In this issue:

If you read one thing today that upgrades your entire view of hiring, make it this.

Corporate job ads are still written like it’s 1998:
“40+ hours.”
“Full dedication.”
“No outside work.”

Meanwhile, the workforce has quietly staged a revolution.
More than half of millennials now polywork—not as a hobby, but as a survival strategy and a career accelerator. They’re managing multiple income streams, leveling up their skills, and building the kind of resilience most employers say they want but keep hiring against.

This week’s featured article unpacks:

• 📉 Why job ads haven’t evolved (hint: outdated systems + leadership lag)

• 🚫 The hidden cost of screening out polyworkers

• 🔧 How to rewrite job posts so you actually attract modern talent

• 🎯 How polyworking applicants can frame their work portfolios as a competitive advantage

If your organization is still hiring like employees have one job, one schedule, and one source of income… you’re already behind.

This is one of those rare pieces that makes you rethink the assumptions baked into every “standard” job description.

👉 Read the full article below — and prepare to rethink your talent pipeline.

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The HR Blotter

Six Figures and Still Sinking - Turns out six figures doesn’t buy peace anymore. A new survey shows high earners living like the floor might give out any minute, drowning in rent, childcare costs, and debt that won’t loosen its grip. In today’s job market, even the so-called winners feel one bad month away from the edge.

A Jobs Report With No Pulse - October’s jobs report is coming out with a blindfold on. The shutdown froze the household survey, which means no unemployment rate, no real pulse on worker pain. All we get is the payroll number, a half-truth in a labor market where clarity already feels like a luxury.

Class of 2026 Meets the Job Market Wall - Next year’s college grads are walking into a storm. Employers expect the weakest hiring market in five years, trimming campus recruiting while layoffs stack the bench with experienced talent and AI chews through the entry level work that used to be a soft landing. The result is a brutal game of musical chairs where new grads fire off hundreds of applications into the void, only to find that even “junior” roles are crowded with veterans who are just trying to get back in the building.

March of the Machines, and the Jobs They Aim to Take - UBTECH dropped a glossy video showing rows of humanoid robots marching like they just clocked in for a shift no human will ever get back. Whether the footage is real or CGI smoke, the message lands the same: factories are gearing up for a workforce that doesn’t sleep, doesn’t bargain, and doesn’t need benefits. If this is the future, workers aren’t being replaced overnight—they’re being outnumbered.

$120K on the Table and No Takers: America’s Skill Crisis Exposed - Jim Farley of Ford Motor Company is ringing alarm bells: the company has around 5,000 unfilled mechanic positions, even though it’s offering salaries of about $120,000 a year. He says the issue points to a national crisis in skilled-trades hiring—not just a car-maker’s hiring hiccup. In the world of work, the warning is clear: having jobs isn’t enough if the workforce isn’t ready.

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The Jim Stroud Podcast

Not subscribed to The Jim Stroud Podcast? Then you’ve been flying blind. Here’s a taste of what they’ve been hearing—while you’ve been missing it.

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Why Your Job Ad Still Expects Mono-Career Applicants—And How to Adapt

Corporate job ads still sound like they were written for a world that doesn’t exist.
“Full-time, dedicated role.”
“Requires 40+ hours per week.”
“No outside employment allowed.”

That language belongs to a time when workers gave one company their loyalty, their evenings, and most of their lives.
But that time is gone.

A new class of professionals—the polyworkers—has rewritten the social contract. They’re not dabbling in side hustles; they’re engineering entire ecosystems of income. And the fact that job ads haven’t caught up isn’t just ironic. It’s dangerous.

Because when your hiring process assumes every applicant has one job, you’re quietly pushing away the people best suited for the new world of work.

The Numbers Don’t Lie

This isn’t a fringe movement. It’s a generational shift.
A 2025 CFO.com survey of 2,500 millennials found that 52% work more than one job. Nearly a quarter (24%) hold three, and a third (33%) manage four or more income streams (Zaki, 2025).
For them, work isn’t a ladder—it’s a constellation.

The HR Digest, reporting on a Monster survey from June 2025, found that 49% of polyworkers combine a full-time job with one or more part-time gigs. Another 28% juggle multiple part-time roles, while 12% hold down more than one full-time job (The HR Digest, 2025).

