8 ms·

How to Reinforce Impostor Syndrome

72 points by liberatus 14y ago

VMG 14y ago
> “You only got that internship because you’re a woman,” P. said. I was floored. [...] > “Good one,” I said. After all, we were talking about my Microsoft internship. Microsoft has a program for women and underrepresented minorities, but I wasn’t in it. I was a regular old SDE intern. Yes - but what if you had been in one of those programs? That is the problem with explicitly preferring some group over another, not based on their skill level, when the people you select want to only be selected for their skill and nothing else. I'm not saying that sexism in the industry isn't a problem, but the solution is more difficult than "just hire more women"
- andrewcooke 14y ago
  you're right - it is more difficult than that. which is why i am little surprised that you said "that is the problem...". it is a problem. there are also other problems and other advantages. as you said - it's complicated (and i'd hate for you to be misunderstood as claiming to draw some simple conclusion from it).
- masterzora 14y ago
  > I'm not saying that sexism in the industry isn't a problem, but the solution is more difficult than "just hire more women" This is true, but one of the biggest steps you can take toward fixing the various forms of explicit and implicit sexism in the industry is to hire more women. It's not sufficient, but it is necessary. Moreover, the existence of such programs can be beneficial in the short term, as well. They really only skew significantly problematic if they are willing to compromise on standards in order to meet the goal of hiring more from underrepresented groups but we have no reason to think they are. That is, think of it another way: the programs exist to provide more opportunities than would otherwise exist but getting in doesn't imply you only got in because you were of a given demographic. You're still being selected for your skill above all else.
petercooper 14y ago
Say, "You so deserve that promotion/scholarship/interview offer." I read something recently that suggested using language like "You really earnt that [whatever]" when complimenting people. That is, you define the merit in terms of the person's effort which, hopefully, the recipient of the compliment is less able to deny. We often deserve nice things, but when we think we earnt them it's a more concrete achievement that's harder to wave away with impostor syndrome.
- samspot 14y ago
  Good suggestion. I never really liked using 'deserve' for this anyway.
  - espyb 14y ago
    I agree, using the term 'earned', rather than 'deserved' is an excellent suggestion. For some reason 'deserve' has always bothered me. I believe in working for and earning what I receive. Deserve in my mind implies something given to you, or perhaps something you feel you are entitled to, rather than something you earned. So for me, earning something would provide a greater sense of accomplishment/achievement, than being told I 'deserved' it. Though I've never heard the reference to 'Imposter Syndrome'. That to me seems like a case of low self-confidence?
- shrikant 14y ago
  From here perhaps: > The point is to praise children's efforts, not their intelligence, she said. http://news.stanford.edu/pr/2007/pr-dweck-020707.html http://news.stanford.edu/pr/2007/pr-dweck-020707.html
  - petercooper 14y ago
    It wasn't that, but it does seem to tie into that whole idea for sure. Good link.
esrauch 14y ago
Unfortunately I think the dismissive attitude of your friend is a direct product of very real reverse discrimination. Anecdotally it really does exist; a female friend of mine was able to easily get interviews at Google, Microsoft and Apple every year despite lousy technical chops and a 2.5 GPA at a mediocre state university. My ex girlfriend had her hand held for literally years by Microsoft recruiters on the stated basis of being a female cs major. Policies of reverse discrimination are definitely not limited to the special programs with women in their name. Note that the former never was able to pass interviews, but it was only enough to get a foot in the door. It goes without saying that I have worked with many extremely capable women that no one would question they deserve everything they have, but it is easy and to see why some insecure college students have some backlash at having explicit discrimination against them (usually for the first time ever), since they are not being able to see how the less explicit but very real institional discrimination against women.
- erikpukinskis 14y ago
  a female friend of mine was able to easily get interviews at Google, Microsoft and Apple every year despite lousy technical chops and a 2.5 GPA at a mediocre state university There's more to aptitude than GPA and "technical chops". A student who started from zero (as is common for girls in CS) and had a 2.5 GPA after four years would look much more appealing to me than a student who had been programming since they were 12 and had a 3.0 GPA. They're on a steeper trajectory. And whether you to a "top tier" or a "mediocre" university I don't think says much about your aptitude. I know people who slacked off in world class courses, and I know people who Did The Work at a no-name university, and I know who I would hire.
  - esrauch 14y ago
    The trajectory theory is interesting, if two applicants were otherwise similar you would count it against someone for having experience before college? In this case, she was actually someone who took 2 years of computer science in highschool, though her resume didn't say that so so I'm not sure how someone could assess her trajectory that way. Honestly all of that is irrelevant. What I was actually trying to get at was at the time I was minorly irked (probably just like the guy in this story) due to a perceived unfairness against me due to gender. I've since come to the conclusion that reverse discrimination really is as huge as it seemed then, but that companies are making such big efforts because there is an even larger but less visible bias against women that simply isn't obvious to college kids or even most industry professionals. The friend's position is totally understandable given the totally different levels of visibility of the two directions of discrimination; that doesn't make him correct.
