Parents – please tell your teens to stop talking about their mental health when applying for jobs!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Kids who are trying to get jobs basically taking care of younger kids at a sleep-away camp are telling you their mental health limitations and need of accommodations? No way would I hire someone who needs to be taken care of to take care of other kids.

Which is illegal. So - that's probably why you're not someone who does hiring.

You need to stop with the "this is illegal" postings. If you don't want to hire someone, you aren't putting something damning in writing about why you didn't hire them.

You will write down perfectly legitimate reasons to pass over an interviewee.

I’m not sure that any of this is illegal. Many people go the self diagnosis route. Being anxious isn’t a mental illness. It’s not covered under the ADA.

You can discriminate against someone who has anxiety and are unable to perform job duties, right? I’m not talking about GAD and it doesn’t sound like the kids in these stories are talking about that either.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is a complete vent post, but maybe it will help your kid who is looking for a job this summer.

I'm a camp director for a sleepaway camp, which means that this time of year I'm doing a ton of hiring. I know that a lot of the folks applying to me are looking for their first job, which is great! I know that learning how to interview well is a skill, and I do not expect the teens applying to me to be perfect. But I would love it if they stopped telling me private health info in their cover letter or during their interview!

I cannot tell you how many cover letters or interviews include the reveal of some mental health diagnosis. It's inappropriate and puts me in an ethically uncomfortable place. I am more than happy to provide accommodations as needed if I've hired you, but it's a weird thing to learn about someone you're meeting for the first time, and it makes me question if I can trust you with sensitive camper information.

This is not about shaming people for having a mental health diagnosis – I have some too! I just don't need to know the specifics of yours the very first time we meet.

I certainly do not want any mentally-ill people around my kids at summer camp!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For many kids, their mental health issues (usually self-diagnosed) are their whole identity.

Agree

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Times have changed. I do some interviewing of recent college grads for our org and a significant percentage of them mention being in therapy.

I'd be glad that they were upfront about this, so I'd know not to hire them. I don't want mentally unstable people working for me! Also, I would not want to deal with them missing work for therapy.

Major ADA violation. The OP is right that potential employees should not be discussing their need for accommodations before they are hired, because people like you will discriminate against them. But if you denied an employee time off to take care of a medical problem (which is what therapy is) you would 100% lose any resulting lawsuit.

NP and while I agree with this, the sheer amount of therapy appointments have exploded in the past few years. I’m a high school teacher in a core advanced subject. Several kids, different kids, miss class every week for their therapy appointments. They say they try to vary the time to miss different classes. On any given day 2-3 might miss part of a class and say it’s for therapy. I could take not take that much leave for work if I saw a therapist. I don’t know anyone my age working full time who goes to therapy as much as these teens.

They generally need to go once a week. If you add up therapy time (1 hr) plus commute, the child could be out 3 hrs. My own kid is supposed to be therapy for anxiety. It was getting to be that she was missing 2 hrs a week and *that* was creating even more anxiety. We just decided to stop until the summer - it wasn't worth the stress. When we started we hoped someone would see a kid in the evening (weirdly where we go, Walter Reed, the earliest appointment is 8 am and 3 pm is the last appointment - completely not helpful to their target population of kids/teens).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Times have changed. I do some interviewing of recent college grads for our org and a significant percentage of them mention being in therapy.

True and it’s not a good look.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For many kids, their mental health issues (usually self-diagnosed) are their whole identity.

Yes this has gone into obsession territory

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My children went two sleep away camps in NC both are well known and have been mentioned on DCUM as "great camps"

I wish the hiring process did weed out these kids. At least they are being upfront.

Because the camps sure were not.

One told us "oh yes we dropped the ball on this one", "would you like to put your check in for next year now".

My response "Hell no"

What was your issue with the camps?

