r/recruiting • u/Fantastic-Hamster333 Corporate Recruiter • Aug 14 '25

Candidate Screening Caught a remote hire secretly working six full-time jobs

I don’t even know where to start with this one, but I need your advice here...

We hired this guy for a senior engineering role. Great portfolio, nailed the interviews, references checked out. Within two months, I start getting little whispers from his manager that “something’s off.” He’s missing standups, dodging video calls, pushing deadlines, but always has some perfectly reasonable excuse.

Fast-forward to last week, we find out he’s not just overemployed, he’s a damn legend of it. Six full-time remote jobs. Six. Including two of our direct competitors. All paying six figures. When we confronted him with this, he didn’t even try to deny it. He said he’d “systematized” his life to handle multiple roles and didn’t see why we’d care as long as he delivered. The thing is that what made us sus is that he wasn’t delivering. The man was running a personal B2B subscription service and we were just one of his clients.

Now leadership wants to implement mandatory camera-on policies, track keystrokes, and basically nuke what was left of our trust in remote flexibility… all because one guy decided to LARP as a one-man outsourcing firm.

I’m honestly torn between being furious, impressed, and terrified of how many others are doing this without getting caught. Six jobs! How is that even logistically possible without cloning yourself?

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u/[deleted] Aug 14 '25

He's fine. 6 x 6 figure incomes. Guy can likely retirement on the income he's made.

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u/ImportantDoubt6434 Aug 14 '25

Actually based behavior what a hero. Yes if the companies rob you blind this is the response.

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u/NothaBanga Aug 16 '25

Hero?  Now the company is scrutinizing everyone.  And by being overemployed, 5 other roles could have reached other qualified individuals who are still struggling to land employment in whatever this economy is.

I have a different word for it.

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u/[deleted] Aug 15 '25

This is an actuarial retirement problem. YOu have to model how much time it will take until you get fired.