Imposter Syndrome, Low Confidence in Interviews - How to boost Psychologically

70% of the people are experiencing imposter symptom at some point of time in their career. A journal of Behavioral science has quoted even 85% of the people suffer from low self esteem in their career. A report by American Psychological Association. Particularly if it's a design field, it's more creative and lot of concepts, new ideations and creativity is there. People are more likely to be suffering through this problem. How do you really address this? How do you really understand this? First, what are the psychological factors which is affecting in our career? This particular podcast is give you a kind of clarity what you really are stuck so far and how you can able to even come out of it. So take a lot of notes. This is going to be action taking podcast where you're going to have some resources also posted in the comment section and you can able to practice and improve on your work. Okay. With that, let's jump into this topic. The process of interview and career progression towards attending design tasks. Having face to face interviews, having different different rounds. For many people it's very, very difficult and some people may feel it's nightmares, right? But let me tell you, there are psychological factors which has been affecting us. That is the reason we are doing. Let's take the first process which is application process in interview. Okay. The major factors which is affecting your confidence is lack of clarity on your resume, curriculum vitae and then your cover letter. What is your projects? What's your achievement? Where are you coming from? What's your synchronization towards this organization? People who don't have the clarity in that, what happens is they will most likely to feel imposter syndrome, right? You will fall in that 70 percentage category which I told you. Let me give you a technique how you can overcome it. Conduct a self assessment of your achievements first. Get a good feedback from any of your mentors or your teachers or your good peers or some experienced people in design in your career in your line. Particularly because if you are thinking about it and then if you keep on attending interview, there is no point in doing it. That is why I told you an international journal of behavioral science said 70% of the people are experiencing this imposter syndrome at some point of time in their career. In this podcast I pasted a link for resume writing guides and LinkedIn learning where you can find good amount of materials to improve upon it. There are a lot of tools and templates which is available so why don't we use it? Okay. The second big factor in the interview process is fear of rejection. This is One of the major thing which I have seen with a lot of people, lot of people don't even apply for job because of fear of rejection. You know why fear of rejection is happening? It's because of low self esteem. The one way to focus, the one way to improve this particular skill is focusing on that particular transferable skill and achievements. Focus on your accomplishments, focus on how you are able to survive in your existing job, in your existing career. What is your big success you made so far? Understanding that will actually make you very clear. Even if you get rejected, you will be normal, you will be feeling the same, right? So a survey by American psychological association found that 85 percentage of the people suffer from low self esteem. Low self esteem is a big problem in almost all careers. Not even in design. I'm telling you because if you have a low self esteem, your communication gets stumbled, your confidence goes low. Even though if you have a good profile or a project in your portfolio, you won't be able to tell it very clearly and nail the show, right? People who have lot of self esteem, even though if they don't have experience or not having designed projects, they tend to crack the show. You can read an article on overcoming rejection by Harvard Business Review. It's a very good medium blog which I found. You can able to read it out and understand and develop it better. Okay. The third important factor is unawareness of industry trends. See, why do you get fear? Why do you have that fear of failure? It's because you're not updated. You need to be updated. You need to subscribe to good blogs like Medium Blogs. You can go to Industrial Design foundation blogs. You can subscribe to magazines, Economic times. There are good amount of design magazines available, national and international. So you can able to subscribe and understand what is really happening. I have posted some industry specific blog also and webinars also where you can understand simple guys. If you're not taking action and then if you are becoming lazy, then automatically you will have fear of failure. So fear of failure is not because of anybody, it's because of you. It's because of you not taking action and not staying up to date. And if you are aware, if you are having clarity in the knowledge about the trend and your strength and your weakness and your suitability for the organization, you would not be even listening to this podcast. You would be already working in a very good design job where you'll be upgrading to the next level. The reason why is because you're not having that. So why don't you take action and Improve it. It's as simple as that. The Anxiety and Depression association of America actually reported that fear of failure is the most common manifestation of anxiety affecting 30% of the adults. It's not a joke. Okay, so the fourth important factor is uncertainty about the job market. So a lot of people have a negative self talk. They think design is not good. Nobody has scope in design and nobody gives me job. There are only less design studios in India. There are only. Let me tell you, there are more than 4,000 plus design startups and lot of MSME industries and lot of design oriented MNC companies and a lot of design studios and lot of design consultings are there. Why would you even feel whether you will get a job or not? It's not about the market, it's about you. Again, if you are having that self doubt then you have not understood the statistics of how much vacancies has been created, right? 