Important Lessons for Getting Past the "Pretend" Idea
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01
Accept What You Don't Know (Your Thinking) Stop trying to be perfect and start being honest about yourself. Instead of hiding what you don't know, show that you are honest and smart enough to see where you need to improve.
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02
Figure Out What You Need to Learn (What You Do) When you hit the point where you don't know the answer, explain how you would find the answer. This proves that your skill in solving problems is more useful to a company than just giving a practiced, memorized reply.
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03
Value Trust Over Looking Good (Being Truthful) Speaking honestly right away builds instant belief with experienced managers and stops you from building up "Trust Debt." Honest answers show you have good people skills, which top companies want more than just a perfect performance.
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04
Create a Strong Base for the Future (Lasting Success) Avoiding the trap of pretending prevents you from getting too tired because the work you are doing actually matches your skills. This leads to real career success instead of constantly acting out a daily show.
What Does "Fake It 'Til You Make It" Mean?
"Fake it 'til you make it" is the idea that acting confident, even when you feel unsure, will eventually lead to real competence. While projecting confidence can help in some situations, pretending to have skills or knowledge you lack backfires in interviews and at work, where honesty about your growth areas builds more trust than a polished performance.
The phrase traces back to Alcoholics Anonymous in the 1970s, where it meant practicing new behaviors until they felt natural. Over time, it morphed into career advice that encourages people to exaggerate or hide gaps. The problem: today's hiring managers and AI screening tools are built to catch exactly that kind of mismatch.
The Problem with Trying to "Perform" in Interviews
"Fake it 'til you make it" is one of the most common pieces of career advice, and one of the most dangerous. Most people spend the time before a big interview practicing a fake version of themselves. They memorize the "right" things to say, practice confident body language, and try to hide every sign of doubt in their voice. They believe that looking completely sure of yourself and hiding your weak spots will get you what you want, as if you can just wear confidence like a jacket.
The truth is: you are not fooling anyone.
Hiring managers who have seen it all don't hire actors; they hire people who know the exact limits of their knowledge. Research published in Frontiers in Psychology confirms that lying is measurably more demanding on the brain than telling the truth. When you try to pretend you are an expert, your brain works overtime to keep up the act, causing increased response time, pupil dilation, and visible strain that interviewers read as a sign you can't be trusted.
Real authority doesn't come from acting perfect; it comes from "Balanced Honesty." This means being truthful about what you don't know while clearly showing a good plan for how you will learn it. If you want to build this kind of honest confidence, check out our guide on the growth mindset approach to interviewing.
By chasing the idea of being a finished product, you create a "Trust Debt" before you even start. According to the American Psychological Association's 2024 Work in America Survey, 52% of employees reported feeling burned out in the past year. You risk not just getting rejected, but the much worse risk of winning a job you can't keep up with, leading to exhaustion and a career built on something fake.
What Really Happens When You Pretend (Technical View)
Behind the scenes of modern hiring, the "Fake It 'Til You Make It" idea isn't just a social risk; it's a technical mistake. When you apply for a job, you aren't only being judged by a person; you are also being looked at by computer programs built to spot when things don't line up.
Meaning Groups vs. Single Words
Computer Understanding of LanguageHiring software looks for more than just one word like "Python." It checks for Semantic Clustering, checking if your claimed skills are mentioned along with the right tools, tasks, and details that prove you know them. Faking a skill without the right details makes your profile look messy, lowering how relevant the system thinks you are.
The Mental Energy of Lying
Checking for Behavior PatternsOnce you talk to an interviewer, the focus shifts to Behavioral Pattern Matching. With tricky questions, your Mental Energy shoots up when you try to make up an answer. Your brain is busy creating a lie while also trying to solve a hard problem, causing noticeable strain.
Clear Signal vs. Unimportant Noise and Growth Chance
Knowing YourselfGood teams want a high Signal-to-Noise Ratio (clear, useful information). Showing Balanced Honesty (like admitting a weakness but explaining how you'd fix it) sends a "clean signal." This proves your Metacognition (your ability to judge your own knowledge) is working correctly, which helps them guess how fast you can grow.
The modern hiring process isn't just checking boxes (a simple yes/no on skills); it's looking for a reliable person they can actually put on the team. Being able to honestly judge your own knowledge is the most important sign they look for.
Clearing Up False Ideas
Just copy every skill from the job posting onto your resume, even if you never used them, to trick the software into picking you.
Today's hiring software is smarter than just looking for words; it checks the situation and history behind those skills. Even if you get past the first check, "faking" a skill often fails during a technical talk where you have to explain your method, which quickly shows you don't have real experience.
Use the Job Analysis Tool to honestly see where your skills are missing. Cruit gives you a "Fix Plan" (online courses, projects, and more) to actually gain those needed skills.
If you were just one person on a team project, tell the interviewer you were the "Main Manager" to seem more qualified.
Experienced interviewers use specific follow-up questions to check the details of your choices. When you fake a leadership role, you won't have the specific, complicated stories about managing people or money, making your answers sound empty and untrue. Knowing how to structure a case study interview with real examples is far more effective than fabricating a leadership story.
Use the Interview Prep Tool to turn your real experiences into strong stories using the STAR method. Cruit acts as a guide to help you find the real difference you made in your current job, so you can feel confident instead of reading from a script.
To get a job in a new field, you need to erase your old experience and pretend you have always been in this new field.
Companies actually value "transferable skills," real strengths like organizing projects or talking to people that you used in your old job. Trying to create a fake new identity often leaves holes in your work history that recruiters find strange, while connecting your old skills to new problems shows high intelligence.