And make no mistake: this isn’t about chasing luxury.
68% say they need the extra income to cover basic living expenses. 51% say those additional paychecks are absolutely essential just to stay afloat (The HR Digest, 2025).

But beneath that survival story runs a second thread—strategy.
Polyworking isn’t just about money. It’s about security, skill diversification, and autonomy in an economy where no single job feels permanent anymore.

Why Job Ads Refuse to Evolve

If polyworking is the norm, why are employers still clinging to mono-career job posts?
Three words: institutional muscle memory.

1. Inflexible HR Infrastructure
Applicant Tracking Systems, payroll software, and benefits platforms were all built on the assumption of a one-to-one relationship: one worker, one job.
Try feeding fractional work or project-based pay into those systems—they choke. So companies default to the 40-hour rule, not because it’s strategic, but because it’s easy.

2. Corporate Fear
To most hiring managers, a polyworking candidate is a red flag waving in HR’s face. They equate multiple jobs with divided loyalty, faster burnout, and poor focus.
That fear stems from an outdated idea of productivity: presence equals performance.

3. Leadership Lag
Many managers already struggle to handle one employee’s workload, let alone one employee with two.
They’ve never been trained to measure output in outcomes rather than hours, so they keep hiring for simplicity instead of skill.

The Flaw in the Mono-Career Mindset

Here’s the irony: the people most companies reject—the polyworkers—are often the ones most equipped to thrive in chaos.
Anyone balancing three jobs doesn’t just know time management; they embody it. They’ve turned multitasking into muscle memory. They’re adaptive, fast learners, and self-directed.

Labeling them as “uncommitted” is like accusing a pilot of not understanding turbulence.
It’s not just wrong—it’s lazy.

When recruiters filter out polyworkers, they’re not protecting culture; they’re shrinking opportunity.
They’re closing the door on the exact kind of worker built for a volatile economy.

How to Rewrite Your Job Ads

Fixing this doesn’t require a revolution—just a rewrite.

Instead of this:

• “Full-time, 40 hours/week”

• “Must be dedicated exclusively”

• “No outside commitments permitted”

Try this:

• “Flexible or portfolio-friendly schedules considered”

• “Role may be structured as full-time or fractional (20–30 hours/week)”

• “Performance measured by deliverables, not hours logged”

• “We support employees who pursue diverse professional interests”

That small shift—from control to collaboration—signals to top talent that you understand the new reality.

Then go further.
Rebuild your jobs around deliverables, not attendance.
The future isn’t about 40-hour blocks—it’s about modular work that scales with business need.

As eBillity notes, modern teams thrive when output replaces clock-watching as the measure of success (eBillity, 2025).

Advice for the Polyworking Applicant

If you’re the candidate, the trick is to frame your multiple roles as a strategy, not a confession.

When you interview, look for signs of flexibility in how the company phrases its requirements. Ask direct questions about outside projects or moonlighting policies.

And when you explain your polywork?
Lead with what it says about you: time management, range, adaptability.
You’re not stretched thin—you’re stretched smart.

The Hard Truth

If your job ad still demands “9-to-5, on-site, no outside work,” you’re not being traditional.
You’re being obsolete.

You’re signaling to the market that your company can’t keep up.
And while you have the legal right to impose exclusivity or anti-moonlighting policies, doing so now is a form of self-sabotage (Steinsperling, 2025).

The companies that cling to mono-career hiring will soon find themselves with mono-talent pipelines—rigid, underpowered, and out of sync with the future.

Because the future of work isn’t about who owns an employee’s time.
It’s about who earns their energy.

References

• Zaki, A. (2025, Mar 19). More than half of millennials are “polyworking.” CFO.com. Link

• The HR Digest. (2025, Jul 6). What Is the Polyworking Trend and Is It an HR Concern? Link

• eBillity. (2025, Jul 31). Output vs. Hours: Rethinking Time Tracking for Remote Teams. Link

• Steinsperling. (2025, Apr 23). Can Employers Restrict Employees from Having a Second Job? Link

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One more thing before I go…

In part 3 of this series on polyworkers, I… well… this is next… “Sourcing Beyond the 9-to-5: How to Recruit Someone Working Three Gigs.” It should be entertaining. Tune in next week to find out for sure.

And as always, hit reply and let me know how I’m doing. Or slide into my DMs as the kids say. All good.

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