Promoted beyond my level of competence

[ICriedAllTheWayToTheChipShop]

As per the title! About six months ago, I applied for a promotion within my team. I'm in a minor department in the civil service and the team is very small, only about five people, so there's nowhere really to hide...

I felt like the interview for the post went quite badly so I was really surprised when I was actually offered it. I genuinely thought about turning it down but there was a significant salary increase and I live alone with quite a lot of outgoings, so I decided I would take it and try to get past any misgivings.

Long story short, I've struggled ever since accepting the promotion and I think it was a mistake to do so. I try to address my shortcomings in relevant knowledge by doing background reading and attending meetings (online ones) but after a while my eyes sort of slide off the page or my brain starts to wander and I just can't take in what's happening. My notes start off detailed but when I get about halfway through they stop making any sense - I can't explain it properly, all I can say is that the subject matter is obviously beyond me.

I work remotely from the rest of the team, which I don't think helps, but when there have recently been opportunities for us to get together in person, I've come up with excuses to get out of it. I feel like it'll be all too obvious that I don't know what I'm doing in person.

My best option - going back to my old role - isn't possible because it has already been filled, so I'm wondering what on earth I should do now. If I carry on like this then somebody is eventually going to catch me out, but when I've looked at other jobs that are available at the same sort of salary level, they all ask for skills and experience that I haven't got. Do I have to resign myself to taking a pay cut in exchange for the peace of mind of knowing what the hell is going on?

This must be a really stressful experience for you at the moment. I think a lot more people feel like you do when they move into a new area. It’s partly a mix of imposter syndrome and self fulfilling prophecy etc.
You are most likely your own worst critic, in your head you are maybe thinking that you need to demonstrate and be expert in your new area to reassure yourself and prove you deserve the pay rise?
There’s a term ‘fake it until you make it’. I used to hate it, but learned to realise that it’s about accepting what you do and don’t know and then developing a plan at a pace that works for you to gain the confidence and skills you need. Part of that plan is also identifying what you can work out yourself and what you are going to need help with. Part of that help might be formal training but is also asking a senior manager to guide you, working with your team to observe and learn from them. When you’re new it’s the perfect time to do that, you can use being new and getting up to speed as a genuine excuse! So what if people say behind your back they expected you to know already, that’s a minor issue that you can prove them wrong at with only a few months of planned, strategic development.
A word of advice though, don’t keep avoiding meeting the team. They will start to think you are maybe thinking you are above them etc. Proximity and meeting with folks to get to know each other rally does matter. Present yourself as someone who is interested in them, wants to learn from them and wants to help them achieve what they need. I know that it can be scary initially but it’s a lot harder to try and do this later, if folks have already formed an opinion.

Sounds like imposter syndrome. Are you sure that this isn't the issue?

It's really difficult to work out from only your (possibly catastrophising?) perspective whether things actually are that bad or whether it's entirely in your head.

Where is your line manager in all this? Are you avoiding them because you're afraid they'll confirm your negative self-perception? I would seek them out and be really frank - "I feel like I'm out of my depth - please can you help me with my action plan for improvement" or similar. That way either they can be constructive if there is a problem, or reassuring if there's not.

I'm also CS and I think some grades are quite a significant jump up and it can take a while to feel any sense of mastery (although I notice several of my male colleagues don't have this same intense awareness of their shortcomings).

Six months is quite a long time in CS to have not gone through some sort of structured performance appraisal process. Again, this makes me think either your line manager is more absent than they ought to be, or your perspective is a bit out of whack and you're ignoring evidence which contradicts it.

Who are your peers? If you're working remotely in a small department perhaps this is also part of the problem. I find my (same grade) peers super useful, both the ones i trust for honest discussion and also the ones I dont know well enough to have that conversation with but can still calibrate my own performance/confidence/competence against.

Fake it until you make it OP, don't give up. I also expect there's an element of imposter syndrome also creeping in. You got through the interview and were offered the job for a reason, so just remember that.

Is there someone outside your immediate team that could act as a bit of a mentor perhaps?

In the civil service I would guess there is a mentoring or coaching scheme, and the prime moment to take advantage of it is when trying to adjust to a new role. I’d ask if you can be assigned one, and then use it as an opportunity to work on the skills you think you need most in the new role - possibly filtering to identify the key relevant information for you in group meetings, maybe goal setting so you can define small steps towards goals rather than tackling an entire challenge in one bite, only you can know your priorities but this way you wouldn’t be doing it alone.

