OVERCOMING IMPOSTER SYNDROME IN TECH | Seriously, you need to watch this.

hey everybody it's josh here welcome back to my channel and today we're going to be talking about imposter syndrome in tech we're going to talk about two major scenarios where people tend to experience imposter syndrome in tech the first scenario is when you're trying to find a new job or you're applying for jobs people tend to like look at jobs and have a hard time deciding like which ones they're allowed to apply to based on their like skills and experience and background and that type of thing and the second major scenario where people experience it is either like when they first start a new job like the first couple days or first week or maybe it's like ongoing throughout their employment so i'm gonna kind of address these two separate areas and me for myself like in spite of like any accomplishments or credentials or experience that i've gotten over the years i still have imposter syndrome today but eventually like a few things have happened in my my career that's kind of helped me deal with it a little bit better like recognize imposter syndrome for what it is and kind of move past it and not let it hinder me as much so i'm gonna kind of talk about those a little bit today and i think the things that i'm going to talk about today with you is like i think they're like really important and i think they're really useful and it's kind of the the same conversation i have with a lot of my personal friends when i'm trying to like share my experience and get them to recognize their worth and kind of be the best that they can be so i think it's super important so if you know you experience impostor syndrome even like a little bit i think this video will help you a lot so just set it at you know 1.5 x or 2x or whatever you have to do and just watch it to the end so getting into the first scenario when you're job hunting or trying to look for jobs to apply to a lot of people like they won't even feel comfortable applying to the job unless they meet like over 75 percent of the requirements or or something like this and there's a lot of kind of general advice floating around on the internet like you should just apply you know the most that can happen is they say no and like this is true for the most part but i want to try to quantify a little bit more and then share some some of my experiences that will like help you like really understand like why this is so first i want to say like a lot of the time especially in like cyber security and i t in general like the employer like doesn't really know exactly like what to put on the job description for the requirements and that type of thing they don't they don't really know what to put they just kind of do their best and put something down that's generally what they think they want but they don't know like 100 so for example like say this circle is a job description with the requirements like the required skills that they're saying and say that you come along and then out of all the skills in your inventory maybe you only meet like this many of the job requirement skills in reality you have this many skills but you only meet this many of the job requirement skills a lot of the times the employer like if you can convey that this is your actual skill set or you can convey like you know you can do many other things like just not necessarily what's in the job requirements the employer will will recognize this and then hire you based on your ability to do like all these other things you know with the assumption that you can learn these things like that's in the actual job description and this is absolutely true it's happened to me so many so many times in tech the tricky thing is you have to kind of convey that this is your skill set like on your resume and you have to kind of convey that this is your skill set in the interview and this can come out in like many different ways like i can't do x but i can do a b and c or i can't do y but i can do like d e and f and a lot of the times you know they'll hire you based on this because you can do these things and they want this type of person in this role it's not that they want some like robot that can do these specific job duties right they want a person who's capable of doing like a lot of things who can communicate well and do like you know generally do a good job at work this has happened in my career so many times like so many times and like a really good example of this i'll get into right now is this particular job this was a contract job at microsoft in redmond and this is the the actual job description they gave me uh this job the salary it was something like 59.50 an hour which is it's close to like 120k a year this is 120k job right here and this is the job description for it and all the stuff i'm not even joking about this or exaggerating like at all all the stuff in red here this is stuff that i had no idea how to do i've never done before i don't even know what it's saying like this is the job description and i i have no idea about like any of this at the time i think i had like maybe two years of security experience i had zero years of experience in azure because i i used azure a little bit for like personal products but i i never used it in my job before at this point i don't know based on i don't know what they're talking about here and notice it says like azure policy is required i had zero azure policy i don't even know like what that is at this point i don't know what this stuff is um i could use excel right i've used um i've worked with auditors like a little bit but all this stuff up here most of this i don't even know what any of this is to be honest like at all and