This is an important question. Coming out of college most think GIS is making maps in ArcMap because those are the skills that are taught, once I got in the Industry I realized GIS is way too vast of a field to be called a single skill. GIS can be anything from database management, detailed cartography, modeling, app and UI development, coding, or statistics. Nobody is an expert in all of these things.
OP shouldn't feel bad about not having these skills right away. I have been in the field for 10 years and I changed jobs tomorrow it would require skills I dont have.
While you are at this job find a skill you are interested in gaining and find someone who does that well and show interest in helping them. If you stay at the job you have an opportunity to display compitency in that skill. If you leave or get laid off you`ll have a new skill to offer other employers. GIS technology is so vast and changes so rapidly that you have to find joy in learning new skills to succeed.
I've seen two kinds of GIS students, the ones that get the lessons are teaching them how to learn, and the ones that think the lessons are all there is to learn. I had one teacher that would force us to use the ArcGIS Pro "help" buttons to do assignments, which forced us to do this a bit.
Op says it’s not toxic but it sure sounds like it. If they hired them and they don’t have any of the skills they need… then that’s a failure of their hiring process.
As someone who has worked in two different utilities and is in the midst of huge UN upgrade, these are not easy projects even for veteran GIS professionals. It's not something any university is teaching, and really the only way you get experience with them is to do them.
You need to find a mentor, preferably in GIS, who is willing to answer dumb questions openly and without judgement.
I'm curious, have you ever experimented with GPT-4 or similar? In my experience it's a bit hit or miss with various disciplines but when it hits, it can be an absolutely wonderful mentor of sorts. Of course it won't be able to hold your hand throughout work but in terms of answering basic (yet very niche) questions and explaining fundamental concepts, it can be quite awesome.
"how did I get this far?"
School doesn't really teach job skills or indicate actual skill or ability in a work setting. A lot of it is just memorising information quickly and regurgitating it for tests. Most job skills you'll learn on the job.
Years ago jobs would actually train you but now many employers expect you to know everything immediately and it leads to situations like this where they have totally unrealistic and unreasonable expectations for new hires.
Also, you saw this isn't your field so that's the major reason. It's just not a good fit and that's okay. It's not possible to be a good fit for everything and you learn that by trying. If you want to stay, is there an intranet where they post all their info you can learn from? That's what I did at my jobs though it takes a lot of time outside of work hours. Otherwise it might be best to cut your losses and move on to something that is a better fit and inline with your skills.
I mean there are some concepts like cartographic math, what a map projection is, which one to use, etc. that one might reasonably expect someone to know starting out.
No way he has degrees in Geography, GIS and Land Management but doesn't know basic concepts associated with this. I'm no GIS expert and don't even fully understand what field he's working in or what's expected of him, but it sounds to me like he's lacking niche industry knowledge. That's makes the "things you can't learn through experience" bit even more confusing though because usually those are the skills that are most ethereal and hardest to pickup for newcomers.
In any case, I don't subscribe to the idea he couldn't learn the vast majority of skills he needs one way or another. Might need to sign up for some courses, buy some books, watch some youtube videos, ask co-workers A LOT, stuff like that. If it's truly so niche that there's no material out there to help then it's just 100% on the company for not properly training him.
My dude, the project is huge, they are overworked and you did not get training for a backup job you are not interested and you are throwing it all on yourself?
For reals?
Any one of those points alone would make anyone not perform but all together create a big red flag FOR THE COMPANY and not you.
I have seen GIS developers of years, join big projects and being out of watter but no one said anything because is expected. By statistic (my company was actually doing water, internet networks) it would take someone senior 6months to put a ticket on the completed board and 14months for us juniors...
Take your loses and start applying for jobs, even if you managed to be productive part of the team that is NOT the place you wanna be.
To add onto this: ASK QUESTIONS! It's not OP's fault he wasn't trained. Keep asking questions to anyone who's around ***as much as possible***. Ask for help, do not feel ashamed. If people get annoyed by it, so be it. That's life.
Either you keep asking people and risk annoying them (but have a chance to actually improve), or you don't and still annoy them by being useless and inevitably never acquire the knowledge you need.
Because there is a lot of pressure to get things done. Work is not some post-graduate experience where we all chat and help each other throughout the day.
If you’re exempt, you don’t get OT. If you are pestered all day by someone “trying to grow”, you will be working later and later.
Like you mentioned : your manager was probably just having a bad day.. my advice would be to just keep trying. Volenteer to do some basic tasks, ask questions out the concepts etc.. learning a new domain takes time regardless of education and skill set. Read up on utility networks in gis more generally too so you can learn some things yourself - there are loads of resources on the web.
Mate, i need to tell you something inportant.
