First of all, know that it’s not just you. ~70% of people experience imposter syndrome at some point in their life. What’s more, all the clients I work with in getting a job abroad experience this. This is not surprising, given we are most likely to experience imposter syndrome when we decide to take on new roles or new responsibilities, i.e. when we are venturing into the unknown. And what could be more unknown than job searching abroad?

Second, are you familiar with the opposite of imposter syndrome? It’s called the Dunning-Kruger Effect. It’s when someone with low ability in a specific skill overestimates their abilities. In general, a person with low skill is not even aware of everything a particular skill entails, and so overestimates their own competence. In contrast, a person who excels in a particular skill tends to think that since they find this skill easy, then it must be easy for everyone else as well. In addition, since competent people are well aware of the long road to mastery, they are also painfully aware of how big the gap is between where they are and where they could go.

Here’s the point: If you feel like an imposter with a certain skill, good news: You are likely actually very skilled at it.

Here’s an exercise I go through with my clients to manage their imposter syndrome when networking and writing applications in their job search. Use it to understand whether you have a bad case of imposter syndrome, or if you are actually an imposter (a competent person’s worst nightmare) 😉

• Step 1: List the top 3 most important skills for someone in the role you are applying for. If you don’t know what they are, go to LinkedIn Jobs, get one of the job ads for your role, and refer to the “Qualifications” there.
• Step 2: For each skill, rate yourself on a scale of 1-10, where 1 is “I know nothing about this” and 10 is “I’m the best at this.”
• Step 3: For each skill, ask yourself, “In my company, what skill level (1-10) do we need to hire someone in this role?”
• Note: As someone suffering from imposter syndrome, you might feel tempted to list an advanced skill you don’t have or are trying to learn as a “top 3 required skill”. If it’s NOT absolutely required, just list it as a bonus.

My client J is a Filipino data analyst who’s interviewing for data analyst roles in Germany. We went through this exercise together. Here is the outcome.

Before this exercise, J had this vague feeling of not being qualified for data analyst roles. After this exercise, he realized that for 3 of the top 4 skills, he is 1-2 levels more skilled than what is required to excel in this job. Moreover, the skills he is most worried about (Python and R) are just bonus skills.

Of course he can and will continue to upskill in these areas. But he can now at least network with other data analysts and send applications, knowing full well that he is a very competent data analyst. Any company would be lucky to have him.