it's funny too at the at the same time like a lot of the stuff in this job description i never actually did it i worked here for almost a year maybe like eight months or something and a lot of the stuff i never even did it and people will do that they'll put things in job descriptions that you won't even do it's very strange but that's just like how it is and also this the main job description one of the biggest multi multinational tech companies is looking for a security analyst to report trends and patterns to operations predictive predictive analysis didn't do this at all in this job um i really liked this job a lot my managers were great and i it was fun but like i didn't do a lot of this i don't know what a lot of this is so basically like what happened with this job is i i was talking to a recruiter about it and i was like well like i don't know what any of this is but i've worked with azure with for my personal projects i've deployed like you know a really simplistic app in azure and i and i've done like x y z but it's like all been on my own time i don't know if the the client wants to talk to me and then she's like well let's just see we'll like find out and then eventually like they ended up reaching back out to me and they asked me about other stuff that i've done you know stuff that's in this part of my circle and i i kind of told them like how i worked with azure and the other stuff that i've done like kind of outside of azure which is like some sccm and i've done uh some programming like on my own which i learned from tutorials and i kind of explained all that to them and then they're like okay let's like have an interview and then have another interview and then they just ended up like hiring me based on all this other stuff that i've done and like really look at this i don't know like what any of this is still like i haven't worked with like as sec pack i think this is some like internal microsoft thing like i don't know what a lot of this is yeah i got hired in and worked at this 120k job and i did i did a really good job actually they like this is weird to say objectively they they liked me working there and i i kind of implemented these things in this video that i talked about but this has happened to me like over and over and over again in my career like where i have done like kind of this other stuff that doesn't match the job description but the employer is like huh and they they just end up hiring me because they see that i can do these other things so they like bring me in with the assumption that i can learn and and everybody can learn to do these like simple things like it seems complicated but once you're like in the seat especially as like an individual contributor like non-management like once you're in the seat it's like really easy to like learn these kind of things there's something i kind of talk about in this video i say like a really weird line it's like the more you do the more you can do and that that sounds really strange but basically it's saying like the more things you have in your skill set or the more things you've tried the more things you're going to be able to do in the future because if you can make your person like whether it's like you know really good communication skills or ability to accept feedback punctuality good interpersonal relationships and maybe you you like to learn like a bunch of obscure technology but you're like really good at it if you have all those things like it's possible because you have these things and you're able to articulate it someone will hire you to do like something completely different based on the fact that you kind of learned these things by yourself just because you don't meet 75 percent of the job description like doesn't mean that you won't be hired and you can't do a good job at it because you have a lot you know even if you don't have technical skill the fact that you're like listening to this and comprehending my words means you have like the aptitude to go into most like 99.999 percent of individual contributor roles and like learn what the job isn't and do well at it if you put effort and that kind of leads me into the second scenario i want to talk about is like when you actually like get hired and you're working and you feel like even if you're not working yet you feel like if you get hired you're gonna feel like you're inadequate or inept or like not good enough for one reason or another like especially when you first get hired i'm gonna talk about like a bunch of things here but like especially like when you first get hired you have like a lot of skills under your belt right if you've if you've even like watched tutorials or tried anything by yourself you have skills you might not realize it but you have if you don't have skills you have like aptitude so say you get hired at like a new company and maybe you learned how to use outlook maybe you have like a plus and you know how to use computers and you're feeling like pretty squared away but then when you get to the company you find they're kind of using all these like obscure like email providers and like a weird ticketing system and like everything is like really weird and non-standardized and you look around you and everyone seems to be like used to using these like janky systems and they seem like they're efficient and going about their day and you just because you don't know how to use any of it maybe you feel like you're like a zero compared to your peers or something like this it's really easy to feel that way and like kind of ignore like all of your other accomplishments because maybe you have like you know a plus network security plus and like you've studied a lot and then you come here