codex 14y ago
A long time ago, I was once a Microsoft intern attending a party at Bill Gates' house. At that party, a high-ranking Microsoft HR employee told me that it was Microsoft's goal to have twice the percentage of female interns in their program than female CS majors. For example, if women only made up 10% of college CS majors, Microsoft wanted to have 20% female interns. I replied that, if that were their goal, they would most likely have to lower the bar as compared to a male intern, or else pay the female interns more, give them more perks, or purposefully interview fewer qualified male interns. My argument was that if Microsoft's hiring bar was the top 1%, most likely only 10% of that candidate pool is female. So, one must either drop the bar for females, interview more females in that pool than males, or somehow double the chance that a female in that 10% of 1% accepted your internship offer. However, in those days almost nobody rejected Microsoft offers, so that last route seemed difficult. The only way to maintain equality of pay and skill without purposefully rejecting male applicants is to spend a huge amount of effort finding more female applicants than male applicants in that 1% and persuading them to apply. But that's still not really fair, as that really implies that recuiters pay less attention to males, e.g. spending less time and money finding them and recruiting them. The HR representative got very angry, but couldn't articulate why.
- masterzora 14y ago
  Okay, first, can we drop the overuse of female/male? It makes us sound like we're talking about specimens in a bio lab rather than people and introduces issues wrt the nonequivalence of female and woman or male and man. That said, to a large extent you are correct but you are framing it poorly. One of the major steps of breaking the gender gap is to spend more resources on, not just finding women, but also encouraging women. The net result may be in paying disproportionate amount of attention to the group of women compared to the group of men but it should not imply either of the more obvious ways to interpret "pay less attention to males". That is, it shouldn't involve ignoring men or spending less time with any individual nor should it mean reducing any focus on finding good people regardless of gender. It should involve adding focus on the women, which is substantively different despite the ability to describe it with the same words. It's also not necessarily feasible for everyone but it certainly is for Microsoft, especially with the sort of focus they put on trying to bridge the gender gap.
swampthing 14y ago
Deeper thoughts aside, what kind of good friend says that to someone?
- DrHankPym 14y ago
  Probably just friends with her because she's a girl.
- NegativeK 14y ago
  Everyone says stupid shit now and again, whether it's to a random person on the street, your best friend, or your spouse.
- espyb 14y ago
  Exactly. A good friend wouldn't. That's a comment from someone looking to find a reason to explain their own lack of success. A good friend would congratulate you, regardless of whether you beat them out for the job or not. Sounds like a case of sour grapes to me... and some people don't just have a few, they have entire vineyards. Nothing will ever be their fault, it can't be because the other person was more skilled, or had more more experience, they must have had an unfair advantage. That's easier than taking a hard look at yourself, being honest and addressing the real issues.
  - kylebrown 14y ago
    A good but insensitive friend. And maybe he was right (though overstated), perhaps being female was an advantage in getting the intership. If she wasn't sensitive, she could have responded, "maybe so, but you had the advantage of being male." And she'd be right.
    - espyb 14y ago
      I see your point, there are likely just as many people who consider being male an advantage, as there are people who consider being female to be an advantage in this situation. The only person(s) who actually knows why she got the internship and he didn't is/are the person(s) making that decision. Frankly I'm more concerned with her self-doubt than I am with his lack of tack. If you aren't going to believe in yourself, why would you expect anyone else to?
scott_s 14y ago
Anecdotally, I know that myself and most of my friends deal with the impostor syndrome. But, I also think it's important not to fall prey to what I think is the opposite problem: the narrative fallacy. It's easy to feel that you were "fated" for many positions. Or, if not some form of predestination, then some notion that things were "bound" to happen. I know that there was an enormous amount of luck in how I ended up where I am today. While your abilities may have enabled you to be in an elite pool of candidates, there may still be some random chance that landed you the position instead of one of your fellow elite candidates. I can think of three instances that afforded me opportunities that have made enormous impact on my career that were essentially luck. What you can control is that when you are lucky, make sure you make the most of it. When fellow grad students would ask me for advice on finding jobs, the best I could do was reply, "Be lucky and be good."
- jobu 14y ago
  Your post made me think of a recent comic: Luck > Good (http://abstrusegoose.com/494 http://abstrusegoose.com/494) I'm not sure that's true in the long run, but in some very important situations it certainly can be.
