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Study Finds 58% of Tech Employees Feel Like Frauds (cnet.com)
"Feeling like a hack is more common than you might think," writes CNET:
In fact, 58 percent of people with technology-focused careers suffer from Impostor Syndrome, according to a new informal study from workplace social media site Blind... Blind's user base includes 44,000 Microsoft employees, 29,000 from Amazon, 11,000 from Google, 8,000 from Uber, 7,000 from Facebook, and 6,000 from Apple, just to name a few. From Aug. 27, 2018 through Sept. 5, 2018, Blind asked its users one question in a survey -- "Do you suffer from Impostor Syndrome?" A total of 10,402 users on Blind responded.
Blind found that 57.55 percent surveyed experienced Impostor Syndrome. Seventy-two percent of Expedia employees say they experienced Impostor Syndrome, the highest among companies with at least 100 employee responses. On the lower end of the spectrum, only 44.45 percent of Apple employees experienced impostor syndrome.
Blind found that 57.55 percent surveyed experienced Impostor Syndrome. Seventy-two percent of Expedia employees say they experienced Impostor Syndrome, the highest among companies with at least 100 employee responses. On the lower end of the spectrum, only 44.45 percent of Apple employees experienced impostor syndrome.
I clicked on the link to figure out what they were talking about, but it was such a mess that I had to close it before getting a chance to read a single sentence.
Now you learn why the need for foreign workers.
My personal estimation is that we have about 20% people that know what they are doing, at least in IT. (Yes, I know that impostor syndrome refers to people that have external evidence that they are actually competent. But in IT holding a specific position does realistically not provide that evidence, even if a psychologist may believe it does.)
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
This is just the Dunning-Kruger effect. Tech employees who have moderate to high levels of experience are knowledgeable enough to "know what they don't know" about their field, and this makes them concerned that they don't know enough. Frankly, I'd be more concerned about the employees who are over-confidence in their abilities.
maybe it's because they are? There's so much demand for tech people that wages have rocketed but lots of people just are not that competent.
Given Google's recent history, I think the 44% that identified as Imposter is FAR too low. That should be closer to 80%.
took the question in a way those that asked it did not account for?
;)
"as a feeling of phoniness in people who believe they are not intelligent, capable or creative despite evidence of high achievement."
and this
"despite degrees, scholastic honors, high scores on standardized tests and professional recognition from colleagues and respected authorities"
Maybe they feel that they have "high achievement" in in spite of what others think?
Just a thought that popped in to my mind. And maybe I am not presenting it right since I am not clear what I am ruminating about.
Just my 2 cents
How many are frauds though?
There are plenty of times I've felt out of my depth, and sometimes it's because I legitimately was. I think the issue comes down to what people do about it. It's not a sin to realize you lack the required knowledge to accomplish something, but it's pretty damned foolish to remain in that state when you've become aware of it.
I also suspect that people's susceptibility to this is directly related to their belief that everyone (or maybe even anyone) else knows what the hell is going on. Once a person comes to realize that almost no one has the right answers and that most people just operate as best as they're capable of doing, it's kind of hard to feel like a fraud if you're at least trying to get better.
Would it kill you to describe in a sentence what impostor syndrome is?
Anyway, unlike the people who believe they aren't creative/productive despite good output, I actually *know* I'm an impostor.
I only do about one hour of work a day and still get praised for it.
57.55 percent surveyed experienced Impostor Syndrome
I don't know who it was that filled out my copy of that survey, but it wasn't me.
I have Impostor Syndrome on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and Dunning-Kreuger Tuesday, Friday, and weekends.
You should only feel like a fraud if there's fraud or untruths somewhere in your critical thinking and problem solving.
Platforms, applications, techniques? Those change by the second.
Man up and stop being wish-washy. If you think you've succeeded beyond your merit, then be better. If you don't know, then look at the situation objectively and decide one way or the other. The last thing the world needs is a bunch of angsty nerds.
I've been working in IT for 20 fucking years and half of these fucking morons can barely Google a solution!
Most don't know the difference between Java and JavaScript.
The other half know their Google-fu. And that's good enough I guess. As long as real fucking technicians keep opening explaining shit for internet points....
...you'll feel a bit overwhelmed the first year, this is completely natural.
I work for a huge corporate with IT, and in the beginning I asked myself several times "What am I doing here?", the workload and assignments are so overwhelming that I thought I couldn't even learn this the next 10 years. The truth is, the company is completely aware of this, and most likely - so are your manager.