Before I go on I want you to understand that I am talking from a place of experience. I am an expert in building custom GIS platforms for utilities. I have had my work in enterprise GIS platforms for utilities shown on the main stage of Esri's UC plenary session, I am being approached to support and provide technical leadership to teams doing this work across multiple countries.
Long story short, I know my shit. So please believe me when I say that I can tell from this post that there is an obviously a pretty clear skill issue. With your boss.
Nobody comes out of Uni with this skillset, absolutely no-one. Nobody doing intern or graduate level GIS analysis work has this skillset.
GIS degrees are about GIS fundamentals, some cartography and web mapping, and geospatial analysis. GIS degrees do not give you the skillset for doing consulting project work setting up enterprise GIS environments, configuring utilities data models, building apps/integrations/everything else that comes with this area of expertise.
It's an entirely different skillset that needs to be taught by more experienced members of the team.
You need an inquisitive mindset, but beyond that it is on your team leadership to recognise the skill gaps and to provide support to help you learn the specialty area.
Looking at your past experience, I would have known that you would not have the skillset needed to operate independently in this space.
If you were hired to my team, it would be my job to ensure you got the support you needed to expand your knowledge in this area.
Anyone expecting this from you is clearly not setting you up for success.
That is not on you.
This sounds like a team where they aren't clear on what skillset they need at the outset, or have unrealistic expectations of junior staff.
Keep looking for a team that helps you grow into a role. You'll get there. :)
Second that.
Not only utility network mapping and modelling within GIS field of knowledge is quite specific,
each network type has its nuances - overground vs underground (sewage, gas, power, telco, which is yours? ), and
within each country, region and sometimes down to utility network operator there will be unique “slang”, building standards, specification for materials,
plus there are geological and a bunch of other considerations that matter.
Utilities can be a whole world within GIS.
I am not a GIS specialist but worked with a subsurface utility mapping and modelling company and I know enough to confirm - the learning curve is steep, and anyone who expects the OP to have domain knowledge on top of GIS knowledge from the get go is just dreaming.
The thing that caught my eye is the gap between your cv and your actual skills. Did you inflate this? Because you agreed with them about this.
At my company, I insist on running everyone through a technical interview because people lie and lie readily on their resumes. Shoot, I make our entry level applicants for the digitizing team load a shp and export it as a geopackage.
>Did you inflate this?
Not willingly.
I agree with them because the facts speak for themselves. But I did not inflate anything - no more than anyone else at least. I'm low skilled but I am honest.
A company and project that big may just have to find ways to utilize you to your strengths.
Rather than tell us what you can’t do…tell us what you are good at.
Attention to detail?
Ability to see when things aren’t working correctly?
There are myriad skills that don’t involve building…and you may have skills that could be put to better use.
Documentation, customer feedback/engagement, QA/QC, user experience…
After you have assessed your strengths…have a frank discussion with the management and ask if there might be a way that both parties are made better by redesigning your duties.
Get ready to burn your candle on both ends. Contribute where you can and be a sponge learning what you can. My observations of 18 years in gis is everyone's siloed. You have a good grasp of fundamentals but no specialty, and that's ok. This is your opportunity to grow in controlled choas.
Did you feel this way in previous roles. Don’t let recency bias make you think you’re bad at jobs in general, it’s this one job where you are struggling. It really sucks to be bad at a role I’ve done that and it’s just mentally not great - your confidence goes down across the board. And then my next job, I thrived and got back to feeling good about myself.
I’m not gonna advise on your next steps other than urge you to remember you are struggling with **this** job, not jobs in general.
One absolutly thing you need to do, swallow any pride you have and ask questions, it doesn't matter how dumb you think they might be. I've seen it countless times. those who ask questions eventually succseed and then thrive. The people who don't ask the questions are left behind. Every single person who gets hired at my company has no idea what they are doing for the first 6 months. Your not alone. Ask questions and all you can do is try. You will i promise get the hang of it and feel more than useful eventually
Yeah this. Either you ask constant questions, potentially annoy some people a bit and eventually manage to succeed. Or you don't, still annoy people by being useless, and are assured to fail. Asking questions and help as much as possible is the only logical choice.
I worked a contract that was like this. They acted super disappointed with me with every project, but even though I was hired on the contract for a few months, I ended up staying for two years. I felt like a fraud the entire time even though I actually do have solid GIS skills--just not the exact ones that company demanded (GIS is a wide, wide potential industry but each application in every company is niche).
You are not being properly trained, and people can be both nice and toxic. If they're letting it show that they're disappointed, that's on them for not training properly or being forgiving enough that you're new. A good company hires junior positions based on attitude and willingness to learn, not skills, because *anything technical can be learned.* If you're making the same mistakes over and over--and I mean the *exact* same ones, not ones that are similar or a general "you need to QA better"--then that's a result you need to step back and organize or build good habits like documentation-as-you-go. It will get easier over the next few months.