dkarl 14y ago
When they want to flatter students or buck up their spirits, professors at selective colleges are prone to saying things like, "The fact that you're even here means something." It's a good idea to let that thinking go as soon as possible. The fact that you're here, there, or anywhere means nothing. The world is complicated. In a sense her friend was right to point out that being female in a field that is desperate for more female representation is usually an advantage, but he was wrong to be certain -- sexism is still rampant among computing professionals. More importantly, he was wrong to care. Actually, they were both wrong to think that they could know the answer to the question and both wrong to think it was important.
jobu 14y ago
My personal belief is that a diversity of backgrounds and life experiences outweigh intelligence and skill to a fair degree. It counteracts group-think, and fosters more innovation and creativity. So don't feel guilty about how or why you got an opportunity. You came by it honestly, and whether Microsoft feels their benefit from you is due to your ability or your gender, the fact is you are benefiting them or they wouldn't give you the opportunity. Enjoy it and use the chance to improve yourself as much as possible.
- scarmig 14y ago
  In my experience, mixed-gender workplaces are a far better environment than the alternative. Last team I worked on was 40% female on the engineering side, and it was an absolute pleasure. Skills and productivity weren't disproportionately on one side or another, either. Particularly, as a grown-up with a family, I appreciate the salutory effect that women have on subduing frat-house atmospheres. You probably find fewer women who think of themselves as rockstar ninja pirate hackers, but I'm pretty sure that's not a bad or uneconomic thing.
jacques_chester 14y ago
Imposter syndrome is quite widespread. I first learnt about it from a law academic: http://skepticlawyer.com.au/2008/07/12/imposter-syndrome/ http://skepticlawyer.com.au/2008/07/12/imposter-syndrome/ On my office wall hangs my degree -- first class honours from a good university. I still half expect that one day they will ask for it back, that they were just being nice because they like me. My Dad has it bad -- very bad. He has > 50 years experience in his field. He knows more about electricity than most electrical engineers. I tried to convince him to join the IEEE; with his experience and knowledge they'd probably bump him up to Senior Member grade quick smart. Nope. Not good enough. This can actually be quite crippling -- he used to give away his services rather than charging for them. "Too simple a job, I couldn't possibly charge for it". He was not a successful small businessman, thinking like that. It takes most of my willpower to ask people for money. Because surely, I'm not that good. Surely.
- AngryParsley 14y ago
  That's interesting. Has your dad ever tried partnering with some sort of agent/hustler (I don't know the right term) to do business deals? A confident front-man might be able to sell your dad's expertise to businesses for a pretty penny.
  - missechokit 14y ago
    It's too bad he can't be his own frontman. I guess that's impostor syndrome for ya?
  - jacques_chester 14y ago
    Oh, my mother tried. In her prime she was a formidable people-person, a savvy deal broker. And she pushed Dad very hard to charge more, but he really does have crippling modesty. Another anecdote. He applied to work in Antarctica, a lifelong dream of his, for ANARE (now the Australian Antarctic Division). His CV listed at that point nearly 40 years of experience working on every major class of communication known to man -- radio, microwave, telephone, fibre optic -- and throughout South East Asia and Russia. So which position did he apply for? The junior communications officer.
xibernetik 14y ago
I'm a former and returning Microsoft intern, who interviewed in her freshman year. I strongly suspect I got the interview as a result of being female and facing discrimination early on (but not because I was female and they wanted to hire someone of my gender). Long story short, I'm used to being dismissed or looked over by my male peers - often in CS, but also in the hobbies I've taken up over the years. I found the only way to be listened to or respected was that I had to prove myself very quickly to anyone I had to work with. I got my interview after talking to a Microsoft dev doing recruitment for 10 minutes about a project I worked on after identifying he had a personal interest in that field. He didn't even look at my resume, but I saw him star it when I gave it at the end of our chat. I would never have been able to do that if I wasn't used to being over-looked. I can signal that I'm competent and easily discuss projects or tech interests within a couple minutes of meeting someone because in the past few years, I've learned that when I neglect to do that, I'm going to get ignored. Because of that, I have an incredibly advantage in that many of my male peers CAN'T do that, simply because they've never had to until it came time to search for a job. FWIW, one of the biggest reasons I'm returning to Microsoft is that it's one of the few places I've ever felt like I was respected off the bat regardless of age or gender. I couldn't imagine working with most of my peers back in school because of the lack of respect. There are bad apples everywhere, and certain teams are definitely geared towards older folk - but there are highschool kids doing internships there, in some very coveted areas. The guy was out of line, but he's definitely the exception and not the norm.
andrewguenther 14y ago
I'm just going to leave this here... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Rinearson http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Rinearson
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]