But corporate knows, you're there because they saw the potential to shape you. Sometimes you can get a job where you have NO initial qualifications, but as long as the company do in-house training, and you're willing to learn - then you're already a valuable asset to the company, at any age!
If you have a competent manager, he/she will have seen the likes of you 10 times over and then some. They know from experience how their learning curve is, and what most of us battle with on a day to day basis. If they're worth their salt, they'll slowly but surely learn from you, observe you, and introduce you to the things you need to qualify yourself over the years, over time you become an invaluable asset to the company, and will feel somewhat more competent as you progress.
I got hired in my late 40's, I was totally clueless. But I fought hard to learn and adapt. Years later - I still feel inadequate sometimes, but I am nowhere NEAR as inadequate as I was years ago, and I now tutor many of our own new trainees - and believe it or not, I learn from them as well.
The trick is actually just to take up challenges, lead yourself. If you sit idly by, chances are that you can get by unnoticed, unremarkable in any way - still you'll have some value to the company as you're not fired yet, they would fire you on the spot if you don't bring anything to the table. Trust me - successful corporates aren't a bunch of clueless fools, they got there for a reason, they found people like you - and you might just be more valuable than you might realize.
I've talked a lot to my managers, they often speak of other values like how well you fit in with the rest of the teams, how you can "empower" others to feel better about their efforts, and how social you are. It's all about the team.
I have had numerous discussions with colleagues that feels EXACTLY like those 58% we're talking about here. I have a female colleague that has no personal interest in IT, and constantly mentions how little she knows and how hopeless it all seems, but I see it differently, she's older, but quite awesome, always nice to those she helps, and if she can't figure it out - she already have figured out those WHO CAN, and she observes when they work, and learn.
She's become quite adept at helping people with IT tasks now, but she still feels like the 58%, I prefer to call that "staying humble" rather than being safe in your position of knowledge, because in IT the knowledge change ALL the time as we get new software solutions every 6 month, and you need to stay focused on new solutions and know how to make things "fit" together, aka - the bigger picture.
If it wasn't for my colleagues constantly accepting my failures by helping me out, I'd be totally lost today, but it turns out that over some time - you become that mentor to someone new as well.
What this world is coming to - is for you and me to decide.
These 58% are the lucky ones as they'll float to the top in a management track and get the big $$$
Haven't you looked at the (multi)national debt lately and the trade deficit lately? Very few techs actively contribute to sociaty's productivity nowadays. Some agro... Some industry... A few in light and heavy silicon to get those going... You can optimize modern society around 10k feeding 100million people easy.
So if anything, 41.995% of tech employees are delusional.
It's not Impostor Syndrome. It's just incompetence reigning so much, that nobody can tell what competence looks like anymore.
The .com bubble was all about that. ... that sort of thing.
Incompetent greedy people hiring incompetent people who became incompetent PHBs hiring incompetent people, because they didn't have the competence to judge if somebody is competent.
Web catalog collectors ("surfers") becoming bosses over a dozen people, hiring Sinologists and Germanists and taxi drivers and people whose biggest achievement it was to have played as the opening act for some famous band as "web developers"
And nowadays, this has gone so far, that the incompetent ... like OP ... believe so much that it is normal, that the only explanation they have left, is "Impostor Syndrome". They actually think, that mobile apps or writing an inner-platform (= all of the web platform) or the Windows 8 UI are sane things done by normal competent people. That it is normal, to not even know any CS or how the hardware works or even some real math.
We are all just making things up as we go along. That's life. The whole world is run on bull shit. Trump didn't know how to be President. Neither did Obama. Neither did Bush. Neither did Clinton. Neither did Bush Sr. Neither did Reagan. Neither did Carter. (How far should I go back?) All of their elections were based solely on complete bull shit.
They just got enough people to believe that they could do it better than the other candidate and they were elected. They were best at bull shit and its all bull shit.
Honestly, that's the biggest reason why there are more men in executive positions. Men bull shit better than women. If you want to be successful, learn to bull shit.
Most people I've met in the tech industry are idiots. Maybe 2 or 3 who are not idiots, in my 20 year career.
Blind's user base includes 44,000 Microsoft employees, 29,000 from Amazon, 11,000 from Google, 8,000 from Uber, 7,000 from Facebook, and 6,000 from Apple, just to name a few.
