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Fixing Impostor Syndrome in Coding Interviews
- larnmar 7y ago> Here’s the good news: you’re not an impostor Some people are, though. Sometimes, “impostor syndrome” isn’t really a syndrome, but an appropriate way to feel when you’ve been Peter-Principled your way into a position that you’re not competent in.
- randallsquared 7y agoOne of the reasons imposter syndrome is so prevalent in the tech industry is that everyone with more than a few years of experience has worked alongside people who talked their way into the job but cannot code their way out of a wet paper bag. It's directly related, in my opinion, to the terrible state of interviews in this field.
- AlexCoventry 7y agoCan't people reassure themselves by picking a wet paper bag to code themselves out of?
- cdwhite 7y agoYes! My last year in grad school, this is part of how I kept my sanity: random little side-projects on which I could make concrete progress in a couple of evenings.
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- twic 7y agoI don't get this. How does the fact that many people have worked alongside people who cannot code cause impostor syndrome? It doesn't seem like it would cause it in the first set people - they compare themselves to the people who can't code and feel like the opposite of impostors. It doesn't seem like it would cause it in the people who can't code, because those people really are impostors, so can't have impostor syndrome. So is there some effect on some third group of people?
- itronitron 7y agoThat seems like a bit of an exaggeration, or a popular trope at least by people that feel put upon by their coworkers. I've never worked with another developer that couldn't code their way out of a wet paper bag. I think the the terrible state of interviews is due to people wanting to think (or wanting others to think) that what they do is more complicated than it actually is.
- twic 7y ago> I've never worked with another developer that couldn't code their way out of a wet paper bag. I have. Not many, but during my time consulting, some of our more pathological clients would have one or two programmers who literally couldn't program.
- chrisseaton 7y agoI interviewed once with a database startup. I don't know anything about databases. I just thought 'yeah I can probably blag that.' I probably looked like an impostor while I piled in in the interview, because I was.
- boring_twenties 7y agoDid you get an offer?
- chrisseaton 7y agoNo - I wouldn't have been able to do the job.
- klyrs 7y agoMy initial reaction to this comment was "uh, so you were an actual impostor... who cares?" Almost downvoted. But I wonder if this experience has value. Literally go in with a firm, well-justified expectation of failure. Would that bring peace of mind, in situations where you're skilled and you might be otherwise predisposed to impostor syndrome? The biggest fear that comes up for me is "what if I'm a better bullshit artist than I think, and I actually land the job?" Curious to hear if you got anything deeper from the experience.
- Tade0 7y agoI know that I'm somewhat of an impostor because interviews don't test for what's really important in this field - namely grit - and rely on gut feeling in this regard instead.
- knzhou 7y agoImpostor syndrome is a real phenomenon, but contrary to what everybody studying it says, the strongest counter to it is more emphasis on objective and impersonal evaluation criteria, not less. In my experience, much of it is created by initiatives that ostensibly try to fight it.
- palisade 7y agoI have imposter syndrome, and what's worse I'm really shy and have trouble looking people in the eye which makes me seem like a liar. What helps me a lot is the move companies are making towards remote interviews. For some reason with skype I can look people right in the eye, it's probably because they're off-center visually or because I know they're not really here. However, that only helps with the shyness it doesn't really solve the imposter part. And, it's not because I'm not competent, I've successfully shipped every project I've ever been part of.
- rcurry 7y agoThere's a great line in Glenn Gary Glenn Ross where one character says "I always get nervous when I talk to the police." and the other character says "Yeah, you know who doesn't get nervous when they talk to the police... criminals." It's perfectly normal to be a bit nervous or shy during interviews, so don't sweat it so much. A decent interviewer isn't going to hold that against you. I'm more suspicious of people who aren't a bit nervous, and am inclined to interview them more thoroughly because most of the time when companies I've worked for have hired someone who's slick, they've turned out to be an imposter.
- bitwize 7y ago> It's perfectly normal to be a bit nervous or shy during interviews, so don't sweat it so much. A decent interviewer isn't going to hold that against you. An interviewer held it against me. Said I did well technically but didn't seem confident enough. In order to ace the interview you pretty much have to be the perfect candidate -- technically, socially, emotionally.
- imsofired 7y agoYikes. I've done the opposite. A fully qualified candidate was so satisfied in his competence that he was absolutely insufferable. As he was completing the coding portion of his interview, I broached the topic of comments. "Nah, this is an interview, it doesn't matter." This was back in 98 and he had a little personal website with a discussion board for his friends. He whined there about not getting the job, so I explained that it was his attitude, and not his skills, that made him a bad fit. His friends seemed to agree with me, that getting taken down a notch was a necessary step in his emotional growth.
- ravenstine 7y agoSerious question: Could it be that imposter syndrome isn't real, but what people are actually experiencing is imposter syndrome-syndrome? I don't think there's a person whom I've known who hasn't claimed to have experienced imposter syndrome. It seems like everyone has this feeling when they're engaging in something they have don't have complete experience or confidence in. This is a normal way to feel, but some people are better at overcoming it than others. The people who don't seem like they experience imposter syndrome are either well settled into their roles or are simply good actors who can handle pressure. At some point or another, we decided that this state of being had something to do with being an "imposter" rather than being a human being lacking experience. Unless you outright lied about who you are, you're not an imposter. This reminds me how everyone says they're an "introvert". Even the people I know who are party animals say they're introverts because they need time to "recharge". We throw around these terms like "imposter syndrome" and "introvert" because they make us feel better, even though they describe most people, in which case they're really not that useful. Sometimes you've just got to buck up and not waste time overthinking, descriptions of one's self being one form of that.
