Dani had been a retail manager for twelve years, and she’d never once felt unqualified at her job. Then she applied for a role in a support team at a care organisation, and the invitation to interview arrived, and something in her chest dropped. Not excitement, exactly. More a quiet certainty that somebody had made a mistake. She read the job description four times, noting every line she couldn’t tick. She told her sister she probably wouldn’t go. Her sister asked what had changed since last month, when Dani was running a team of twenty. The honest answer was: nothing, except the story she was telling herself.
If that feeling is familiar, it has a name, and it’s a lot more common than most people admit.
What Impostor Syndrome Is
“Impostor syndrome” describes a persistent sense of being a fraud despite evidence of competence: the belief that your achievements are luck, timing or a trick, and that you’ll eventually be found out. It’s not an official medical diagnosis, but it’s widely studied, and it’s especially likely to surface at moments of change, when you’re stepping into something unfamiliar.
A career change is a textbook trigger. You’ve spent years being an expert in one field, and suddenly you’re a beginner in another. Your old credentials feel as if they’ve expired, and the new ones haven’t arrived yet.
What the Research Shows
A 2020 systematic review in the Journal of General Internal Medicine, led by Dr Dawn Bravata, pulled together 62 studies with 14,161 participants. It found that reported prevalence of impostor syndrome varied widely, from 9 to 82 percent, with rates particularly high among ethnic minority groups. The studies covered men and women, and people from adolescents to late-stage professionals, including students, clinicians and a range of other workers.
The review also found that impostor syndrome was often seen alongside depression and anxiety, and was associated with poorer job performance, lower job satisfaction and burnout. It carried one significant caveat: the authors noted that no published studies had evaluated treatments for it, which is a real gap in the evidence.
The wide range in prevalence partly reflects how differently studies measured it, so no single figure should be treated as definitive. But the broad message is clear and, for many people, reassuring. Feeling like a fraud isn’t rare, and it isn’t evidence that you are one.
Why It Spikes During a Career Change
Several things combine. You’re comparing your first week in a new field with someone else’s tenth year. You can’t yet tell which of your instincts are transferable. And the language of job adverts, with its lists of “essential” and “desirable” criteria, makes every gap look like a verdict.
It’s worth remembering that an advert is a wish list, written before anyone has applied. Employers usually know they won’t find a perfect match, and many hire for potential and attitude alongside experience.
A Familiar Scenario: The Tick-List
Dani’s interview anxiety had a specific shape. She’d counted the requirements she didn’t meet and ignored the ones she did: leading a team, handling difficult conversations, staying calm under pressure, training new staff. When her sister made her write both lists out, the second one was longer.
It didn’t make the nerves disappear. But it replaced a feeling with evidence, which is a smaller, more manageable thing to argue with.
Things That Help
- Write down what you’ve actually done, with specifics, not adjectives
- Separate “I can’t do this yet” from “I can’t do this”, since the first is just a training need
- Talk to someone who made a similar change and ask whether they felt the same
- Ask the employer what training and support new people receive
- Notice when you’re comparing your beginning to somebody else’s middle
- Speak to your GP if the feeling is persistent and affecting your sleep or mood
None of these removes the feeling overnight. Together they make it less loud. It also helps to remember that nervousness and unsuitability are different things. Most people feel exposed when they start something new, including the colleagues who will one day look completely at ease. The feeling is a sign you’re stretching, not a sign you’ve chosen wrongly.
Reading Requirements Realistically
One practical way to calm the tick-list is to read job requirements closely. Look at what a role asks for, and what it simply prefers. The Wichita, Kansas, treatment programme’s role requirements are a plain example: nursing posts ask for an active RN or LPN licence in good standing, counsellor posts for an active Kansas LAC, LMAC or LCAC licence, and both describe a collaborative team. The programme is American and its licences don’t apply elsewhere, but reading a page like that shows how specific the real requirements usually are, and how few of them are vague personal qualities.
Letting the Feeling Be Information
Dani went to the interview. She didn’t feel confident, but she brought the second list, the one with leading a team and training new staff on it, and used it as a script when her mind went blank. She didn’t claim to know things she didn’t. She said what she’d done and what she wanted to learn. Walking out afterwards, she realised that the fraud she’d feared being found out as had never been in the room.
Heavensa also known as Heaven’s A Dreamy Life is the digital home of Gee, a UK-based content creator and entrepreneur.