Let’s talk about the biggest fear of all employers—hiring someone who works for a competitor. Recently, this happened to me.
I run a company that actively hires part-time employees. Around a third of our team works part time. One of our employees has been with us part time for five years and consistently outperforms expectations. Simply put, I couldn’t care less how many hours someone works in a day.
However, when we interviewed this candidate, we found out that he worked for a competitor. He didn’t actively hide this fact—he simply didn’t think it mattered. He was wrong. It did.
Some companies might see this as a sign to stop hiring people with multiple roles. We took the opposite approach and realized we needed to add some clarity to our hiring practices.
How to hire part-timers, and what to expect of them
Let me take a step back and explain our hiring philosophy. We’re fine with multiple jobs, because we find it correlates with the best talent. Most employers think people juggle extra jobs just for the higher income or to stay safe if layoffs happen. Honestly, the cash is great, but that isn’t the real story. In my experience, the best pros choose this path because they genuinely want to stay sharp. They see a wide range of experience as their real safety net and the best way to grow.
At our company, every role is written in terms of expected results. It’s a dead-simple rule, yet somehow most companies completely miss it. Think about it this way: if you hire someone to sweep the yard, what exactly are you paying for? Are you paying for the act of sweeping, or for the fact that the yard is actually clean? Not responsibilities, or time commitments, or “being at the office earlier than everyone else.” Results. That clarity makes it immediately obvious whether a part-time candidate can perform.
That’s why our interviews don’t follow the usual script. Candidates have become way too good at the game, talking about their background and acting out stress scenarios, and you name it. They buy coaching, take courses on how to ace interviews, and now they’re even using AI plugins to hack the process.
So, we rely on two main principles:
- First, instead of asking generic questions about experience, we ask if they’ve solved our specific problems in the past. Basically: ‘Have you actually cleaned a yard before?’
- Second, we tell them upfront that we’re going to verify their stories with their previous employers. We let them know we’ll literally reach out and ask: ‘Can you confirm that John kept the yard clean 20 days out of every month?’
The talk gets straight and all the sales fluff is gone. We also never rely on a single reference. Two is the minimum.
With this approach, over time, you just stop worrying about how many jobs a person has or what specific perks they need or even what their strengths and weaknesses are. Of course, the vibe still matters, and you definitely need to know if they will fit in with the team. That is a filter. But the real question is whether they have actually hit the results and goals that you are aiming for.
The best part about working with top talent is that they will be the first to tell you when something isn’t working. We’ve had high performers step back on their own because they knew they couldn’t maintain their standard. At this level, their professional reputation is a massive asset, and they really protect it.
And that level of ownership is better than any rigid schedule. At the very least, the results of our company prove it.
The red flag, and how to handle it
There is, really, only one red flag for us. Working for a direct competitor. Conflicts of interest are one part of it. The most serious issue is legal exposure. Employees may carry non-compete obligations or proprietary knowledge from previous roles. If you’re a small company, and you don’t grow, you might never notice. But as you scale, those decisions can follow you. What looks harmless early on can turn into a liability later.
The solution is to define boundaries clearly. If you operate in a flexible environment, you need a basic principle. Transparency is not optional. Ask questions directly, set expectations early. Make it clear what constitutes a conflict and what must be disclosed.
Everything else is secondary.
During the interview, as we were discussing the industry, we started connecting the dots ourselves. His knowledge of the space felt too specific, too current. So we asked directly. He didn’t name the company, but confirmed it could be considered a direct competitor. After that, the decision to part ways was straightforward.
It might be easy to blame this on part-time work or overemployment. However, that would be missing the underlying problem. Team performance doesn’t break because someone works fewer hours or because they hold other jobs. It breaks when accountability is uneven.
That has nothing to do with employment type and everything to do with who you hire and their level of integrity. Remember that the performance of the entire team always drops to the level of the least productive person. It can become a widespread problem across the company.
On the other hand, the best people take ownership of outcomes, flag issues early, and step back when they know they can’t deliver at their standard.
If you build and hire with that in mind, and insist on transparency where it matters, all you have to care about is whether everyone on your team is doing the one thing they committed to.