So Blind has a user base on the order of 100k users.
Blind asked its users one question in a survey -- "Do you suffer from Impostor Syndrome?"
So a self-reporting survey that asks ONE question with an ill-defined term: "Imposter Syndrome."
A total of 10,402 users on Blind responded.
So less that 10% of their user base responded.
==========
This is barely a survey let alone a study. When will the Slashdot editors start vetting these things?
Might as well post this as a Slashdot poll question -- probably get more responses and better results. ;)
Hmm - might just do that for my Doctoral Thesis
there are very little career fields permitting you to say things to superiors like "hey i don't really understand this yet", or "i need help learning this". i was signed off on so many procedures and systems i didn't understand, because of a shortage of manpower and proper training, that everyday i had multiple instances where i had to bullshit my way through the work shift. it never got better, because the longer you're there the more stuff gets dumped on you, although many simply dump that load onto lower ranked people to avoid responsibility, but they almost certainly know even less about things than you
maybe it's different now, or just different in other bases/branches, but it seemed common enough when i temporary dutied to other places
It kind of bothers me a little to see so many people talk about imposter syndrome (AKA Dunning-Kruger). I feel like so many people bringing this up leads to a situation a little like hypochondria, where people who would not otherwise be inclined to think along those lines have increased self-doubts because of it... it's normal to feel a bit unsure if you can do something but so many people bringing this up deepens the fear to the point where some people actually shut down.
I think it would be better to just point out that many technical people can feel unsure about something but everyone will understand if you try something technically tricky and it doesn't work out.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Ever since OS programs began running into millions of lines of code, we've all been out of our depth, I sincerely believe. It used to be one could study and memorize the OSes; those days are long gone!
Knowing 90% to 100% of any program today is an awesome undertaking!
When I took my first computer science class in high school Java had not yet been invented and IPv6 was becoming a formalized standard. Powershell didn't exist for many many years in my career and dynamically routed networks weren't really common when I got started - clusterfucks of static routing everywhere.
Was I a fraud then? Am I a fraud now? - Yes and Yes.
No one in tech knows everything - it's a dynamic field that is constantly changing. "Experts" I've found have very deep and narrow knowledge of one particular part of the field. Many are not experts, but have wide and shallow knowledge and experience.
Are we all frauds? Probably. Do we have the ability to constantly learn and apply our knowledge? - hell yes. The ones that don't wash out very quickly in this business.
I'm a fraud - you are too - and there is nothing wrong with that.
The tech industry is filled with falsely grandiose claims about overwhelming awesomeness on so many fronts. Most people rather than calling things out for the way they are assume they *must* be wrong and smile and nod. As they go with the lofty words and in real terms see something they continue to not really 'get' despite using it for a long time, they have to decide is all the discussion and media coverage wrong, or am I personally wrong? A lot of people assume that if they called it out, *they* would be betrayed as the morons. So not only do they refrain, they'll actually jump in, to blend in.
It's actually a supremely ripe segment for marketing people, who love manipulating this sense to their ends. There's a lot of subjective facets to things and a lot of vagueness to make it very difficult to confidently declare something either a fraud or a big self-delusion.
So I'm not surprised most people are filled with self-doubt that runs counter to their outward behavior and a result feel like impostors.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
I've met more hacks than that.
IANAPP ( I am not a professional pollster, but that ask 1 question. Only 10 percent respond. Of those responses we get the 58%
Could the result also be that people who feel like imposters are more likely to respond to a poll asking if they feel like an imposter?
I would think that asking "do you suffer from anxiety?" you'd get more responses from people who do than people who don't and just passed on the whole thing.
Completely agree - could fire 80% and the results of most IT projects would be the same, probably complete much quicker.
Anyone who is in IT and IS competent already knew this. Nothing like dealing with another vendor and having to go through 3 layers of idiots to talk to someone with competence.
That this premise is true is awful. But is a guaranteed reason I will always be making a killing. It is also concerning because I am sure it extends to many other professions as well. For example doctors and surgeons. Yes, they've got more schooling to do, but I'm sure to some degree it still applies.
Freaky.
What pathetic sad world YOU live in.
No wonder your country is going downhill so fast.
Just so you know: People actually DID know what they were doing until the 80s and early 90s.