72 points by liberatus 14y ago

VMG 14y ago

> “You only got that internship because you’re a woman,” P. said. I was floored. [...] > “Good one,” I said. After all, we were talking about my Microsoft internship. Microsoft has a program for women and underrepresented minorities, but I wasn’t in it. I was a regular old SDE intern. Yes - but what if you had been in one of those programs? That is the problem with explicitly preferring some group over another, not based on their skill level, when the people you select want to only be selected for their skill and nothing else. I'm not saying that sexism in the industry isn't a problem, but the solution is more difficult than "just hire more women"

andrewcooke 14y ago
you're right - it is more difficult than that. which is why i am little surprised that you said "that is the problem...". it is a problem. there are also other problems and other advantages. as you said - it's complicated (and i'd hate for you to be misunderstood as claiming to draw some simple conclusion from it).
masterzora 14y ago
> I'm not saying that sexism in the industry isn't a problem, but the solution is more difficult than "just hire more women" This is true, but one of the biggest steps you can take toward fixing the various forms of explicit and implicit sexism in the industry is to hire more women. It's not sufficient, but it is necessary. Moreover, the existence of such programs can be beneficial in the short term, as well. They really only skew significantly problematic if they are willing to compromise on standards in order to meet the goal of hiring more from underrepresented groups but we have no reason to think they are. That is, think of it another way: the programs exist to provide more opportunities than would otherwise exist but getting in doesn't imply you only got in because you were of a given demographic. You're still being selected for your skill above all else.

petercooper 14y ago

Say, "You so deserve that promotion/scholarship/interview offer." I read something recently that suggested using language like "You really earnt that [whatever]" when complimenting people. That is, you define the merit in terms of the person's effort which, hopefully, the recipient of the compliment is less able to deny. We often deserve nice things, but when we think we earnt them it's a more concrete achievement that's harder to wave away with impostor syndrome.

