Making career connections

As a public relations student, Alex, 21, was uncomfortably aware that positions and opportunities for graduates in her chosen field were few and far between. She steeled herself to join her classmates in trawling Seek.co.nz indefinitely, for a job – any job. “I’m going to be honest – I probably wouldn’t have turned down media work for the Mad Butcher after I graduated,” she says. “In the back of my mind, I was always going to move to follow where the job took me.”

So when her father, a client of her now-employer, helped her to get an interview with a PR company, she knew she couldn’t pass on the opportunity to get a foot in the door. “I knew it would be stupid for me to turn it down,” she says. Today, she’s a junior assistant at the firm.

Nepotism – when an individual is offered opportunities through their personal or family connections in business or politics – is most often invoked as an accusation by those whom it favours least. Some argue that nepotism fosters complacency amongst those who haven’t had to fight to get their foot in the door. But in an age where ‘who you know’ is just as important as ‘what you know’, and there are increasingly blurred lines between the personal and the professional, nepotism is hard to define, let alone punish.

In New Zealand law, Section 105 of the Employment Relations Act stipulates that family or employment status are prohibited grounds of workplace discrimination or dismissal, as is also outlined in the Human Rights Act. Employers only run into trouble if they can be proven to have selected one particular candidate over another on specific, discriminatory grounds. Cases in New Zealand are few and far between, and are often filed against a backdrop of other mitigating factors.

It can offer a wealth of experience because your employers trust you; there’s that deeper family tie

Alex admits that without the introduction from her father, she’d have been just another graduate seeking their first foothold on the career ladder. But, she says, in public relations in particular, these kinds of introductions aren’t uncommon. Her father’s networks helped her get an interview, not a job – and she says the company she works for has a history of hiring on a basis of family, business, or personal connections on the understanding that it promotes a sense of loyalty amongst staff.

Though Alex is the first to admit that she might not have had to have worked as hard as others to get her first job – and one in her chosen industry, too – she stresses that this hasn’t been a reason to slack off in the office. “People [at university] are too focused on their academics, and don’t spend enough time fostering their social network,” she says. “If anything, this job has revealed to me just how important that is.”

“There is a marked difference between networking: getting out there and broadening your social and professional network yourself, and nepotism: using your family connections for your own benefit,” says Samantha Gadd, founder of Wellington human resources consultancy HR Shop, who deals with recruitment across a range of industries on a regular basis.

There’s a surprising amount of small- to medium-sized businesses in New Zealand that still dip from the family lines for their recruitment, says Gadd, and it comes down to one valuable quality: trust. People who are, or have been referred by, family members have a pre-established level of trust that other employees have to work for months to gain. “It can offer a wealth of experience because your employers trust you; there’s that deeper family tie,” she says.

Her own experience of being hired by a family member gave her the on-the-job experience she needed to jump-start her career. After she finished university, her father offered her a job in the human resources department of his company – “a position that no employer in their right mind would offer a new graduate,” she says.

Gadd was at the firm for less than a year, in keeping with the limit she set herself at the time, but worked in a role well beyond her expertise as a recent graduate, attending extra training courses and networking events to further her professional development in her spare time.

But Gadd points out that recruitment tends to be incredibly time-consuming for businesses, and fast-tracking it, by nepotism or otherwise, can result in costly mistakes. She believes casting a wide net at the start of the hiring process ensures the best possible candidate gets the job.

But nepotism circumvents the typical recruitment process by making the most of pre-existing relationships; there’s no (or very little) need to sell yourself at all. Networking, on the other hand, enables people to be proactive about generating their own career opportunities.

Will – a fifth-year Otago University med student – says doctors are selected on the strength of psychometric testing and academic results, not their ties to any ‘old boys’ network’. Both his grandfather and his father are leading surgeons, which Will admits has benefited his studies – but, he says, he’s not had access to any more opportunities than his peers have.

Earlier this year, Will spent a month working at a medical clinic in Jakarta for the International Organization for Migration, after his granddad suggested he contact a former colleague of his, who in turn put him in touch with the organisation’s chief of mission for Indonesia. But this was no case of “family favouritism”, argues Will, who says those contact details were easily available online, and that he didn’t have to “name drop” to be accepted into the programme.