- hetman 7y agoI think there's some confusion here. The effect is meant to describe the feelings being experienced and not the actual objective state of the individual. I have come across many people who had never heard the term before but immediately identified with having experienced such a state when it was explained to them. I also disagree that having names for things that is common to most peoples' experience is a bad idea. On the contrary, it helps people better understand their experience as a human. This isn't a competition to see who experiences it the most. In the case of impostor syndrome I have also found this is true. In my experience, once people are exposed to the idea they find it a great relief to know it is merely a cognitive bias and it makes them more confident about their abilities in the future.
- SilasX 7y agoYeah, that matches my intuition. I wish we could focus on giving coders reliable heuristics to self-assess rather than immediately jump to "impostor syndrome" at any expression of self doubt.
- pmoriarty 7y agoSomething related to but much less well known than impostor syndrome is the so-called Jonah complex[1], which is "the fear of success or the fear of being one's best which prevents self-actualization, or the realization of one's own potential. It is the fear of one's own greatness, the evasion of one's destiny, or the avoidance of exercising one's talents." [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonah_complex https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonah_complex
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- allovernow 7y ago>It's a fluke that I got this job interview...” >“I studied for weeks, but I’m still not prepared...” >“I’m not actually good at this. They’re going to see right through me...” >If any of these thoughts resonate with you, you're not alone. They are so common they have a name: impostor syndrome I mean it's clear that their secret sauce is just instilling confidence in everyone, and it's great to have such an optimistic view, but reality is that these things are often true and happen to everybody. Sometimes you're just not good enough, sorry.
- sys_64738 7y agoIt all depends on the need for a successful outcome. I talk confidently when there’s no real pressure for me to get the job. But if I need a positive outcome it is less so. Maybe it’s nerves but interviews are stressful.
- octorian 7y agoYeah, the more necessary you feel the job to be, the worse the nerves are. Many years ago I was desperate to escape my job to one better suited to my skills. Did fine on the phone screens. However, the nervousness of the whole in-person interview situation caused me to basically blow it. Stuff I knew like the back of my hand, or would get almost instantly under calmer circumstances, I simply kept stumbling on.
- hanoz 7y agoI frequently get imposter syndrome, or terrible realisations that I am in fact an imposter, I'm not sure which, but one situation in which I would be supremely confident that the imposter was the one sitting on the other side of the table would be if I were being judged by my (in)ability to perform leetcode tricks unrehearsed.
- JoeMayoBot 7y agoWhile it wasn't said, this somewhat implies that people are faking their way into companies, guessing and pulling other tricks to get through an interview. The simple solution is for people to be honest with themselves and their interviewer about their capabilities. This is my approach and it sometimes means that I don't get work because I flat out said that I know nothing about a certain technology or don't have mastery over something yet. Today, someone must have thought I had excellent SQL skills and I clearly let them know that I can do CRUD and stored procs (the typical developer toolset), but much of my recent experience is with ORMs. The gig might not come through, but I don't have to worry about imposter syndrome or my relationship with the other developer.
- alkibiades 7y agoam i the only one that doesn't experience imposter syndrome? i actually feel highly qualified and good at my job.
- shantly 7y agoI feel that way almost all the time—mostly due to client and co-worker feedback—except when interviewing. Interviews are far more demanding and stressful than any dev job I’ve had. Even the bad weeks.
- crimsonalucard 7y agoPeople talk about imposter syndrome without thinking about the other side of the coin. There are actually tons of actual imposters in our midst as well. Inept and incapable people often get promoted because they either know how to play the political game or are perceived not to be a threat. A great number of these people are aware they are imposters and they are actually right.
- adamredwoods 7y agoI don't understand this article as applied to the interviewing experiences I've just had. The wide berth of interview questions I've had in the past does suggest that I do need to know quite a bit, and in addition, the slight mistakes I've made have led to many rejections. It's not just knowing your comp sci basics such as recursion or closure or BigO, but knowing quirks in multiple languages, and know them well enough to catch them in a coding interview. If you don't get everything exactly correct, then you are rejected and labeled an imposter (and labeled so much so, Amazon will block you from any further interviews for one year). It also takes knowing as many platforms as possible if one wants to be as employable as possible. The current hotness is React, but I've still seen some good Angular jobs out there, and knowing both to a high degree will make one a tad more employable. How much of an imposter am I if I know React, MVC patterns, but just a little Angular, and apply to an Angular job? None of the jobs I've applied to are senior level, yet it makes me shudder in fear to ever interview again beyond the entry level. The imposter syndrome is real, not because of my insecurities, but because of the outcomes of the interviews I've had.
- eximius 7y agoIt sounds like you've had some bad interviews - that is, that your interviewer did a poor job. Small nitpicks should not disqualify you, small mistakes should not disqualify you. In fact small mistakes are expected and can be used as part of the interview to see if the interviewee can identify their mistakes when hinted at. I've never been required to know a particular platform before. I HAVE been asked to do a small API project in Go prior to the interview, which is similar, but it was an excellent take home problem in scope and completeness. Something like a TodoMVP in React. Something that doesn't require mastery, they just want to see that you can do something that takes more than an hour. It is reasonable for a company to decline to hire if they cannot afford for you to train in a new technology on the job. But this is a failing in the company and NOT a rejection of you.