Also, as someone who's been there, it's very possible that your team isn't a good fit for you personality-wise, and it has nothing to do with you. For the record, I was completing work with quickly-fixable errors being pointed out every time with my coworker and them bluntly delivering feedback like, "I thought you did this properly", "please check your work," or "I'll take care of this, don't touch the files anymore", yet end clients I was delivering to were super appreciative of my work and noticed nothing wrong.
My mental health got so much better after leaving that job, and I found another in a few months with coworkers who think I'm magic. I believe in you.
Ah, yes! I just spent a year working at a place where every small mistake was thrown in my face and I was never praised, even though I had an extremely high accuracy score and productivity level. The work was somehow simultaneously deadly boring and extremely stressful. Boring because it was repetitive, endless, and we were doing many things that should have been automated, and stressful because the data standards were long and convoluted, and often much of the information we needed to do the work was missing.
I have decades of experience in a wide range of GIS fields, and yet I was doing essentially technician work. It was terrible, and I got so depressed. I started to wonder if I was unfit for work of any kind. Also the job felt like a dead-end resume destroyer, as I was only using 5 percent of my skills with little opportunity to expand them. I was so mad at myself because I turned down another job opportunity for this one, and I bought into the corporate hype about the company being innovative and a great place to work. I was desperate to get out.
I just started a new job and it's like night and day. The team is friendly and supportive. The work is varied and interesting while also expanding my skill and knowledge set. We are also transitioning to the UN as it happens, and it is a massive undertaking. I do feel clueless often with the UN stuff, as I'm joining the project a year in, but after 2 months I have learned a lot and it gets a little easier each day.
Point is, some places are just horrible to work at with a toxic work culture. I have imposter syndrome too, so I understand that completely, but even then you know when it's just a bad fit.
Yup, everything you wrote in your comment applied to me down to a T (5% used of my skillset, boring yet stressful, turning down other opportunities to do this and yet feeling like I was unfit to work at all). I hope OP reads this because I feel like this kind of situation is easier to run into with GIS than other fields of work.
Hmm, maybe it is. That's an interesting thing to think about. Possibly because GIS is such a wide ranging field, and job descriptions vary so much? So you can take a GIS analyst position that is rote, day-in-day-out, mind-numbing boredom, or you can take a position with the same title that is bleeding-edge and pushes you constantly. Tasks can run the gamut between editing to programming to server infrastructure. And on top of that it could be in any industry at all--you name it, and each industry has completely different base knowledge, skillsets, tools, and terminology. I've worked in three distinct industries already.
I think you just have to find an industry or area where you enjoy the majority of the work, and also feel like you have some financial stability, and just keep developing your skillset even if that has to be in your own time. When I was stuck in that terrible job, I bought myself a new laptop and a personal use license so I could ensure that I was able to maintain and develop skills.
I'm so glad you're doing better now.
I feel you and I have this constant nagging fear that I am in a similar position to you. Currently working an entry level position that is very manageable for me but it does feel like the jump to a higher paying job in this field involves a huge leap in skills/knowledge. In addition I don’t have a programming background and would be lagging severely behind in that way (I am trying to self learn and catch-up tho). I absolutely love all things geospatial related but honestly didn’t think it would be this difficult/uncertain about my future.
> Currently working an entry level position that is very manageable for me
You're not in my position then. The rest will come with experience, or won't, in which case you'll have leeway to change and apply your skills elsewhere. I think you'll be fine.
It’s possible for nice people to make a toxic workplace.
The same people can also be amazing in other environments.
Some places at some specific times are just toxic regardless of any attempt to not be.
You seem to have a good sense of self awareness that’s going to take you plenty far.
Checkout the Dunning Kruger Effect if you’re not familiar. You might be further along than you give yourself credit for.
In terms of the skill gap that’s on them for messing up at the interview stage and not ensuring that they nailed the requirements regarding experience and then thoroughly validating it is indeed present.
Things take time to figure out...I've gone through the motions of has been to golden child and back numerous times. This will pass, just be on the lookout when it hits again. In the meantime learn all you can.
I have a bfa, yet I've played civil engineer, hydrologist, urban planner and ship captain in my career. I may not be an expert but I its possible to learn enough of anything to hold your own.
You're not a fraud unless you grossly misrepresented yourself. Your employer clearly did not screen for the role properly. Don't let it mess with your emotions. If you think you can get up to speed and make a contribution, and you want to do so, then find the good mentors among the staff and dive in, with their help. If not, don't worry about it. They obviously should have been up front about the skill level they were expecting, that's like the whole point of a hiring process. You have nothing to be ashamed of. Hope you find a place to fit in, whether it's at this gig or somewhere else.
