Gen Z and other new employees should position between Imposter Syndrome and Dunning-Kruger Effect
Neither lacking confidence nor overconfidence are good.
I have been a professor at my university for more than 20 years. My career is older than the very life of my current students.
In that time I have seen a lot of changes in everything from student attitudes to terminology. While I always favor looking at individuals verses a group identity, there are some common threads in the Gen Z student and young professional. Among them are two ways of thinking: “Imposter Syndrome” and the Dunning-Kruger Effect. They are the extremes on a scale of one’s self-perception of ability in the workplace.
I would advise Gen Z to adopt Aristotle’s ‘Golden Mean’ and position themselves between these two extremes.
Imposter Syndrome is the phenomenon where one feels like a phony, that they are in a workplace but really don’t deserve to be there, that they lack skills and knowledge of those around them.
To this I say to students they need to bolster their own sense of self-efficacy. Also, it is important to remind them that college does not teach them everything. A bachelor’s degree gives students a lot, but it is a baseline. College teaches students how to learn. They must continue this in the specific workplace and industry where they land. I speak regularly to chief communication officers (CCOs) who are describing the next thing they need to learn even after decades of experience. On certain topics I continue to read and listen and learn. So no recent graduate of young professional should feel like an imposter. College graduation is called a “commencement” because it is a beginning, not a final conclusion.
Last semester a good student finished presenting a project to a client and left the room and shouted in the hallway “I’m done with college!” It was a joyous and funny moment. No doubt the excitement and jubilation were well worth it after all the work done. But I said to her, congratulations. Now the learning begins.
The other extreme is the Dunning-Kruger Effect, in which someone without a lot of knowledge or ability overestimates their competence and proficiency. This is the person who thinks they are too cool for school. It’s the person who thinks a three-month internship grants more knowledge and experience than a 30-year career. It’s the recent graduate who assumes a bachelor’s degree imparts more wisdom and understanding than a PhD. It’s the young person who listens to a seasoned veteran explaining past experience and says derisively “OK, Boomer.”
As a former colleague of mine used to say about some—not all—students, “they don’t know what they don’t know.”
As I get older, it has been humorous to hear from millennials who used to walk around like they rent the place complain about their new Gen Z employees who seem resistant to feedback, instruction and mentorship. They are getting as little of their own attitude. In one case a mid-career professional told me about a new hire explaining with passion a concept they had just heard about but which was fundamental and already second nature to others in the room.
Perhaps they should have said “OK, Genzie.”
But I also note that the phenomena of Imposter Syndrome or the Dunning-Kruger Effect are not about age, they are simply about change. Individuals at any career stage can change jobs, industries or move to a new city or state. This was expressed in a recent AdAge article about entry level professionals finding a tough job market and seeing their mentors laid off.
No matter the age or experience, the job market and change makes one “new” in the new context and can generate feelings and manifest behaviors ranging from self-doubt to overconfidence.
In either case, time can “heal” these maladies at either extreme end of a self-perception scale. The one with Imposter Syndrome will soon gain confidence if given good instruction, feedback and support from an employer. Success defeats perception. The individual with the Dunning-Kruger Effect may soon find out they are “not all that” in a performance review, a creative team meeting that doesn’t not rubber stamp an idea, or from some negative client feedback.
The best attitude for a recent grad and young professional is one of humble confidence, between the extremes. Absolutely they should be willing to speak up and contribute what they know and offer the skills they have. But they also should be open-minded to continual learning and feedback, be respectful of the people who went before them, take advantage of opportunity to try and fail, and expect to be corrected.