20% of the more employment opportunities have been created in India for the last five years. That's not a joke. It's a very big number. Design is contributing a huge GDP value for our country. So you need to understand how much role you can play learning the skills of design. If you are able to attend interviews and then track it then you will automatically feel how much vacancies is there. Unless until you go there you won't be able to get a clarity. You can find a self help book and a TED talk on confidence in this blog. Research published in the Journal of Cognitive Psychotherapy indicates that individuals engage in negative self talk an average of 13 times every single day. Guys, this is not a small number. 13 times every single day. So imagine how much negative self talk you're making and then you are itself lowering down your confidence towards attending this interview process. And if you understand it definitely you will not be the same. The next important factor is lack of knowledge about the company. That is the main reason why people need to do a lot of research about the company and about themselves before attending. If you are able to do that, what happens is you will reduce your anxiety. The big factor which is affecting you is your anxiety, right? You can remove this resistance by getting more awareness about the company. Practicing a lot of times mock interviews. I used to normally suggest there are good tools like Yoodli Y O O D L I AI and you can practice in lot of tools like Interview Buddy which will give you more insights and clarity on how you are able to talk in the interviews more confidently. Right? So understanding that becomes more important. You can read about that company website. You can go to Glassdoor's LinkedIn and find about the review of that company so that you will get more confident. According to WHO, 264 million people worldwide suffer from anxiety disorders. Overall, I'm saying so understand this is a very big factor. Okay? And let me tell you one more thing. The interview preparation process. The other factor is unpreparedness of common question. See, there are very common questions which people normally get right. Tell about yourself. Why do you come to design field? Can you explain about your project? Tell me why you are interested in this organization and what's your long term goal? Short term goal? Typically this much only. How much is your salary expectation? Tell me, if you're given the situation, how will you solve? So a very common kind of a question is there. If you're able to prepare this properly and don't work on perfection. See, perfectionism is a disease. I used to always tell my students and I've taken a special master class also for them. If you are too much perfect and then if you become a perfectionist, definitely you will become a big problem for yourself in your career, not for others. I'll tell you why the moment of becoming perfect, perfect, perfect. What happens is it will not lead you to take the step one itself. Step two itself. Step three, don't think about step two. Three. You will not be able to even take the step one. Understanding the needs of the company. Understanding yourself first. Understanding your projects, understanding your portfolio. Understanding how you are fit to this organization. If you are able to do that, only you can go for interviews, right? So a lot of people stuck in this. Develop a structured response to common questions and avoid this perfectionism. You can watch lot of interview videos in YouTube and I have posted some interview question guides also. And certain mock up interviews also which you can find the next problem in interview process is lack of technical skills. Lot of people have confidence, lower confidence in technical skills. It's focused on practicing skills like it's all about understanding how to do a research. It's all about understanding how to understand colors, primary, secondary colors. And it's all about understanding how to do a field study. It's about understanding how to do a prototyping, how to do a wireframe, how exactly you can approach a problem and solve it. Try to do a hands on one particular project from end to end and document it properly. You will have much clear confidence in attending and answering this question. You can attend a lot of boot camps. You can attend some online courses. There is something called free code camp. You can read a Lot of materials around it. The next problem is communication skills. Okay? Fear of judgment. People understand that. Oh, somebody else will think something if I talk like this. Let me tell you honestly, nobody cares. Nobody has that much of time to give you assessment, feedback, analysis and all. Everybody has their own work, right? If the recruiter finds you not good enough, he'll go and find other people, right? Simple. He doesn't even care about you for more than 10 seconds. Oh, this guy is talking bad. Oh no, nobody really cares. People have a lot of fear of judgment. Join some public speaking clubs, guys. Practice with your friends again and again. And if you feel if you need some communication special support, you can write to this particular podcast, there is an email to it, you can write me. I have a special particular courses for communication exercises and activities where I'll be live monitoring the students and I'll be able to help you out. You can go to Toastmasters and communication courses which I posted it in the group. Okay, so so far we have seen two things guys, which is application process in that lot of psychological factors are affecting lack of clarity on resume, fear of rejection, unawareness of industry trends and uncertainty about the job market. And second is we have discussed about interview preparation, lack of knowledge about the company, unprepared, common questions, lack of technical skills, very poor communication skills. Right? Let me tell you the third important part of this podcast. Follow up. What are the psychological fears people have? Fear of being nuances, like a nuisance. So people think, okay, what if these people think about me again, I'm telling you, nobody cares. Even if that person is saying, you're irritating me. Okay, it's fine. Thank you sir. I just wanted to have a follow up with you. Go for the next person. If you have your list big with a lot of recruiters, you will not have problem talking with many people, right? So follow up is a very, very important thing, guys. So one of my mentor, Jim Rohn, he says money lies in the follow up. The good billionaires in the world, the good richest people in the world are very good in following up and getting things done. See, you need to be polite. You need to understand there are multiple ways to do a follow up. It's not just a phone call, it's not only an email, it's not only a message. It's not only through going and meeting in