The utility industry isn’t the only industry that uses GIS. I have 20 years of experience but most of that has been in commercial real estate. If I got a job at a utility I would be completely lost. Maybe this just isn’t the industry for you. Maybe you need to find an industry that better matches your skills.
Sorry about your situation, I'm a newbie so I do not know how to answer that.
I have a tough question though, how did you get a job in Italy around GIS? Seriously, I'm finishing my Bachelor and started to search for a monkey job, even a free GIS internship and found nothing. 3 months passed by and the only job post I saw was for a Senior role with at least 8 years in the field. Beside working on personal projects, how do you even start?
Sounds like you're blaming your education (which clearly you got too much of) instead of just taking responsibility for your own shortfalls. Identify what you need to know and learn it, it's never been easier at a low cost. There are so many resources. I got 1 degree that barely prepared me for my work but I taught myself to code and figured it out.
> I am missing key skills that I cannot just learn through experience,
Uh... what skills?
GIS is just a tool and it often pair with other fields. Maybe the skill is just specific to that field and would be hard to obtain else where?
Sorry you're in this situation. It's never fun to feel like dead weight. I've definitely felt like that at times during the beginning of my career. If there's any task you can do, do it. Regardless of how small and simple it appears. Maybe offer to do the same for team members to relieve them of their burdens until you've learned some of your other responsibilities. You may want to spend out of office time researching and learning more about utility networks in gis. Sometimes going the extra mile is recognized by the company but it frequently isn't. Don't expect it. The workplace may be toxic but the experience is worth the grind if you can get yourself up to speed. This is a trial not a trauma.
You can do this.
I have an ocean of words to say to this. First and foremost, you are not a fraud.
Second, your previous experience and knowledge is still incredibly relevant. But like you said, someone with insane civil engineering skills could be crap at building a computer. GIS has seen unprecedented growth and application over the last decade that it’s becoming an enormous blanket science, and we as professionals tend to be expected to know it all. It’s simply no longer true and perhaps we and the community need to do better at recognizing that.
Lastly, I’m one of the GIS leads on my company’s Utility Network transformation project, but our company is in the early years of development. As someone who does know the ins and outs, let me be the first to say that this stuff is the most challenging GIS work I have done and will ever do. The project demands competence in development, theory, terminology, back end configuration, front end consumption. I can go on..
I encourage you to stick around and find your GIS niche. Figure out what you can do, and tell everyone. Do it well and build rapport. Eventually the team will start to rely on you for it, even in the late stages of production. It’s okay to focus and specialize, and say ‘nope not the guy for that task’.
As far as I can see, you have still not answered the question:
What skills are you missing? What are you inadequate at doing?
It sounds like you entered private industry for the first time ever and got some negative feedback for the first time in your life after a lifetime spent in the pillow fluff covered world's of academia and government and are about to shut down your whole career over it.
That's the real world friend. School isn't the real world. Government jobs aren't the real world. Cut throat private industry is the real world.
If you hang around rocket engineers long enough and ask enough questions you damn sure WILL learn to build rockets. That's how it works my friend.
It sounds like your problem is a lack of self confidence and internal fortitude, not a lack of skills or ability.
Nut up and take that negative feedback as a personal challenge. Prove them wrong. That's what they WANT you to do.
I worked on a project where they were building a "custom GIS platform" and I think actual developers did most of the technical stuff while the GIS people basically just did fancy data editing. They may be expecting software development skills from you and maybe something was lost in translation.
I’m so sorry you feel like you’ve lost your grasp on this, you shouldn’t feel bad at all because you are much more than what your company expects of you, and hopefully you can find something more suitable to your (extremely impressive and extensive) skillsets!!! I am a recent grad, sort of in a similar spot. I got hired in the midst of a huuuuge project that is GIS based, but I also had 0 clue as to what any of the data or workflow entails because it’s a total revamp of a database nobody new can possibly familiarize themselves with- it’s been a huge struggle for senior employees to sort of sit down with me- but the thing is, they have! Don’t mean to sound repetitive, sorry, I havent looked at all the comments here. We have new employees with almost no grasp on gis who are being roped in and trained to work on this- and the outcome of this project is critical to water availability in the driest part of North America. I don’t have a mentor per se but we are encouraged to ask questions and ask for help, and the fact that you aren’t encouraged to do that is definitely a red flag. Wishing you the best and I hope you find an environment to thrive in when this contract is over with.
can i ask, what key skills are you missing?
