How We Combat Imposter Syndrome

At Fog Creek we’ve always put a top priority on hiring people who get things done, which means we’re a company that welcomes a lot of generalists. We hire capable people, but we don’t expect our new employees will come in knowing how to do everything their jobs will require right off the bat. Our goal is to give our new employees a full 3 months of room to spend on just learning.

But giving new employees this flexibility can also increase one unintended consequence: imposter syndrome.

It makes sense, right? You get this amazing job at this really forward thinking company, even though you might not be an expert at every detail of every subject mentioned in the job listing. It’s stressful!

Because we believe strongly that a good quality of life and an environment that builds happiness and productivity are integral to our success, we have to combat this imposter syndrome. We like to do it early and often during an employee’s first 90 days at Fog Creek. We’ve got a few methods.

During a new employee’s first week we lay it out flat: don’t panic! It’s written as part of our social rules (which are heavily influenced by our friends at The Recurse Center, formerly Hacker School) and it’s required reading for everyone’s first day at Fog Creek. Here’s the key piece:

Telling someone not to worry doesn’t do the trick alone. At Fog Creek we give all of our new employees continuous feedback during their first 3 months to make sure their goals and the goals of their team are aligned. At 30, 60 and 90 days we do a check in with all of our new employees. A few days before we ask them to prepare answers to the following:

We ask each new employee’s team lead to answer the same questions, then we go over the answers to make sure they’re in alignment. And we fix any bugs that we identify.

How does this help combat imposter syndrome? It gives our new employees a concrete answer to that most nagging of questions — am I doing OK? Am I meeting the company’s needs and expectations?

The goal is simple: make sure everyone on our team feels confident and comfortable in their place at our company. If that sounds like something you want to get from your employer, maybe you should come join us at Fog Creek.