Catching the Imposter

During my time at Flatiron, I heard a lot of talk about "imposter syndrome". I knew what it referred to, but never really felt it would be an issue for me. Aside from the occasional "bump in the road", I felt like I was picking up all the course material at a steady pace as we made our way through each phase.

Then came graduation; I was excited to take my new skills into the world and carve out a solid career path for myself. I began searching for open positions at companies all over, daydreaming about the endless possibilities that awaited me. Then it slowly began to sink in - the realization that I now had to face the competition.

Trying to fill one of these open positions means I'm up against many other jobseekers who possess the same skills I do...so new questions began plaguing me: how can I get ahead? Is my code as clean as the other applicants? Is this app I created really that cool? Imposter Syndrome finally had its claws in me - I was getting anxiety before I even sent out my first application.

I then had a sit-down (via ZOOM) with my career coach and some other recent graduates that were *more or less* in the same boat as me. We talked through some of our post-graduate doings and how we could all better our process for finding work. Hearing some of the others discuss their situations made me realize that we all have to go through this "rite of passage" - send out the applications, get noticed, put in the work and build the portfolio projects, and finally get through all the interviews (technical and other).

This brought me to the conclusion that the competition for these jobs is real, yes; but in a way it's team building. These are the people that I'll be collaborating with; whether its on the job or in our spare time. One of the main shared goals of all people in the tech world is progress, and the best way to move forward is to do it together. Knowing I have a team behind me, I don't feel like such an imposter anymore.