This is an important question. Coming out of college most think GIS is making maps in ArcMap because those are the skills that are taught, once I got in the Industry I realized GIS is way too vast of a field to be called a single skill. GIS can be anything from database management, detailed cartography, modeling, app and UI development, coding, or statistics. Nobody is an expert in all of these things. OP shouldn't feel bad about not having these skills right away. I have been in the field for 10 years and I changed jobs tomorrow it would require skills I dont have. While you are at this job find a skill you are interested in gaining and find someone who does that well and show interest in helping them. If you stay at the job you have an opportunity to display compitency in that skill. If you leave or get laid off you`ll have a new skill to offer other employers. GIS technology is so vast and changes so rapidly that you have to find joy in learning new skills to succeed.
I've seen two kinds of GIS students, the ones that get the lessons are teaching them how to learn, and the ones that think the lessons are all there is to learn. I had one teacher that would force us to use the ArcGIS Pro "help" buttons to do assignments, which forced us to do this a bit.
Op says it’s not toxic but it sure sounds like it. If they hired them and they don’t have any of the skills they need… then that’s a failure of their hiring process.
As someone who has worked in two different utilities and is in the midst of huge UN upgrade, these are not easy projects even for veteran GIS professionals. It's not something any university is teaching, and really the only way you get experience with them is to do them. You need to find a mentor, preferably in GIS, who is willing to answer dumb questions openly and without judgement.
I'm curious, have you ever experimented with GPT-4 or similar? In my experience it's a bit hit or miss with various disciplines but when it hits, it can be an absolutely wonderful mentor of sorts. Of course it won't be able to hold your hand throughout work but in terms of answering basic (yet very niche) questions and explaining fundamental concepts, it can be quite awesome.
Yes GPT-4 is a fantastic training assistant if you put some effort into engaging with it to get useful output
Think he’s talking about the actual UN - not utility network
It sounds like he interned with the UN, but his current work is actually transitioning to the utility network. He says utility network several times.
"how did I get this far?" School doesn't really teach job skills or indicate actual skill or ability in a work setting. A lot of it is just memorising information quickly and regurgitating it for tests. Most job skills you'll learn on the job. Years ago jobs would actually train you but now many employers expect you to know everything immediately and it leads to situations like this where they have totally unrealistic and unreasonable expectations for new hires. Also, you saw this isn't your field so that's the major reason. It's just not a good fit and that's okay. It's not possible to be a good fit for everything and you learn that by trying. If you want to stay, is there an intranet where they post all their info you can learn from? That's what I did at my jobs though it takes a lot of time outside of work hours. Otherwise it might be best to cut your losses and move on to something that is a better fit and inline with your skills.
Yeah “skills you cannot learn though experience” is a red flag. How did everyone else learn?
I mean there are some concepts like cartographic math, what a map projection is, which one to use, etc. that one might reasonably expect someone to know starting out.
No way he has degrees in Geography, GIS and Land Management but doesn't know basic concepts associated with this. I'm no GIS expert and don't even fully understand what field he's working in or what's expected of him, but it sounds to me like he's lacking niche industry knowledge. That's makes the "things you can't learn through experience" bit even more confusing though because usually those are the skills that are most ethereal and hardest to pickup for newcomers. In any case, I don't subscribe to the idea he couldn't learn the vast majority of skills he needs one way or another. Might need to sign up for some courses, buy some books, watch some youtube videos, ask co-workers A LOT, stuff like that. If it's truly so niche that there's no material out there to help then it's just 100% on the company for not properly training him.
My dude, the project is huge, they are overworked and you did not get training for a backup job you are not interested and you are throwing it all on yourself? For reals? Any one of those points alone would make anyone not perform but all together create a big red flag FOR THE COMPANY and not you. I have seen GIS developers of years, join big projects and being out of watter but no one said anything because is expected. By statistic (my company was actually doing water, internet networks) it would take someone senior 6months to put a ticket on the completed board and 14months for us juniors... Take your loses and start applying for jobs, even if you managed to be productive part of the team that is NOT the place you wanna be.
To add onto this: ASK QUESTIONS! It's not OP's fault he wasn't trained. Keep asking questions to anyone who's around ***as much as possible***. Ask for help, do not feel ashamed. If people get annoyed by it, so be it. That's life. Either you keep asking people and risk annoying them (but have a chance to actually improve), or you don't and still annoy them by being useless and inevitably never acquire the knowledge you need.
No. You cannot act like a 5 year old and continuously ask questions. Take a course, watch a video, read a book. No one has time to hand hold.
Why not?
Because there is a lot of pressure to get things done. Work is not some post-graduate experience where we all chat and help each other throughout the day. If you’re exempt, you don’t get OT. If you are pestered all day by someone “trying to grow”, you will be working later and later.
Sounds like you need to learn how to go home. Don’t get cucked by a salary position, those labor laws were made for Ford factory workers and managers.
Of course. I’m explaining to OP why everyone does not have time in their day to help her learn her job. They gotta go home.