samspot 14y ago
Good suggestion. I never really liked using 'deserve' for this anyway.
- espyb 14y ago
  I agree, using the term 'earned', rather than 'deserved' is an excellent suggestion. For some reason 'deserve' has always bothered me. I believe in working for and earning what I receive. Deserve in my mind implies something given to you, or perhaps something you feel you are entitled to, rather than something you earned. So for me, earning something would provide a greater sense of accomplishment/achievement, than being told I 'deserved' it. Though I've never heard the reference to 'Imposter Syndrome'. That to me seems like a case of low self-confidence?
shrikant 14y ago
From here perhaps: > The point is to praise children's efforts, not their intelligence, she said. http://news.stanford.edu/pr/2007/pr-dweck-020707.html http://news.stanford.edu/pr/2007/pr-dweck-020707.html
- petercooper 14y ago
  It wasn't that, but it does seem to tie into that whole idea for sure. Good link.

esrauch 14y ago

Unfortunately I think the dismissive attitude of your friend is a direct product of very real reverse discrimination. Anecdotally it really does exist; a female friend of mine was able to easily get interviews at Google, Microsoft and Apple every year despite lousy technical chops and a 2.5 GPA at a mediocre state university. My ex girlfriend had her hand held for literally years by Microsoft recruiters on the stated basis of being a female cs major. Policies of reverse discrimination are definitely not limited to the special programs with women in their name. Note that the former never was able to pass interviews, but it was only enough to get a foot in the door. It goes without saying that I have worked with many extremely capable women that no one would question they deserve everything they have, but it is easy and to see why some insecure college students have some backlash at having explicit discrimination against them (usually for the first time ever), since they are not being able to see how the less explicit but very real institional discrimination against women.

erikpukinskis 14y ago
a female friend of mine was able to easily get interviews at Google, Microsoft and Apple every year despite lousy technical chops and a 2.5 GPA at a mediocre state university There's more to aptitude than GPA and "technical chops". A student who started from zero (as is common for girls in CS) and had a 2.5 GPA after four years would look much more appealing to me than a student who had been programming since they were 12 and had a 3.0 GPA. They're on a steeper trajectory. And whether you to a "top tier" or a "mediocre" university I don't think says much about your aptitude. I know people who slacked off in world class courses, and I know people who Did The Work at a no-name university, and I know who I would hire.
- esrauch 14y ago
  The trajectory theory is interesting, if two applicants were otherwise similar you would count it against someone for having experience before college? In this case, she was actually someone who took 2 years of computer science in highschool, though her resume didn't say that so so I'm not sure how someone could assess her trajectory that way. Honestly all of that is irrelevant. What I was actually trying to get at was at the time I was minorly irked (probably just like the guy in this story) due to a perceived unfairness against me due to gender. I've since come to the conclusion that reverse discrimination really is as huge as it seemed then, but that companies are making such big efforts because there is an even larger but less visible bias against women that simply isn't obvious to college kids or even most industry professionals. The friend's position is totally understandable given the totally different levels of visibility of the two directions of discrimination; that doesn't make him correct.

codex 14y ago

A long time ago, I was once a Microsoft intern attending a party at Bill Gates' house. At that party, a high-ranking Microsoft HR employee told me that it was Microsoft's goal to have twice the percentage of female interns in their program than female CS majors. For example, if women only made up 10% of college CS majors, Microsoft wanted to have 20% female interns. I replied that, if that were their goal, they would most likely have to lower the bar as compared to a male intern, or else pay the female interns more, give them more perks, or purposefully interview fewer qualified male interns. My argument was that if Microsoft's hiring bar was the top 1%, most likely only 10% of that candidate pool is female. So, one must either drop the bar for females, interview more females in that pool than males, or somehow double the chance that a female in that 10% of 1% accepted your internship offer. However, in those days almost nobody rejected Microsoft offers, so that last route seemed difficult. The only way to maintain equality of pay and skill without purposefully rejecting male applicants is to spend a huge amount of effort finding more female applicants than male applicants in that 1% and persuading them to apply. But that's still not really fair, as that really implies that recuiters pay less attention to males, e.g. spending less time and money finding them and recruiting them. The HR representative got very angry, but couldn't articulate why.

