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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.
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.
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.
It's when a person doubts their accomplishments and has a fear of being exposed as a fraud.
What they're basically saying is that 57.55% of IT workers from the named companies are suffering from psychological trauma you'd more likely expect to find in a war zone, a kidnap situation or a maximum security prison.
You should not be finding it in a 9-5 office job.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
We all generally know who is competent, or at least more competent. There's always someone that's getting asked to put out the fires or to help fix things or to look over something to make sure that it's okay. That's the competent person, or at least the person more competent than everyone else. Management might not realize this person exists, but that's their own failing. Worse still, management probably undervalues this person because they just look at some metrics that really penalize anyone who's spending a considerable amount of their time helping other people out even though that person is adding the most value to the company.
It might take a while for people to figure out, but if you actually took a step back and monitored a company, there are going to be a few people that have everyone else beating a footpath to their door when they need help. And then there's the other side of the coin, the people that are never going to get asked to do something because everyone knows that they'll screw it up or do a shoddy job of it. It's just that capturing this as a metric so that middle management doesn't make a mess of things is hard to do.