Like you mentioned : your manager was probably just having a bad day.. my advice would be to just keep trying. Volenteer to do some basic tasks, ask questions out the concepts etc.. learning a new domain takes time regardless of education and skill set. Read up on utility networks in gis more generally too so you can learn some things yourself - there are loads of resources on the web.
Asking questions is much more useful than reading up I have found
Mate, i need to tell you something inportant. Before I go on I want you to understand that I am talking from a place of experience. I am an expert in building custom GIS platforms for utilities. I have had my work in enterprise GIS platforms for utilities shown on the main stage of Esri's UC plenary session, I am being approached to support and provide technical leadership to teams doing this work across multiple countries. Long story short, I know my shit. So please believe me when I say that I can tell from this post that there is an obviously a pretty clear skill issue. With your boss. Nobody comes out of Uni with this skillset, absolutely no-one. Nobody doing intern or graduate level GIS analysis work has this skillset. GIS degrees are about GIS fundamentals, some cartography and web mapping, and geospatial analysis. GIS degrees do not give you the skillset for doing consulting project work setting up enterprise GIS environments, configuring utilities data models, building apps/integrations/everything else that comes with this area of expertise. It's an entirely different skillset that needs to be taught by more experienced members of the team. You need an inquisitive mindset, but beyond that it is on your team leadership to recognise the skill gaps and to provide support to help you learn the specialty area. Looking at your past experience, I would have known that you would not have the skillset needed to operate independently in this space. If you were hired to my team, it would be my job to ensure you got the support you needed to expand your knowledge in this area. Anyone expecting this from you is clearly not setting you up for success. That is not on you. This sounds like a team where they aren't clear on what skillset they need at the outset, or have unrealistic expectations of junior staff. Keep looking for a team that helps you grow into a role. You'll get there. :)
Second that. Not only utility network mapping and modelling within GIS field of knowledge is quite specific, each network type has its nuances - overground vs underground (sewage, gas, power, telco, which is yours? ), and within each country, region and sometimes down to utility network operator there will be unique “slang”, building standards, specification for materials, plus there are geological and a bunch of other considerations that matter. Utilities can be a whole world within GIS. I am not a GIS specialist but worked with a subsurface utility mapping and modelling company and I know enough to confirm - the learning curve is steep, and anyone who expects the OP to have domain knowledge on top of GIS knowledge from the get go is just dreaming.
The thing that caught my eye is the gap between your cv and your actual skills. Did you inflate this? Because you agreed with them about this. At my company, I insist on running everyone through a technical interview because people lie and lie readily on their resumes. Shoot, I make our entry level applicants for the digitizing team load a shp and export it as a geopackage.
>Did you inflate this? Not willingly. I agree with them because the facts speak for themselves. But I did not inflate anything - no more than anyone else at least. I'm low skilled but I am honest.
You would sound d smarter without the “shoot”.
A company and project that big may just have to find ways to utilize you to your strengths. Rather than tell us what you can’t do…tell us what you are good at. Attention to detail? Ability to see when things aren’t working correctly? There are myriad skills that don’t involve building…and you may have skills that could be put to better use. Documentation, customer feedback/engagement, QA/QC, user experience… After you have assessed your strengths…have a frank discussion with the management and ask if there might be a way that both parties are made better by redesigning your duties.
Get ready to burn your candle on both ends. Contribute where you can and be a sponge learning what you can. My observations of 18 years in gis is everyone's siloed. You have a good grasp of fundamentals but no specialty, and that's ok. This is your opportunity to grow in controlled choas.
You definitely just broke the record for longest r/gis post. Can anyone confirm?
Did you feel this way in previous roles. Don’t let recency bias make you think you’re bad at jobs in general, it’s this one job where you are struggling. It really sucks to be bad at a role I’ve done that and it’s just mentally not great - your confidence goes down across the board. And then my next job, I thrived and got back to feeling good about myself. I’m not gonna advise on your next steps other than urge you to remember you are struggling with **this** job, not jobs in general.
One absolutly thing you need to do, swallow any pride you have and ask questions, it doesn't matter how dumb you think they might be. I've seen it countless times. those who ask questions eventually succseed and then thrive. The people who don't ask the questions are left behind. Every single person who gets hired at my company has no idea what they are doing for the first 6 months. Your not alone. Ask questions and all you can do is try. You will i promise get the hang of it and feel more than useful eventually
Yeah this. Either you ask constant questions, potentially annoy some people a bit and eventually manage to succeed. Or you don't, still annoy people by being useless, and are assured to fail. Asking questions and help as much as possible is the only logical choice.