Use the Career Exploration Tool to find your hidden strengths. Cruit checks your resume to show you exactly how your past work connects to a new career path, letting you switch based on real data, not a disguise.
The Quick Test to Check If You're Faking It
"Pretend until you succeed" sounds good until you realize you are spending more effort on the "act" than on the actual work. Use this quick test to see if you are building your career on something real or just a nice-looking image.
Check your sent messages (Slack, Teams, or Email) from the last two days.
Find a conversation where someone asked for your thoughts or an update on a project you find difficult.
Did you use vague business words (like "using teamwork," "making things better") or general statements just to avoid saying you didn't have the full answer?
Did you end that message by asking for more information, or did you write it in a way that stopped people from asking more questions?
What Your Results Mean
You are stuck in the "Pretend" idea. You are focusing more on looking capable than on actually becoming capable. This is risky; eventually, someone will ask a follow-up question you can't answer with empty words, and your professional trust will disappear.
You are practicing Strategic Honesty. By admitting where your knowledge stops, you let experts help fill the gaps. This builds trust faster than pretending ever could because people know that when you say you have something handled, you do.
The Reality Check
Real experts don't know everything. They just know how to find the answer. If you are working harder on your "poker face" than on your actual skills, you aren't succeeding; you're just waiting to be found out.
Cruit Tools: Your Plan for Honest Success
To Get Clear
Job Analysis ToolFinds your actual "Skill Gaps" and gives you a personal guide of "Fixing Steps" instead of letting you "pretend."
To Be Real
Resume Tailoring ToolShows the real skills you have proven, making sure your resume is based on facts, not just things you added on.
To Feel Sure
Interview Prep ToolHelps you organize real-life examples into strong stories, so you go in ready to speak from true experience.
Career Growth & Being Honest
Why Pretending Doesn't Work
When you try to act like you know everything, your mind has to work extra hard. You are trying to answer hard questions while also watching your "act." This creates stress that shows up in how you look and move. Interviewers might not know exactly what's wrong, but they will feel that you aren't being truthful. They call this "not trustworthy."
Here's the irony: even the people at the top feel unsure. According to Korn Ferry's 2024 research, 71% of U.S. CEOs experience impostor syndrome. The difference between them and someone stuck in "fake it" mode? They've learned to work with that uncertainty rather than hide it.
Most managers today don't need someone who is perfect. They need someone with Metacognition, which just means they want to see if you understand your own knowledge, and more importantly, if you know what you don't know.
"The most successful people I work with aren't the ones who never feel doubt. They're the ones who learned to say 'I don't know yet, but here's how I'll find out.'"
The Better Way: Balanced Honesty
Instead of pretending, try being honest about your limits. This is called "Balanced Honesty."
If a manager asks about a tool you’ve never used, don't lie. Instead, say: "I haven't used that specific software yet, but I used a similar one in my last job and learned it quickly. Here is my plan to learn this one fast."
This approach achieves three things:
- It builds trust: You show you are honest.
- It shows your process: You show that you know how to learn.
- It stops burnout: You won't start your first day worried about being "found out."
Should I say I don't know a skill during an interview?
Yes. Admitting a weak spot is much better than being caught in a lie later. The important thing is to immediately follow up with your plan to cover that gap. Explain how your current skills or your ability to learn fast means the missing skill is only a short-term problem, not a permanent one.
How do I look confident if I feel like I don't have enough experience?
Confidence doesn't come from knowing every answer; it comes from knowing you can find the answer. Focus on your "thinking process." Talk about how you have solved hard problems before. When you show a manager how your mind works, they feel sure about what you can do in the future, even if you don't have every item checked off on the job list.
Will being honest about my weaknesses hurt my chances of getting hired?
It usually helps. Most managers worry about hiring someone who hides mistakes. By being open, you prove you can be coached and you know yourself. If a company rejects you for being honest about areas you need to improve, it's probably a sign they wouldn't have supported your growth once you were hired anyway.
Is "fake it til you make it" good advice for job interviews?
Not when it means pretending to have skills you don't have. Faking confidence (posture, tone, eye contact) can help you present yourself well. But faking knowledge or experience backfires because hiring managers ask follow-up questions that expose gaps. A better approach: be honest about what you're still learning and show how you plan to close those gaps quickly.
What is the difference between faking confidence and faking competence?
Faking confidence means projecting calm and composure when you feel nervous. This is healthy and often effective. Faking competence means claiming skills, experiences, or knowledge you don't have. This is risky because it creates "Trust Debt": the gap between what you promised and what you can deliver. Good interviewers can spot the difference.
How do I handle impostor syndrome during an interview?
Remind yourself that impostor syndrome is common: Korn Ferry found that 71% of CEOs experience it too. Focus on what you have done, not what you haven't. Prepare specific examples from your work history, and practice describing your problem-solving process. Feeling nervous doesn't mean you're unqualified. It means you care about the outcome.
Moving From "Tricking the System" to Real Value
The old job hunting method was about "tricking" the interview: wearing a mask and hoping nobody saw the flaws. But true career success comes from being relevant. It’s about finding the spot where your real skills meet what a company actually needs.
Forget the common myth that confidence is just acting. True confidence is being comfortable with where you are while being eager about where you are going. When you stop pretending, you stop building "trust debt" and start building a career that really fits who you are.
Focus on what is important.
Managing your career today requires smart planning. Cruit gives you the AI tools to handle these tasks easily, letting you focus on building a career you actually enjoy.
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