and then you feel like zero because you don't know how to use any of their weird tools like eventually this happens to everyone it's kind of called like drinking from a fire hose like when you first get hired somewhere it it's just like really overwhelming and you feel like you cannot do anything so eventually you know if you just try your best implement the things i talk about in this video try your best eventually you're going to you're going to bring your baseline up to where everybody is and then when you're like kind of at that baseline where you're like able to use the obscure tools and ticketing system and like everything else that everybody can do you're going to start noticing like gaps in your your peers like knowledge and like technical skill and that kind of thing your baseline is the same as theirs but maybe you've studied like quite a bit and then you'll be able to kind of see the gaps in like everybody around you and everyone like has gaps and like everyone has like skill overlap and that's like pretty normal like for th this graphic for example like when you google imposter syndrome you'll see like something like this and this is pretty much the reality of it the thing that you want to do is kind of just recognize that everyone has like different skill sets and kind of focus on making your bubble i guess as big as possible like get more skills and work on like articulating them in your resume and interviews and then just kind of when you feel impostor syndrome just kind of recognize it and then move forward and another thing i really want to talk about is people like in tech people tend to downplay their their soft skills a lot and you shouldn't do that to be honest for example i'll i'll tell you like a story like soft skills being like you know ability to communicate like ability to accept criticism seek out criticism you know keep learning humility all these things are like super important but they're really downplayed in tech so for example i was working a contract for a particularly large tech company and i was like already there you know i was one of the first contractors there and they ended up hiring like another contractor like a couple months later and on paper this guy is like way better than me he has like so many certs he has like so much experience he's just absolutely way better than me in like every possible way on paper and then come to to like meet him and start working with them like their their soft skill area is essentially zero or maybe like negative 10 or something like this and that kind of person is like almost useless in the workplace they're they're nearly useless like if someone has like a lot of tech skill but you cannot utilize it because you can't work work with them they're useless essentially and in this kind of scenario like i talk about this a lot with my friends like i would rather take like so i would rather take somebody who's like brand new to tech maybe even maybe they have like a plus or maybe they even just started studying security plus or something they don't really know that much but they kind of like meet everything i talked about in this video i would take that person over that super good guy who looks good on paper like every single time because they're they're useful in in some capacity because like maybe they'll listen they can take criticism they'll be on time they'll be like pleasant at least to work with like this this kind of person is like infinitely more useful than someone who doesn't have who doesn't have soft skill so like don't down play or soft skill like this circle that i kind of talked about before like that's not only filled with like tech skills it feel it's filled with your soft skills and like kind of these 10 kind of things that you can implement so you have like more capability than than you think you do so for example let's like look at some jobs like super quickly on indeed here so like i can i can like look at any of these like imagine you're like a new person to to security or something and imagine like maybe you have security plus or maybe you're just like studying for it i'm like fairly certain because humans are like really capable of like a lot more than they think they're capable of like you're capable of a lot more than you think you're capable of like any one of these jobs like whatever they are i just searched like security engineer like what like 130k like all these like high profile expensive jobs if if you were say interested in doing this and you got like some base skills and the company just like took you for whatever reason and sat you on the chair and they're like okay learn to do this job you could probably learn how to figure out and do it like you could teach yourself you know whatever language they want here this is again an example of a company like just randomly putting a bunch of languages you could teach yourself like the appropriate scripting language that you need for the job you can like learn like all of the stuff and you can eventually like do well at the job like no matter what your skill level is now if you're comprehending what i'm hearing it's completely possible if someone put you in the seat and they're like learn this you could probably learn it and do really well kind of the main problem like difficulty with this is you have to like convey that on your resume and then you have to get an interview and then you have to convey in the interview that you can do well and then you know subsequently you'll get hired but just for example if someone took you and like plopped you in the chair and you're like okay congrats you're like a security engineer doing detection now you could figure it out and you could do a good job at