Sounds like they had mental case teen counselors who did their whole personal drama thing all camp long, instead of their jobs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I interviewed five 22-25 years olds over the past two weeks for an entry level job. Two brought up they needed accommodations (we work in office fully, no WFH and this job can’t be done from home) to work from home as their mental health conditions (one mentioned adhd and anxiety) would increase if they had to be around people 5 days a week. Part of me is horrified they asked and part of me is impressed by their balls to do so.

Don’t conflate “having balls” with total entitlement and cluelessness. Good luck.

The adhd woman I had to manage lost her work phone three times one year and never took notes at mtgs. She had ti be emailed the same stuff over and over and over.

We begged her go to bschool. Thankfully she did.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I sit on a lot of hiring panels and stuff like this is rampant. I’ve had interviews where instead of answering our questions, they just want to know about work life balance. Asking about whether they can end work at 2pm and work again at 9pm. Another wanted to travel the world while working remotely from hotel rooms. But yes, please don’t tell me about mental health issues in an interview. I work at a flexible place but people really push the boundaries

Yuck.

[Anonymous]

Why can’t people just take the OPs advice as intended. Please advise your kids applying for jobs not to talk about their medical condition until they are hired.

Seems like good advice. Doesn’t apply to my kids but if they did have conditions, I would not have thought about advising them on when and where to discuss with employees.

So this is a good PSA.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Kids who are trying to get jobs basically taking care of younger kids at a sleep-away camp are telling you their mental health limitations and need of accommodations? No way would I hire someone who needs to be taken care of to take care of other kids.

Which is illegal. So - that's probably why you're not someone who does hiring.

Well I hope you don’t do any hiring if you think it’s perfectly ok to put mentally ill teens in charge of little kids.

To be clear, most of these kids aren’t actually mentally ill. They’re just normal teens going through the process of adolescence and all that comes with it but they’ve been overexposed via social media to pathologizing ANYTHING as a “mental health issue” and they’ve been raised in a time when identity politics mean they believe that all these labels have to be attached to who they are.

I’ve posted previously about how I see this in high schools . Kids will tell me they are non binary because “some days I want to dress more feminine and other days more masculine.” They truly don’t realize that is true of pretty much all women- you can wear a dress one day and a flannel the next day and it doesn’t mean you are non binary. They will self diagnose with all manner of disorders based on incredibly common and normal “symptoms” (eg, they feel sad some days and happy others so they’re convinced it’s BPD).

They are just playing with labels and trying to figure out who they are and they do the same thing with mental health. Now, it’s an issue that they think this needs to be brought up so often as in regular conversations with their teachers or in job interviews, but most of them are not truly mentally ill. They’re just young and immature.

[Anonymous]

Back in the day people used to mock this level of self absorption as navel gazing, now it's just the way everyone is. We should bring shaming self obsession back.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why can’t people just take the OPs advice as intended. Please advise your kids applying for jobs not to talk about their medical condition until they are hired.

Seems like good advice. Doesn’t apply to my kids but if they did have conditions, I would not have thought about advising them on when and where to discuss with employees.

So this is a good PSA.

It is a terrible PSA!

It means mentally ill people will get hired to work, for example, around kids at summer camp or in kids’ programs.

Mentally ill people should not be working with our children.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Times have changed. I do some interviewing of recent college grads for our org and a significant percentage of them mention being in therapy.

True and it’s not a good look.

We, older people (maybe gen x or older millennials) think so, but these young people don't so maybe this is how it's going to be in the future.

[Anonymous]

You can tell who the work-obsessed geezers are on this thread. Judging younger adults who want to have balance and a life outside of work, and don't want to sell their soul to a 9-5 workday when there could easily be accommodations at many jobs. They want more out of life and good for them.

People my age (GenX) and older are so antiquated in their views. And in their feelings that toughing it out is somehow better than asking for help, be in a diagnosed mental illness or simply knowing what would make you happy.

Working like some of you propose is not a virtue. Never has been. Never will be. (And before you all start casting stones, I come from a poor working family. I've worked, and worked a lot, since I was 14 doing hard and gross jobs. I have a work ethic b/c I had no choice. )