Here are the top 10 ways to fail and get caught while working multiple W2 full-time jobs (being overemployed).
- Hiding and making a LinkedIn profile private or not updating it with a new title and company upon joining the new employer, especially if there are recent posts (activity)
- Not signing up for health insurance, 401k and other benefits (because they have insurance from the first job)
- Defaulting to calls without cameras, reluctant to show their face on group calls (because they multitask being on other jobs’ calls)
- Having slow response time on company chat (Slack, MS Teams, Google Chat)
- Frequently absent from and missed meeting and/or very passive listen-only participation without being engaged nor being proactive
- Not volunteering for projects, tasks, stories and not asking for more work when the previous work was done; and not working overtime or weekends when others “burn the candle from both ends”.
- Avoiding team gatherings, team building events, onsites/offsites, team happy hours, all hands, being friends with coworkers, small talks and other “optional” social activities
- Not asking for a promotion and/or a salary raise; being content with a meager annual increase of 1-3% (when inflation is 8%); being content with average performance review; lack of any career ambition.
- Taking longer for the tasks that other people can do faster
- Having many unlucky events (broken car, sick kid, COVID, dead relative, lost internet, hurricane, flood, etc.)
These 10 patterns and behaviors are not guaranteed that someone has more than one job. Some people just can have a bad strike of unfortunate events. Others can be slow to respond to chat because they are super productive. People who are not productive, could be honestly trying hard to learn the ropes. However these 10 behaviors observed from outside by your superior and peers will definitely lead to increase in the suspicion of being overemployed (having multiple full-time jobs) and can lead to being found out and fired. To mitigate, try to not do the 10 aforementioned things if it’s possible. If not, then at least beforehand set the expectations (like chat response time) to minimize the negative impact. If that doesn’t help, then it’s hard to find a new second, third or fourth job.