“It was an opportunity that, in a way, did come directly through a family connection, but not through nepotism,” he says. “Anyone who is training in the field of medicine could get that job.”

With over 20 years’ experience in the recruitment industry, and former Department of Labour employee, Internship NZ director Karen Oswald is well-versed in what makes a good CV. She says she can spot people who have gained work through their parents’ connections a mile away – and says it signals an immediate red flag.

“I would disconnect instantly the minute someone mentioned they got their job through their family and would have no further interest [in them],” she says. “It showed me they hadn’t been prepared to go out there and get it themselves.”

Oswald says nepotism favours the connected, and directly at the expense of the (comparatively) disadvantaged, especially at the starts of their careers. “The job hunt is not a level playing field, [because] nepotism takes that away … I actually think, for our society, it does no help for us whatsoever.” This “leap-frogging” up the career ladder, she thinks, is ironic for a country that prides itself on its egalitarianism. (Whether this is in fact the case is debated.)

Asked whether she’d use her to secure employment or opportunities for her own children, who are currently undergraduates at university, Oswald says “they have a lot more to gain by having to go out there and sell themselves”.

And there’s a lot to be said for being a self-starter. Prime Minister John Key’s humble beginnings in a state house and subsequent rise to success is often referenced as a reason for his popularity with the public. One can’t help but wonder if he’d be as well-liked and relatable if his father had been an investment banker with a Remuera mansion.

So what is it that tips the scales of opportunity in favour of the privileged?

Oswald says children born to well-to-do parents are taught (or pick up) the social niceties and customs that must be observed in order to succeed in job interviews or at networking events; she describes it as “being able to sit at the table”. Comparatively, she says, ‘Johnny from Hastings’, a hard-working and high-achieving law graduate from a humble background, “doesn’t stand a chance” if employers are “looking for what they know, not what is diverse.”

Some large, professional firms, she says, invite promising job applicants to a cocktail evening: “Someone who hasn’t grown up drinking top-shelf whiskey in reefer jackets is significantly disadvantaged to someone who has been doing this with their parents all their lives.”

Consultancy firm PricewaterhouseCoopers holds social mixers as part of its final round of recruitment. The company’s partner and leader for people and culture, David Lamb, says the evening is intended as an opportunity to expose applicants to the company and its workplace culture. “It’s certainly not ostentatious, black-tie kind of evening.”

He says PwC purposely does not hire the sons or daughters of any of the company’s managers or partners: “We can’t afford to damage the brand’s [PwC] connection with a broad degree of people.”

Many companies do recognise the value of, and actively strive for, diversity in the workplace – but achieving it can be difficult if the ladder’s seen to have been pulled up. HR Shop's Samantha Gadd mentors with the First Foundation, which provides selected scholars with scholarships, mentoring, financial support, practical experience and professional development over the course of their tertiary education.

The foundation was established in recognition of the significant barriers that prevent disadvantaged young New Zealanders from reaching their full potential. General manager Anthony Ford grew up on the North Shore, and admits that he was “fairly ignorant” to the kinds of challenges faced by others his age who were less fortunate than he was. Starting at the foundation, he says, was an “eye-opener”.

Ford says the foundation is “very strong in its belief that there is a pecking order in terms of opportunity out there”, though he believes approaches to recruitment in New Zealand are changing for the better. “I can honestly say that there’s a much greater awareness of how important diversity is in the workplace now than there was 10 or so years ago.”

In the age of the personal brand and invitations to connect on LinkedIn, it’s likely that there will always be an element of truth to the adage, ‘It’s not what you know, but who you know’ – and that doesn’t necessarily constitute, in and of itself, nepotism.

But, after two decades working in recruitment, Oswald says she’s always impressed by self-starters. “It’s not about fitting a mould, but carving out one for yourself. It’s just a shame that for some people, this is a lot harder than it is for others.”

Cover illustration by Rhiannon Josland.

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