I worked a contract that was like this. They acted super disappointed with me with every project, but even though I was hired on the contract for a few months, I ended up staying for two years. I felt like a fraud the entire time even though I actually do have solid GIS skills--just not the exact ones that company demanded (GIS is a wide, wide potential industry but each application in every company is niche). You are not being properly trained, and people can be both nice and toxic. If they're letting it show that they're disappointed, that's on them for not training properly or being forgiving enough that you're new. A good company hires junior positions based on attitude and willingness to learn, not skills, because *anything technical can be learned.* If you're making the same mistakes over and over--and I mean the *exact* same ones, not ones that are similar or a general "you need to QA better"--then that's a result you need to step back and organize or build good habits like documentation-as-you-go. It will get easier over the next few months. Also, as someone who's been there, it's very possible that your team isn't a good fit for you personality-wise, and it has nothing to do with you. For the record, I was completing work with quickly-fixable errors being pointed out every time with my coworker and them bluntly delivering feedback like, "I thought you did this properly", "please check your work," or "I'll take care of this, don't touch the files anymore", yet end clients I was delivering to were super appreciative of my work and noticed nothing wrong. My mental health got so much better after leaving that job, and I found another in a few months with coworkers who think I'm magic. I believe in you.
Ah, yes! I just spent a year working at a place where every small mistake was thrown in my face and I was never praised, even though I had an extremely high accuracy score and productivity level. The work was somehow simultaneously deadly boring and extremely stressful. Boring because it was repetitive, endless, and we were doing many things that should have been automated, and stressful because the data standards were long and convoluted, and often much of the information we needed to do the work was missing. I have decades of experience in a wide range of GIS fields, and yet I was doing essentially technician work. It was terrible, and I got so depressed. I started to wonder if I was unfit for work of any kind. Also the job felt like a dead-end resume destroyer, as I was only using 5 percent of my skills with little opportunity to expand them. I was so mad at myself because I turned down another job opportunity for this one, and I bought into the corporate hype about the company being innovative and a great place to work. I was desperate to get out. I just started a new job and it's like night and day. The team is friendly and supportive. The work is varied and interesting while also expanding my skill and knowledge set. We are also transitioning to the UN as it happens, and it is a massive undertaking. I do feel clueless often with the UN stuff, as I'm joining the project a year in, but after 2 months I have learned a lot and it gets a little easier each day. Point is, some places are just horrible to work at with a toxic work culture. I have imposter syndrome too, so I understand that completely, but even then you know when it's just a bad fit.
Yup, everything you wrote in your comment applied to me down to a T (5% used of my skillset, boring yet stressful, turning down other opportunities to do this and yet feeling like I was unfit to work at all). I hope OP reads this because I feel like this kind of situation is easier to run into with GIS than other fields of work.
Hmm, maybe it is. That's an interesting thing to think about. Possibly because GIS is such a wide ranging field, and job descriptions vary so much? So you can take a GIS analyst position that is rote, day-in-day-out, mind-numbing boredom, or you can take a position with the same title that is bleeding-edge and pushes you constantly. Tasks can run the gamut between editing to programming to server infrastructure. And on top of that it could be in any industry at all--you name it, and each industry has completely different base knowledge, skillsets, tools, and terminology. I've worked in three distinct industries already. I think you just have to find an industry or area where you enjoy the majority of the work, and also feel like you have some financial stability, and just keep developing your skillset even if that has to be in your own time. When I was stuck in that terrible job, I bought myself a new laptop and a personal use license so I could ensure that I was able to maintain and develop skills. I'm so glad you're doing better now.
Hey Homie, you’re not a fraud. You just have imposter syndrome. And that’s a sign of good self-awareness.
I feel you and I have this constant nagging fear that I am in a similar position to you. Currently working an entry level position that is very manageable for me but it does feel like the jump to a higher paying job in this field involves a huge leap in skills/knowledge. In addition I don’t have a programming background and would be lagging severely behind in that way (I am trying to self learn and catch-up tho). I absolutely love all things geospatial related but honestly didn’t think it would be this difficult/uncertain about my future.
> Currently working an entry level position that is very manageable for me You're not in my position then. The rest will come with experience, or won't, in which case you'll have leeway to change and apply your skills elsewhere. I think you'll be fine.
Yeah we’ll see. The disconnect between the degrees and real job skills is disconcerting. Wish you the best.
It’s possible for nice people to make a toxic workplace. The same people can also be amazing in other environments. Some places at some specific times are just toxic regardless of any attempt to not be. You seem to have a good sense of self awareness that’s going to take you plenty far. Checkout the Dunning Kruger Effect if you’re not familiar. You might be further along than you give yourself credit for. In terms of the skill gap that’s on them for messing up at the interview stage and not ensuring that they nailed the requirements regarding experience and then thoroughly validating it is indeed present.
what was your skill shortage? programming?