masterzora 14y ago
Okay, first, can we drop the overuse of female/male? It makes us sound like we're talking about specimens in a bio lab rather than people and introduces issues wrt the nonequivalence of female and woman or male and man. That said, to a large extent you are correct but you are framing it poorly. One of the major steps of breaking the gender gap is to spend more resources on, not just finding women, but also encouraging women. The net result may be in paying disproportionate amount of attention to the group of women compared to the group of men but it should not imply either of the more obvious ways to interpret "pay less attention to males". That is, it shouldn't involve ignoring men or spending less time with any individual nor should it mean reducing any focus on finding good people regardless of gender. It should involve adding focus on the women, which is substantively different despite the ability to describe it with the same words. It's also not necessarily feasible for everyone but it certainly is for Microsoft, especially with the sort of focus they put on trying to bridge the gender gap.

swampthing 14y ago

Deeper thoughts aside, what kind of good friend says that to someone?

DrHankPym 14y ago
Probably just friends with her because she's a girl.
NegativeK 14y ago
Everyone says stupid shit now and again, whether it's to a random person on the street, your best friend, or your spouse.
espyb 14y ago
Exactly. A good friend wouldn't. That's a comment from someone looking to find a reason to explain their own lack of success. A good friend would congratulate you, regardless of whether you beat them out for the job or not. Sounds like a case of sour grapes to me... and some people don't just have a few, they have entire vineyards. Nothing will ever be their fault, it can't be because the other person was more skilled, or had more more experience, they must have had an unfair advantage. That's easier than taking a hard look at yourself, being honest and addressing the real issues.
- kylebrown 14y ago
  A good but insensitive friend. And maybe he was right (though overstated), perhaps being female was an advantage in getting the intership. If she wasn't sensitive, she could have responded, "maybe so, but you had the advantage of being male." And she'd be right.
  - espyb 14y ago
    I see your point, there are likely just as many people who consider being male an advantage, as there are people who consider being female to be an advantage in this situation. The only person(s) who actually knows why she got the internship and he didn't is/are the person(s) making that decision. Frankly I'm more concerned with her self-doubt than I am with his lack of tack. If you aren't going to believe in yourself, why would you expect anyone else to?

scott_s 14y ago

Anecdotally, I know that myself and most of my friends deal with the impostor syndrome. But, I also think it's important not to fall prey to what I think is the opposite problem: the narrative fallacy. It's easy to feel that you were "fated" for many positions. Or, if not some form of predestination, then some notion that things were "bound" to happen. I know that there was an enormous amount of luck in how I ended up where I am today. While your abilities may have enabled you to be in an elite pool of candidates, there may still be some random chance that landed you the position instead of one of your fellow elite candidates. I can think of three instances that afforded me opportunities that have made enormous impact on my career that were essentially luck. What you can control is that when you are lucky, make sure you make the most of it. When fellow grad students would ask me for advice on finding jobs, the best I could do was reply, "Be lucky and be good."

jobu 14y ago
Your post made me think of a recent comic: Luck > Good (http://abstrusegoose.com/494 http://abstrusegoose.com/494) I'm not sure that's true in the long run, but in some very important situations it certainly can be.

dkarl 14y ago

When they want to flatter students or buck up their spirits, professors at selective colleges are prone to saying things like, "The fact that you're even here means something." It's a good idea to let that thinking go as soon as possible. The fact that you're here, there, or anywhere means nothing. The world is complicated. In a sense her friend was right to point out that being female in a field that is desperate for more female representation is usually an advantage, but he was wrong to be certain -- sexism is still rampant among computing professionals. More importantly, he was wrong to care. Actually, they were both wrong to think that they could know the answer to the question and both wrong to think it was important.