And people still do, outside of the "new economy" world. Especially the industries where they aren't obsessed with pathologic pathogenic "deadly explosive" growth.
Maybe even in the US. I don't know.
But definitely here in Germany and most of Europe.
If I ever accidentally hire you, remind me to fire you now, so I don't have to fire you AND watch you fall into the meat grinder later.
.. 110% think they have Asperger. Or they say that they think that.
I dunno, first you have the selection bias of people who respond to surveys, and then I think people often say what they think is expected of them, or what they "should" think ...
These numbers seem to jive with how many I feel are frauds.
7 years just gone since I was in the tech industry. I saw all sorts of things, in a career from HW/SW dev through to Field Apps in silicon to Business Development at the end - over a period of 14 years. Bonuses rewarded by the person above you because their bonus relied on it too? - Right up to the CEO and the shareholders? Price fixing. Human beings stabbing each other in the back, directly from behind, while smiling over a power play? Stupid short sightedness from management? Asset stripping? I'll never be rich, but thank fuck I am out of that.
Ok, anonymous coward.
And you suffer from a ridiculously pronounced case of historical fiction.
Sounds like about 20% are just suffering from the illusion that they are competent. In my experience, it's more like 80% are frauds. At least it seems most of them are aware of it.
Only 44,000?
"Only" 44.45% of Apple employees. Certainly a high water mark.
The question is actually not 'do you feel like a fraud in your employment' but 'does your answer really mean you feel like a fraudulent person, whatever might be causing that feeling?' While one might like one's job only fools look there for the meaning of their own being.
We're talking about people who suspect they may not actually be very good at their jobs, right? They feel like an imposter, as if the resume that got them hired included a lot. Of BS, right? If someone thinks their own resume is bull, maybe that's because they put BS on it?
In my experience, most people in tech actually did bullshit their resume and truly aren't very qualified for their job. Perhaps this is because often the people who interview them are managers, who don't have the technical skills they are looking for. It probably takes both a skilled technical person (or two) AND a manager to interview for some positions.
I may have made a mistake in my last round of applying and interviewing. Most people are nervous in interviews; I wasn't at all nervous because I had applied for a jobs that I was very well qualified for. Perhaps I should have stretched a bit more. My last two positions didn't involve much learning, I hit the ground running. Next time I might get significantly more money by stretching a bit higher, without bullshitting.
It has been nearly crippling at times. My manager has me reading "Mindset" by Carol Dweck because I'm pretty sure she could see it in me. There are some good insights in there. I suggest anyone suffering have a look.
It's not them. It's the job, the bullshit job. David Graeber has expanded the essay into a book and it is well worth reading. Perhaps at your bullshit job.
"You'll get nothing, and you'll like it!"
What do they call it when you know what you are doing is wrong, a cheap shortcut or just plain stupid, but that is what your client/boss wants ? I've finished projects and received accolades for what I know was a half assed kluge that was going to cause more pain in the immediate future. It has caused me to refuse a contract extension on more than one occasion, knowing that the project manager or boss was going to move on and leave a steaming pile behind as a tribute.
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
Did you wonder why Apple employess are on the bottom of the scale for self-doubt, when Googlers are often top-performers? Apple is not just a company, it's a sect. The soul of Steve wil look over you.
The fatality rate for people suffering from Impostor Syndrome seems to be far below that of most cancers. It seems to be related to the Peter Principle.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_principle
Good enough for me, ship ship ship!
Did I learn everything by doing, rather than school? Yes. Did it take a bit longer and maybe I don't follow all the same processes and principles that are 'taught'? Yes. Do I feel like a fraud? No. Do I always know what I need to? No. Do I take the time to learn, and also the time to relax? Yes. Do I know how it all works, and is my manager aware of my base of knowledge? No, No. But we try, day to day, to keep it all going as best we know how, and if we come up with some great ideas, we try to consider if those would benefit the company to a degree where it would be beneficial to spend time (== money) researching and possibly learning /incorporating new ideas and approaches.
I will never call myself an expert though. In my experience, folks who do that have stopped learning.
You keep going until you die..."Me".
Just so you know: People actually DID know what they were doing until the 80s
Tell that to anybody who lived in the 40s!
Or the 70s, for that matter. Or the 60s. Or 50s.
One thing I'm sure of, though: Queen Elizabeth knew a lot more about governing than Queen Mary!
