Keeping a job in the family

Does following in your parents' footsteps guarantee career success? Yes and no, reports JULIE MIDDLETON.

David Snedden, aged 48, reckons that his entry into Auckland's law school in the 1970s was, shall we say, eased by the fact that his father and grandfather had gone there before him.

"The legal background made it much simpler to get into law," he says, casual in jeans and shirt in his distinctly homely Auckland City office.

"Back then, the requirements for law were more ... discretionary. That is a nice way of putting it."

But the road to a career in law for his nephew Ben, who has just sat his professional exams, and niece Kristy, in law school, has been a lot tougher: entrance to professional schools, he acknowledges, has become "really cut-throat".

It appears tertiary education no longer has an interest in - or can get away with - perpetuating occupational dynasties.

The Auckland Medical School, for example, asks would-be students their motivations, "which might include family involvement," says head Norman Sharpe. "But it has no bearing on admission."

Otago University admits dentistry students solely on academic record, says Professor Malcolm McMillan. And family ties may not help once the job hunt starts - it's only a matter of time before the American trend for formal anti-nepotism policies makes it here.

Such rules are widespread in the United States, and attempt to prevent relatives from ending up in a compromising reporting relationship or becoming the subject of favouritism accusations.

Here, the risks are already acknowledged, if not openly: according to an insider, branches of accounting and law firm KPMG in Sydney and Auckland, for example, have unwritten rules that family members do not work together.

As in many professions, law often runs in families. David Snedden is brother of cricketer Martin, 41, who left the practice to become the head of New Zealand Cricket.

Their grandfather, Nesbit, one of three solicitor siblings and a founder of Snedden and Associates 75 years ago, welcomed his son Warwick into the practice after the Second World War. David arrived in 1974 and Martin in the 1980s.

The pair can count among their first cousins Queen's Counsel Tony Molloy and lawyer Andrew Molloy.

There, you would think, was a good case for being a job clone. But what's the key - good management, good luck, or good DNA?

It's one of those questions to which a straight answer will always be elusive. "That's the whole argument, determinism versus free will," says University of Auckland geneticist Ingrid Winship. "How much freedom do we have? Is man the sum of his genes?"

She gives nurture the greater credit, and her own history is a case in point.

"Am I a doctor because my dad was a doctor, and I was exposed to medicine in the home?" she asks.

"I was exposed to healthcare issues. I used to go on ward rounds when I was a little kid.

"The sort of parents who would give piano lessons to a child are probably pianists themselves. [Tennis star] Andre Agassi sat on a highchair with balloons and a pingpong bat."

But it's how parents introduce and supervise balloon and bat that is crucial to later career choices, says psychologist Iain McCormick, of Auckland's Executive Coaching Centre.

The arbiters of career success are many, he says. Parents' education carries much weight, as well as what psychologists call "background factors" - social and economic status, gender and temperament.

But most crucial in how successful professional people become, he says, is parenting style and how that creates a child's reality.

Psychologists define four styles. Indulgent parents, says McCormick, are responsive and supportive but not particularly demanding. Their kids are emotionally stable but not driven to achieve.

"Because their parents don't put any expectations on them, whether they go to university is a shall- I-shan't-I question - it's not a given," he says.

Uninvolved parents do not set standards or, by responding to their child, teach them about the world. As a result, such children tend to reach adulthood lacking social skills and self-confidence.

They are not academic or career high-flyers.

Authoritarian parents are demanding but not supportive, says McCormick. Their children, "while they do well at school, don't do well in their career".

"Children often get into careers that don't fit them very well."

Why? Parents push careers on to them - perhaps their own - rather than letting children work out their preferences.

McCormick says his own father is a classic example.

"He was very much influenced by his mother to become an accountant and took the exams and began to work, but was very unhappy. He subsequently trained as an engineer and did very well."

Authoritative parents are both demanding and responsive, and their children are most likely to end up in a career where they are happy and successful.

These parents, says McCormick, set high standards but provide emotional support, recognising the child's autonomy and need for independence.

"These children ... have more self-confidence, they are more socially competent, tend to be more academically successful and tend to mature earlier," he says.

They would encourage the balloon and pingpong bat, but would not force it longer than it was appealing.

Parents' attitudes to work when they are at home also influence their children at an early age.

A parent who is interested in his or her career and talks about it, says McCormick, is giving kids a head start in interpreting the realities of work. "It's not all fun and no stress."

It is a sentiment Snedden echoes.

When he was growing up, he says, his grandfather and father would deal with clients at home, and talked to them as though they were friends.

"It was not strange to see clients at home. We were always dealing with people's problems."

He was never pushed to be a lawyer, he says - teaching also appealed. Law was an option that "was always available ... if I wanted to and I got the qualifications".

The more lucrative option won. Readymade networks proved invaluable once Snedden started law.

"I was involved with the firm from day one. I used to be a clerk around here.You learned how things worked much more quickly than everybody else."

And in the Snedden family practice, "everything was to be resolved as quickly and as amicably as possible", an ethos that appears to prevail still.

Nephew Ben has clerked for a few months, though he has been advised to do a couple of years in a big commercial law firm to kick-start his career.

Nepotism has never been an accusation nor an issue, says Snedden. "The practice will only survive if the person [running it] has got enough to keep it going."

What did become an issue at times was the pressure to live up to his predecessors' moral and ethical standards, he recalls, especially as the pace of law sped up and the sort of shortcuts they would have frowned on became more attractive.

But Snedden says he has been careful not to force law on to his three children. None of them appears interested.

"I have never said, do you want to be a lawyer? I have never made an issue out of it," he says. "I have explained it's now a hugely competitive business."

Career choice, he says, will be theirs.

For many, conformity, and rebellion to a lesser extent, drives employment decisions, says Dale Furbish, the team leader of the graduate diploma in career development at the Auckland University of Technology.

But, he says, decisions need to be conscious and based on an honest appraisal of skills and preferences, and the understanding that career management isn't about just one decision.

It's also about making the most of opportunities and taking risks throughout working life.

A chip off the old block

Music: Betchadupa's Liam Finn followed his dad, Crowded House and Split Enz veteran Neil.

Sport: Netballer Bernice Mene ran after her parents, Mene and Sally, both athletes.

Business: Australians James Packer and Lachlan Murdoch ascended on their fathers' coat-tails but have been spectacularly embarrassed by the implosion of their business, One.Tel.

Law: Victoria University law school dean Matthew Palmer followed his father, constitutional law expert and former Prime Minister Geoffrey.

Politics: Roger Douglas joined father Norman in Parliament, and brother Malcolm later also became an MP.

Public life: Fraudster James Archer followed his father, jailed perjurer Lord Jeffrey Archer, into strife: sacked and banned from share trading.