jobu 14y ago

My personal belief is that a diversity of backgrounds and life experiences outweigh intelligence and skill to a fair degree. It counteracts group-think, and fosters more innovation and creativity. So don't feel guilty about how or why you got an opportunity. You came by it honestly, and whether Microsoft feels their benefit from you is due to your ability or your gender, the fact is you are benefiting them or they wouldn't give you the opportunity. Enjoy it and use the chance to improve yourself as much as possible.

scarmig 14y ago
In my experience, mixed-gender workplaces are a far better environment than the alternative. Last team I worked on was 40% female on the engineering side, and it was an absolute pleasure. Skills and productivity weren't disproportionately on one side or another, either. Particularly, as a grown-up with a family, I appreciate the salutory effect that women have on subduing frat-house atmospheres. You probably find fewer women who think of themselves as rockstar ninja pirate hackers, but I'm pretty sure that's not a bad or uneconomic thing.

jacques_chester 14y ago

Imposter syndrome is quite widespread. I first learnt about it from a law academic: http://skepticlawyer.com.au/2008/07/12/imposter-syndrome/ http://skepticlawyer.com.au/2008/07/12/imposter-syndrome/ On my office wall hangs my degree -- first class honours from a good university. I still half expect that one day they will ask for it back, that they were just being nice because they like me. My Dad has it bad -- very bad. He has > 50 years experience in his field. He knows more about electricity than most electrical engineers. I tried to convince him to join the IEEE; with his experience and knowledge they'd probably bump him up to Senior Member grade quick smart. Nope. Not good enough. This can actually be quite crippling -- he used to give away his services rather than charging for them. "Too simple a job, I couldn't possibly charge for it". He was not a successful small businessman, thinking like that. It takes most of my willpower to ask people for money. Because surely, I'm not that good. Surely.

AngryParsley 14y ago
That's interesting. Has your dad ever tried partnering with some sort of agent/hustler (I don't know the right term) to do business deals? A confident front-man might be able to sell your dad's expertise to businesses for a pretty penny.
- missechokit 14y ago
  It's too bad he can't be his own frontman. I guess that's impostor syndrome for ya?
- jacques_chester 14y ago
  Oh, my mother tried. In her prime she was a formidable people-person, a savvy deal broker. And she pushed Dad very hard to charge more, but he really does have crippling modesty. Another anecdote. He applied to work in Antarctica, a lifelong dream of his, for ANARE (now the Australian Antarctic Division). His CV listed at that point nearly 40 years of experience working on every major class of communication known to man -- radio, microwave, telephone, fibre optic -- and throughout South East Asia and Russia. So which position did he apply for? The junior communications officer.

xibernetik 14y ago

I'm a former and returning Microsoft intern, who interviewed in her freshman year. I strongly suspect I got the interview as a result of being female and facing discrimination early on (but not because I was female and they wanted to hire someone of my gender). Long story short, I'm used to being dismissed or looked over by my male peers - often in CS, but also in the hobbies I've taken up over the years. I found the only way to be listened to or respected was that I had to prove myself very quickly to anyone I had to work with. I got my interview after talking to a Microsoft dev doing recruitment for 10 minutes about a project I worked on after identifying he had a personal interest in that field. He didn't even look at my resume, but I saw him star it when I gave it at the end of our chat. I would never have been able to do that if I wasn't used to being over-looked. I can signal that I'm competent and easily discuss projects or tech interests within a couple minutes of meeting someone because in the past few years, I've learned that when I neglect to do that, I'm going to get ignored. Because of that, I have an incredibly advantage in that many of my male peers CAN'T do that, simply because they've never had to until it came time to search for a job. FWIW, one of the biggest reasons I'm returning to Microsoft is that it's one of the few places I've ever felt like I was respected off the bat regardless of age or gender. I couldn't imagine working with most of my peers back in school because of the lack of respect. There are bad apples everywhere, and certain teams are definitely geared towards older folk - but there are highschool kids doing internships there, in some very coveted areas. The guy was out of line, but he's definitely the exception and not the norm.

andrewguenther 14y ago

I'm just going to leave this here... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Rinearson http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Rinearson

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]