The next apprenticeship pattern I was drawn to has to do with the imposter syndrome. The problem comes when you obtain a title that doesn’t seem to reflect your skill level, at least in your mind.
The description of the pattern is much different than my expectation. I had imagined using a title to advance your career, but the suggestion is quite the opposite: it posits that the title is ultimately pretty meaningless as far as your skill level, but you can use it to gauge your employer.
An impressive title is tempting to pursue. It seems to prove to others that we’ve achieved success, which can be tempting for someone with parents to make proud or neighbors to keep up with. This can be completely removed from your actual success and may not reflect your actual job duties. While not explicitly stated in the book, this pattern suggest that if a company sets your title to something prestigious, and you don’t agree with it, it might be possible that the company sets the bar too low. If you know your skill is below a senior engineer, you should be somewhere where the senior engineers will help you get to their level. That’s not possible if all the senior engineers are at your level and know you don’t have the skills.
I’ve always reached out of my job title, as suggested by the Draw Your Own Map pattern I wrote about last week. As such, my job title did not reflect what I was actually doing. “Use Your Title” says that this can tell you whether you are appreciated, and reflects your employer more than your skills, and this has led me to leave jobs before.
I did have some problems with this pattern. It seems a bit contradictory, saying to not let your title affect you, but then saying to use it to decide how you feel about your company. Regardless, it sparked some thought about how I will be perceived and will help me to consider how my employer feels about me in the future.
I’m going to admit ignorance here: I don’t understand how the suggested action ties in with the description of this pattern. It says to write down a long, descriptive job description and consider how others would perceive you upon reading it. While this exercise might be useful, I don’t see how it applies to “using your title”. My only guess is that you want your actual title to match as closely as possible to your own goals. When there is a mismatch, for better or worse, it might mean you are not aligned with your company.
From the blog CS@Worcester – Inquiries and Queries by James Young and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.