person. Follow ups could be anything. You have to do it politely, it's fine. If they reject you, that's totally fine, right? So a lot of people are in fear of being forgotten. They're like they are. They're thinking like, okay, they will forget me. Okay, they will forget me. That's totally fine. Everybody is in the zone, right? I already told you, a lot of people are suffering from anxiety imposter syndrome because of this kind of an effects. So leave that. So send a polite email and reply. And do not forget to do that. Even if they tell you reject it, please follow it up with them. To understand where you went wrong. I posted a material follow up email templates. How you can do it? You can use very good ChatGPT prompts and make it very polite tone. And you can even correct it using Grammarly without any spelling mistakes and grammatical errors and send to them. That's totally fine. Nowadays tools are there, so do not find it difficult. Okay, so the fourth and the last important part of this podcast is results and salary negotiation. So fear of negotiation. People have a lot of fear when it comes to money, right? Oh sir. I'm sorry sir. 25,000. Okay sir. Fine sir. Right. 25,000. Where is 25,000? Even an intern gets better than that in design. So people have that psychological factor and negotiating towards it becomes a big problem for them. Understand what is a real target for a designer in the market. What are the average salary? What are the fresher salary? How much is your skills really worth? Calculate the project, what the industry is doing and how much profit they are making. If you try to understand these numbers, then asking for 50, 60,000 or 1 lakh is not a problem. Because you are adding that much of value which is a worth of crores of rupees for a project for your company. Asking them 1 lakh crore per month is not a big deal. Problem is you. It's not about the company or the recruiter or the HR. HR will simply say 30% is the common hike we give. 25,000 is the common salary we give. That's their job. That's how they say they want to cut the cost of the company, right? You should not blame on hr. You should understand the fact that you are adding a value. You have the skills, you. You can show the return on investment by investing in your skills. How the company can benefit and show the value proposition. There are good salary guides and negotiation workshop which I used to conduct in my program. I teach detail how to do a salary negotiation, when exactly to do it and how to do it step by step. And you can find resources also which I posted. You can able to read that. So industry research mean industry standards and what is the average salary given? You need to first be prepared. What happens is lot of people feel low self worth while talking about this topic. That is why it's very important to understand these numbers, stats and how much value you are adding. And then practice pitching this negotiation skill, right? And the last important thing is disappointment with offer. Lot of people have fear of missing out, right? So they assess, they have a lot of assessment inside them itself. Whether I am suitable, whether I did the interview correctly, whether I followed the process correctly, will they select me or not? Leave all this bs, attend the interview, get the feedback, go for the next interview. Interview is a process. Carrier is a process, right? It's not a one time activity which you will be doing. You need to continuously upgrade and you need to continuously move on to the job. Remember very carefully, once in 15 days, if you're not getting a job offer for any organization, you're. You're not growing in your design field, you're not really good enough. You're not updated with your skill, you're not updated your profile. You are. You are most likely to get lost in a year or two. Simple. It may be very shocking, but this is true. Your profile needs to get attraction like that in different platforms. And you should be able to attending at least one interview per week so that every two weeks you should be getting an offer then and only in one or two years you can able to reach 1 lakh or even 1.5 lakhs per month very easily. Because after staying for three to four months or six months, you need to go for another organization to improve. A lot of people again ask people will think about am I stable or not. Again, it's a fear of judgment. Nobody cares. It's your career your improving, right? If you find a place which is really satisfying your needs and then your design skills and then your design passion and then your salary compensation, why don't you take a step and go ahead. It's all all in your mind which you are thinking what others will think, right? So remove all these psychological factors. Guys. I pasted a job satisfaction checklist also. You can go and assist that and then what happens is you will be able to grow better. Okay, so we have discussed more than 12 different psychological factors and also how the remedies it could happen. I've suggested you can able to follow it up and I posted a lot of materials also in this podcast. So listening to this podcast will not change anything. Applying and taking action and consistently practicing it for next 21 days. At least two habits which you can build. Like let's say imposter syndrome. I'll avoid it. Like let's say researching about the company or let's say salary negotiation Strategy. Apply any one particular thing or two particular thing for the next 21 days continuously with the recruiters. You will find a great significant improvement in your interview performance. Okay. I wish you all the best. Thank you so much for staying tuning in. If you find this podcast useful, give me a best rating in Spotify and Apple and you can recommend it to your friends as well. But if you need my mentoring support, you can send an email. I'll be helping you to qualify my process because I don't take normally a lot of students. I take only few students and I help them become successful. In less than 90 days, one will be able to definitely get minimum 50 to 60,000 rupees of job if they really put head genuine efforts. Getting 1 lakh is also very easy. Right? I help and guide students if you need my support. Yeah, you're always welcome to chat back with me. Okay. And if you feel anything needs to be added in the podcast or if you want to give me a feedback, I'm more than happy to receive a comment from. What do you think about this podcast? I've opened that chat. You can honestly chat with me. Okay. Thank you so much guys. Take care. All the best. Bye bye.