Navigating the Cybersecurity Career Path

CHAPTER 13How Can I Deal with Impostor Syndrome?

Summary

• Check your thinking: When you start to doubt yourself, step back and do a dispassionate review of your work and outcomes.
• Network: Whenever self-doubt appears, find trusted partners with whom you can check in.
• Act quickly: Don't let your worries fester. Reach out to mentors and friends to double-check your thinking.
• Communicate well and often: Keep track of your accomplishments. Use this to talk to stakeholders about your job; also, this will help remind you of the good work you do!

When people are new to a profession or come in as entry-level people, they rarely deal with the anxiety of expectations because they expect to know very little. They expect that people around them will be tolerant of lots of questions and lots of mistakes. The anxiety that is commonly labeled “imposter syndrome” starts to emerge when someone presents themselves as an experienced professional, a subject-matter expert, or a leader. When they must prove their bona fides to themselves and others, they might start to question themselves.

More than other parts of the technology world, security has a certain culture, and we're proud of it. This culture is a blend of technological brilliance, countercultural subversion, and savior complex. There is also a hierarchy — it seems that technology programmers and hackers are on the top of the heap, and risk governance and administrative control management are somewhere at the bottom. The hierarchy ...