Not only did business have to adapt to a new generation of recruits with a different set of life values and work ethics - we also had their parents to deal with.
Recently, helicopter parents have been in the news again - not only in the media, but turning up to their children's Fresher's Week events, staying in their dorms and hovering around the campus.
It has certainly affected recruitment. Our recruiters have had instances of parents phoning to ask if they can represent their children during phone interviews. One even said that her daughter was far too modest and that, as her mother, she would be able to highlight her daughter's skills best.
Parents write CVs, update their child's LinkedIn profile, come to interviews, negotiate salaries and demand promotions on behalf of their children.
So how should HRDs respond?
Enterprise recruits around 750 graduates every year. Our business model is based on promotion from within, so this process is critical to feed our talent pool all the way up the organisation.
And for a retail business with over 370 branches at the heart of every community, our employee base has to reflect those communities. So it's not about cherry-picking elite graduates from a few universities; we need to represent the whole UK.
We also have strong competition from other graduate recruiters. After all, it's not every child's dream to work for a car rental company. Nor is it the ambition of many parents who fork out for their child's university education.
This means we took the decision to accommodate worried parents and deal with their concerns rather than push them away.
We've embraced families and also the spouses of prospective employees. There's no doubt that many of the most talented recruits have very engaged parents and families. It's not our place to tell recruits that their families aren't welcome if that's what they want.
It's about subtly making the most of the helicopter parent's role as an influencer. If they feel comfortable that the potential employer is a solid, stable, growing company with a opportunities, a good culture and people who care, they're going to feel better about encouraging their son or daughter to consider it as a career destination.
While we don't like parents to attend induction sessions - we see that as being a little too much like a child's first day at school - we do believe in building on the family network. Parents and families form a hinterland of engaged, enthusiastic advocates, endorsers and customers who are invaluable in an age where reputation is key and often communicated virally.
Over the past 15 years, we've invited dialogue with families by sending an appointed person or people a package of information about the company and a personalised welcome letter from the managing director. Snippets from the letter include: "With the recent hire of your son 'Dave', I would like to take this opportunity to tell you about Enterprise . . ." and "I am very happy that your son 'Brett' has decided to join us. You can be assured that the choice was a good one."
While some candidates (and we don't care if they're 22 or 42) will choose a partner - a grandma or maybe an uncle - in the case of younger people, it usually goes to the parents (two sets if they are divorced). And when Enterprise interns present their final projects and are considering full-time positions, parents are invited in to see them.
It forms an extended programme of bringing employees into the business that goes a step beyond traditional inductions, where employees were shown the coffee machine and toilets and then left to get on with it.
It's hard to pin down the value of embracing helicopter parents to hard and fast figures. However, our employee retention remains strong (currently 73%) and we're seeing a steady rise in "friends and family" rental bookings via a dedicated system introduced in 2011.
The real value is the feel good factor - and we get a lot of that.
Donna Miller (pictured), European HR director at Enterprise Rent-A-Car
