Too much to be ideal: the role of multiple jobholding on career advancement prospects

More and more people today are working multiple jobs at the same time but we lack understanding of how those individuals are perceived at work and how that influences their career advancement prospects. This dissertation explores how supervisors evaluate employees who hold more than one job, and whether doing so affects their perceived chances for promotion. We often expect the ideal worker to be fully committed to one job, available around the clock, and always putting work first. Because of this, people who hold multiple jobs may be seen as less ideal, even if they are working just as hard. My dissertation studied how these assumptions influence supervisor evaluations by surveying 120 supervisors about 321 employees they supervise some of whom held multiple jobs. The results showed that, on average, supervisors do not necessarily rate multiple jobholders more negatively. However, when supervisors do not have much personal contact with friends who hold multiple jobs, they are more likely to give lower ratings on ideal worker evaluation, performance appraisal, and promotability, to employees who are more involved in multiple jobholding. This research helps us understand how subtle biases can affect career outcomes for workers with multiple jobs.