the role to someone else, i got an email from his mum asking when her son would hear back. i replied saying i could only discuss the application with the applicant himself and he was
    via u/LuckyBear40
  • The recruiter tells the job applicant's mom that he can't discuss the status of her son's application with her.
    via Ilias Chebbi

    The recruiter tells the job applicant's mom that he can't discuss the status of her son's application with her. 

    Image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.

  • welcome to contact me directly. she then rang the office in the middle of the day demanding to know why he hadnt got it. i told her i couldnt go into specifics but id give her one bit of general
    via u/LuckyBear40
  • feedback if she wanted it, and she said yes. so i told her plainly that no matter how strong he looked on paper, her sitting in and answering every question for him was what took him out of it, that the job needs someone who can speak for
    via u/LuckyBear40
  • themselves, and that most people in my position would have ruled him out the second a parent started answering for him. AITJ?
    via u/LuckyBear40
  • DoctorForsaken5563 you told her plainly what the problem was and honestly someone needed to cos no one else is gonna hire him with his mum running the interview either. you did both of them a favour even if she didnt like hearing it.
    via u/DoctorForsaken5563
  • LuckyBear40 OP someone had to say it or shes just gonna keep doing this to every interview he has. the lad might actually be alright but how would anyone know when she answers everything for him.l
    via u/LuckyBear40
  • shebangs 1995 You are not the j for telling her all of that but you ARE the j for not immediately telling her to leave the interview when she sat down.
    via u/shebangs1995
  • SLNSD Well to be fair the candidate should have told her to stay in the car. OP got the info he needed to make a call and didn't want to to toor de although he should have said what he told her to the both of them during the interview.
    via u/SLNSD
  • Deranged_Kitsune No, OP needed to be ride. As soon as mom came in the door, he knew it was a de d interview. He wasted his time and the candidate's time. This is unacceptable to the candidate and shows a spinelessness of OP. How he won't confront obvious issues. He should have stopped mom immediately when she tried to enter the room alongside her son, telling her the interview process is private and for the candidate only. She's welcome to wait in the lobby until he's done. Any pushback, end it
    via u/Deranged_Kitsune

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recruiter email work British stupid people unprofessional job interview mom job application
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