@OutofDepth1000 your username is tragically apt on this thread! I think I didn't explain the background very well, but I was part of this same team in a more junior role for two years before the promotion, so I'm not "new" in that respect. I have met the others in person before, but not since taking on the new role. We've all been working from home for a lot of the last two years but now we're about 50/50 home and office. The issue being, the rest of the team is based at the HQ and I'm in one of the regional offices about 200 miles away. It's been pretty easy to get out of the in-person meetings (of which there have only been two) really, I've just said that I can't justify the travel time for an hour's catch-up when we can do it over Teams.

@pintsizedproblem I don't think it's the full picture, no. It's literally a case of me trying to read a policy document or something, and my brain just refuses to understand it, and I get stuck reading the same sentence over and over. It makes me feel so stupid.

@NellWilsonsWhiteHair I've described my office setup a bit more in the paragraph above. As for my line manager, I do think he's been a combination of somewhat absent and somewhat passive. I do have regular catchups with him but he seems reluctant to give me any kind of constructive criticism that I can take away and work on. I've intimated that I'm dissatisfied with my performance but he's kind of brushed it off. It's not like I want him to tear me down but surely there must be something I could be doing better? It would reassure me more if I had a concrete action to improve on, rather than a sense that my manager is somehow afraid to tell me if I'm falling short.

I would honestly sieze the thing with both hands, tell your line manager you feel completely out of your depth and want to draw up an action plan and please can he help you.

I think forcing him to talk about it will make him realise its a bigger deal for you than he's maybe realised, and may well give you some more reassurance that actually you're outwardly doing perfectly fine. And also I think it's a genuinely useful project to embark on, because we're all of us continually growing and learning, and six months in to a new grade is a really good time to take stock and work out where the gaps are and how to address them and what to prioritise.

I think line management in the CS is often poor and I think this is a significant contributing factor to your issue. Most of the time someone who is new to grade will need some meaningful reassurance about when they're doing well, and clear direction about what could be improved. I also know from experience it's very easy to hide during regular work catchups (I've certainly deflected close attention sometimes when I have felt insecure about my work - but the truly good managers have managed to poke through that and been able to actually support me and hold me accountable in spite of my best efforts!) and a poor manager can let you get away with that which really only makes things feel worse.

I think a PP's suggestion about looking for a mentor or similar is a really good shout. I've had a number of fantastic mentors myself and they've been particularly valuable at transition points or when my line manager wasn't quite what I needed.

Re: just not absorbing what you're reading, I think both exhaustion and anxiety/stress (using all those terms broadly) can make it difficult for your brain to function properly. I think also though an inevitable part of promotion is needing to know a little about a wider remit, rather than being able to practise great expertise in a narrower area. This depends a lot on your role and grade, but I wonder if this is part of it - you're trying to master the detail when really what you need is to know 'so what?' or what the risks are or whatever, rather than actually needing the detail.

I actually found reaching my current grade really liberating in that I usually now feel able to be the person in a meeting who asks "sorry, what does X mean?", safe in the knowledge that I've 'proven' my worth and that the questions I ask will often add value for others too.

Sorry, wild jumble of reflections here and not all will be relevant. I think your immediate task is to work out how to manage upwards to get the support, clarity, feedback and direction you need.

Firstly I’d raise it with your manager, that you feel like you need some additional support with the role. Your manager should be able to help you with this. If you do genuinely come to the conclusion that the work at this grade is too much you can ask HR about a demotion. They can find you a role. You don’t need to resign. Good luck

Thanks all. Had a 1:1 on Thursday but chickened out of saying anything! I'm having terrible crashes in my mood at the moment and my GP has been messing about with my medication so I don't think it would be a good idea to do anything life-changing or have any important conversations just now. I would probably just start crying and it would go all awkward 😆 But I've had some good advice to think about for when I'm a bit more stable .

In terms of trying to understand policy documents, could you make your own copy and break it down into much smaller paragraphs. Highlight important bits.

I mean they are dull. My brain just reads blah, blah, blah past a point so eat the elephant a bite at a time. Read some, take a break and go back over it before moving on.

What are the really key bits for your job and decision making and what is just for information/ a heads up.

There is often a tendency to copy someone a grade up into absolutely everything so this may be as much about learning what you can simply skim through and what actually requires your full attention