Imposter syndrome - when it's the truth

[FluxedBanshee]

I'm 6 weeks into a new role and quite frankly, I'm out of my depth.

I was approached about the role, it looked interesting and was an area I wanted to get into, but only have a very limited amount of experience with.

First interview went well so I was happy to progress to the second interview. Which was so incredibly painful as the interview was entirely on the area I have no experience in. Even though I said at all stages (intial chat, phone interview, 1st interview) I've no experience and was assured it was fine, they would work around it.

I'm pulled in different directions all day, spend most of it Googling whatever the fuck they've asked and then add more time to find information on intranet, only to come up with half a clue and I'm just deflated.

It's not imposter syndrome, I'm actually an imposter!

I think about quitting, but I'd really like to get this experience. I swing from well fuck it, this is all I got to hating feeling shit at my job 😩

You're not an imposter, you've been very upfront and honest about your lack of experience, and they're still feeling that this can be worked around, and accommodated. Are they doing this?

I feel similar right now. Been in my job 6 weeks. My job is probably easier than yours and easier for me to get information when I am stuck but I still feel like an imposter as I have never done anything similar. I want to try my hardest to stay for 6 months then see how I feel about it. 6 weeks is still early days.

How crucial is the experience really? Is it something you can get to speed with i.e if you've come from say a marketing / comms background and now you're leading sales. Or is that you're head of heart surgery but don't have a medical degree?

@VladmirsPoutine that put it into perspective somewhat, definitely not head of heart surgery without a medical degree. Thanks for cheering me up 😂

The thing is, only the senior people I interviewed with know my lack of experience, as I'm pretty sure this information hasn't been passed around to my colleagues.

I work in a completely different area to my local colleagues and they are coming to me for this expertise, which I've got to go and find.

It's just exhausting. My actual team sit in a different time zone so getting information is slow also.

Sorry @Obel you're in the same boat. It just sux doesn't it. On the one hand I was looking for a bit of a challenge, and then on the other hand I quite liked knowing what I was doing, and I guess cruising in my career a bit 😳

You feelings sound pretty normal in a new role. How on earth would you know how to do the job when you've never done it before?

You were presumably given the job of the basis of your capacity to learn, so you need to cut yourself some slack while you are learning. I've always found it takes 6-8 months to have a clue what I'm doing.

The way to deal with imposter syndrome is the same regardless - act like someone who is coping and never stop acting!

* The thing is, only the senior people I interviewed with know my lack of experience, as I'm pretty sure this information hasn't been passed around to my colleagues.*

^Myabe your colleagues do know but they haven’t got the time or patience to teach you. To be fair, I wouldn’t have time for a colleague who accepted a role knowing they were so out of their depth.

It wouldn't be my local colleagues who would be teaching me anything @drpet49. We work in totally different areas.

Have you looked into some online courses for the role you could do at home to help train you

If you think you'll like the job and your colleagues, stuck with it. They wanted you - and if anyone complains about you, remind them of that.
Ask for some OTJ training, though, for your own piece of mind

You're six weeks in. Give yourself a break!
Keep on plugging away and tell yourself you will review it at Christmas.

So instead of teaching and enabling to be better, you'd rather take on extra work forever because you have to pick up the slack? You sound like the worst colleague going.

OP dont worry. Im also in a new job and spend a load of time googling things. I feel like as long as im learning lessons and putting it all into practice its ok because im getting better each day. Would the same apply to you?

That first comment was to @drpet49

You're 6 weeks in. If you weren't going through an exhausting learning process at this point, then, then you should definitely be having questions about whether this was the right move.

It's challenging, but that is what you wanted. You're just at that stage where you've been there just long enough to get the hang of how things hang together organisationally and so on, and gaining an awareness of just how much there is to learn, but the learning curve does start to flatten out soon.

Working with different timezones is an added challenge, because it does add delays, and you can't just ping someone in AsiaPac with a quick question when it's the afternoon here, but you have to live with that (and working with people literally all round the world is one of the things I love about my job; others find it frustrating.)

Do you have regular discussions with your manager to see how things are going? If they're happy with your progress, them it's fine. If they're picking up on things that you really should know, then you need to think about that, but from what you say, you need to give yourself a break, and a bit more time. I bet by new year, you'll be feeling more settled, and having to ask about fewer things.

Wot @EBearhug said ^

It's entirely natural to feel overwhelmed in the early stages of a challenging new role. For one thing, your short term memory will be filled up with so many new things to learn about.

Relax, it's entirely normal.

The right thing to do is absolutely to get hold of whoever is supposed to be line managing you and check in with with them.

What support have they provided so far, what miles stones have you agreed with them so you can build up your own confidence that this is the right role for you. What training plan have they agreed, to make sure you can get up to speed quickly.

If they haven't done these things, then it will be up to you to push them to tell you how your success will be measured. There need to be tangible steps that you can take to go from where you are now to a fully contributing member.

Good luck and enjoy