Look at the common trope of a geek in media: A geek is this super smart person who apparently has the abilities of Commander Data, minus the physical strength. A geek is supposed to be well versed in *everything*, should be able to do math as good as Einstein, if not better, and hack into the big scary database in no more than three tries.
Which of course is bullshit. Hacking involves a shit load of trial and error, a helluva lot of patient, and even after that you might not be successful. I've been computer programming since 1986, but I doubt I'd be able to hack the big scary database, at least not without knowing what kind of security flaws it has. My math skills are pretty good, but Einstein would own my ass in a microsecond. I know a lot of things, but I am not a fucking walking encyclopedia.
And yes, I actually had people come up to me asking "oh you are a programmer? Can you go hack the credit card company?", or expecting me to know some really obscure bit of trivia. I'll either brush them off, or give them bullshit answers.
This is why so many in IT feel they are charlatans.
I don't work in IT, but if I did, I would focus on continuing to better my knowledge (I do this anyway), working hard on whatever tough, not-so-obvious-solution problem I have to solve, and tune out the idiots.
I don't agree.
Many of us define ourselves in terms of process, which does not require having all the right answers, all the time, but rather a general-purpose methodology to move in the right direction.
Some of us don't demand the very last dollar in salary we can reasonably justify on our best day.
Furthermore, this is largely a scholastic effect: the 100% benchmark that defined your life through to the end of graduate school.
Ever since I learned, back in my grade-12 school year, that exp(-x^2) had no closed-form integral (damn!) I've seen the light: problems with hard solutions are a barely measurable set, compared to the set of all problems we might like to solve.
It's very, very easy to fall off the barely measurable set of hard, analytic solutions.
In real life, a 0.010 batting average is rock star territory; the only way anyone gets to a 0.400 batting average is by ignoring roughly 98% of all the ludicrous pitches life throws at you.
Obama was a senator first.
Bush was a governor first. And his dad was Pres.
Clinton was a governor first.
Bush Sr. was a VP first. And ran the CIA.
Trump was... A half scripted reality tv show star, who lost money on casinos, but tax cheated and scammed his way with Russian money laundering operations, to a fraudulent gold plating veneer of wealth. Who borrowed/inherited his start from his father, a german nazi collaborating Klansman.
#drumpf
They were hired as "Rock Star Developers", so of course they all have deficiency problems. But the problem was caused by HR seeking assholes, not professionals with realistic understanding of their skills.
Whether or not you agree with the job it doesn't matter, you get paid the same. -Jason fix (this is what I call a fraud)
I think 58% of studies are frauds. And 100% of this study is a fraud. And an imposter.
A TED talk on Impostor Syndrome popped up in my Facebook feed this morning. Must be the flavour of the month. Or perhaps Facebook's algorithms are making some assumptions about me...
When they came for the communists, I said "He's next door. Take him away. Goddam commies."
This is the first time I have sworn in public, but I think this survey is bullshit, and Slashdot is guilty for trolling us. The reason why Slashdot is trolling us, is that you don't explain how a tech worker commits fraud or hacks his or her employer or the public. Disgraceful, Slashdot! The blunt implication is that, if they are frauds, then that makes me a fraud for working in the same industry as the big tech companies. Is it true that 70% of Slashdot employees are frauds? If this summary is any indication, then yes, they are.
This is really good news, as it indicates a high level of self esteem among the the other 42%, about 2/3 of whom really are impostors.
People who do the work in IT are genuine, and middle managers, who get credit for the work that others do, are frauds. If you want to become a middle manager, you have to have a super sized ego, and you have to be an excellent BSer. Workers don't have to BS, they just have to produce error-free results. Middle managers had to, from the very beginning, fake deadlines, and then fake excuses for missing deadlines, in order to get budgeting from upper management for expensive projects, which corporations were willing to fund during the early days of business computing, roughly prior to 1980. From that point on, corporations gravitated to packaged software, and eventually to outsourcing. Master files became outdated due to layers of system changes, and data lost its normal form.
By the time the 1990's rolled around, technology was fracturing into a myriad of development environments. Tech workers had to scramble to keep up with the latest technologies. Perhaps that is where fraudsters and imposters entered the picture in greater numbers. They had to fake their resumes to make it seem as if they were on top of the latest trends.
Slashdot is definitely run by imposters.
I've worked hard for years to prove to myself that I'm not a fraud. All that's done is put me in positions where I cover for more charismatic frauds.