it and then going back to the scenario we're kind of working already and then maybe you're you're in a job and you already feel impostor syndrome a couple ways to kind of deal with it is try to get some feedback whether it's from your subordinates or your peers or upper management try to seek out criticism from them and just kind of see like what they have to say about your promise you can just say i just want to like check in see if i'm meeting expectations and like what i can do and if they have like feedback for you just go ahead and implement the feedback and just you know continue to do your best at work check in with them regularly implement feedback if they have any and then continue to do your best and if you go to get feedback and they say like oh you're doing great just kind of accept that for what it is like acknowledge the imposter syndrome and just you know continue to do your best and try not to let imposter syndrome kind of slow you down because like even i have it now i still have it i'll probably always have it but i kind of i can recognize it for what it is and just kind of move past it i don't know if i can say it i'm ignoring it but i can i can move past it and just kind of continue to do my best so just to summarize when you're applying for jobs you know acknowledge your circle and like how big it is in comparison to the job description circle try to convey your circle like as much as you can like in your resume and then in the interview and just apply for the job because just please you have to recognize like the the job description that's like it's just the employer's like best effort like you can kind of get a general idea about the job like what it actually is from the job description but don't take the job description as truth if the job looks like something you want to do it pays us like a decent amount just if you think it's interesting just apply to the job and then make sure your resume and like interviewing is as squared away as possible and just do your best and one more thing i'm kind of going on a tangent here but just because for example just because you make like 25 an hour now doesn't mean your next job you can't make fifty dollars an hour or sixty dollars an hour or something like this you don't have to go through some like incremental like staircase of salary to get to the salary that you want to go to you can make like 20 an hour now and like freaking 60 dollars an hour tomorrow like there's no rule in place that says you can't apply for like a senior security engineer jobs or like senior security analyst jobs um if you're if you're working help desk or something you know as long as you have done like your due diligence and like kind of increase the size of your your personal skills circle enough so don't hold yourself back don't like be scared to apply to jobs because the employer like they don't know what they're doing or saying half the time that's like really evident with this job for example i feel like this job description was made by like a whole bunch of people and they're like bang bang bang ship it looks good let's go but this this wasn't in no way a representation of what i was actually doing with this job when i when i sat down at this job i i was a program manager suddenly i've never been a program manager before but i was doing like program manager work at this job and then i was like okay and then i put program manager on my resume after this and then i got hired for another program manager job it was really crazy um i don't like doing i don't really like doing program management work but i'm digressing like quite a bit here um i'm the point i'm trying to say is you know just focus on yourself make your circle as big as possible ignore the job description for the most part if it looks like something you want to do just apply for it right and then you know you should be good thank you so much for watching i appreciate it if you know somebody who's experiencing imposter syndrome and you think this video might help them go ahead and forward it to them i'm sure will help them and it will help me a lot it will help the channel a lot and if you liked this please consider liking and subscribing to the channel i'd really appreciate it i also have a patreon if you feel like supporting me and i i do one-on-one mentoring too so check that out in the comment section also i reply to everybody's comments so if you have questions or criticism or anything just leave in the comment section 100 i'm going to read it 100 i'm going to reply but anyway thank you so much for watching and we'll see you next time bye [Music] [Music]

Channel: Josh Madakor

Views: 3,123

Keywords: josh, josh madakor, Overcoming imposter syndrome in tech, imposter syndrome, how to deal with imposter syndrome, there needs to be more women in tech, women in tech are the best, women have a lot to offer, dealing with imposter syndrome, imposter, women in cybersecurity, how to overcome self doubt, self doubt, which jobs should I apply for, ignore job requirements, job requirements are a wishlist, apply anyway, how to overcome imposter syndrome, impostor, impostor syndrome

Id: ZEMExVvxdms

Length: 18min 16sec (1096 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 20 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/joshmadakor]

In this video, I'm going to talk about imposter syndrome, specifically in tech, and some ways that you can deal with and overcome it. I will give a few examples of things I've experienced in my career that will help you deal with hurdles in the tech community and realize your self-worth. If you are one of those people who deal with imposter syndrome, this video will definitely provide you some value!