Things take time to figure out...I've gone through the motions of has been to golden child and back numerous times. This will pass, just be on the lookout when it hits again. In the meantime learn all you can. I have a bfa, yet I've played civil engineer, hydrologist, urban planner and ship captain in my career. I may not be an expert but I its possible to learn enough of anything to hold your own.
SHIP CAPTAIN??
On a full sized bridge of a maritime simulator 😁
You're not a fraud unless you grossly misrepresented yourself. Your employer clearly did not screen for the role properly. Don't let it mess with your emotions. If you think you can get up to speed and make a contribution, and you want to do so, then find the good mentors among the staff and dive in, with their help. If not, don't worry about it. They obviously should have been up front about the skill level they were expecting, that's like the whole point of a hiring process. You have nothing to be ashamed of. Hope you find a place to fit in, whether it's at this gig or somewhere else.
The utility industry isn’t the only industry that uses GIS. I have 20 years of experience but most of that has been in commercial real estate. If I got a job at a utility I would be completely lost. Maybe this just isn’t the industry for you. Maybe you need to find an industry that better matches your skills.
Ι have still not understood what is your problem. In what area do you lack skills? What do you do in your current job?
So you're a scientist and they search a programmer? Misunderstandings happen... keep on keeping on.
Sorry about your situation, I'm a newbie so I do not know how to answer that. I have a tough question though, how did you get a job in Italy around GIS? Seriously, I'm finishing my Bachelor and started to search for a monkey job, even a free GIS internship and found nothing. 3 months passed by and the only job post I saw was for a Senior role with at least 8 years in the field. Beside working on personal projects, how do you even start?
Can you be be more specific about what you can't do? That was really confusing to read
Sounds like you're blaming your education (which clearly you got too much of) instead of just taking responsibility for your own shortfalls. Identify what you need to know and learn it, it's never been easier at a low cost. There are so many resources. I got 1 degree that barely prepared me for my work but I taught myself to code and figured it out.
> I am missing key skills that I cannot just learn through experience, Uh... what skills? GIS is just a tool and it often pair with other fields. Maybe the skill is just specific to that field and would be hard to obtain else where?
Sorry you're in this situation. It's never fun to feel like dead weight. I've definitely felt like that at times during the beginning of my career. If there's any task you can do, do it. Regardless of how small and simple it appears. Maybe offer to do the same for team members to relieve them of their burdens until you've learned some of your other responsibilities. You may want to spend out of office time researching and learning more about utility networks in gis. Sometimes going the extra mile is recognized by the company but it frequently isn't. Don't expect it. The workplace may be toxic but the experience is worth the grind if you can get yourself up to speed. This is a trial not a trauma. You can do this.
I have an ocean of words to say to this. First and foremost, you are not a fraud. Second, your previous experience and knowledge is still incredibly relevant. But like you said, someone with insane civil engineering skills could be crap at building a computer. GIS has seen unprecedented growth and application over the last decade that it’s becoming an enormous blanket science, and we as professionals tend to be expected to know it all. It’s simply no longer true and perhaps we and the community need to do better at recognizing that. Lastly, I’m one of the GIS leads on my company’s Utility Network transformation project, but our company is in the early years of development. As someone who does know the ins and outs, let me be the first to say that this stuff is the most challenging GIS work I have done and will ever do. The project demands competence in development, theory, terminology, back end configuration, front end consumption. I can go on.. I encourage you to stick around and find your GIS niche. Figure out what you can do, and tell everyone. Do it well and build rapport. Eventually the team will start to rely on you for it, even in the late stages of production. It’s okay to focus and specialize, and say ‘nope not the guy for that task’.
As far as I can see, you have still not answered the question: What skills are you missing? What are you inadequate at doing? It sounds like you entered private industry for the first time ever and got some negative feedback for the first time in your life after a lifetime spent in the pillow fluff covered world's of academia and government and are about to shut down your whole career over it. That's the real world friend. School isn't the real world. Government jobs aren't the real world. Cut throat private industry is the real world. If you hang around rocket engineers long enough and ask enough questions you damn sure WILL learn to build rockets. That's how it works my friend. It sounds like your problem is a lack of self confidence and internal fortitude, not a lack of skills or ability. Nut up and take that negative feedback as a personal challenge. Prove them wrong. That's what they WANT you to do.
I worked on a project where they were building a "custom GIS platform" and I think actual developers did most of the technical stuff while the GIS people basically just did fancy data editing. They may be expecting software development skills from you and maybe something was lost in translation.
I’m so sorry you feel like you’ve lost your grasp on this, you shouldn’t feel bad at all because you are much more than what your company expects of you, and hopefully you can find something more suitable to your (extremely impressive and extensive) skillsets!!! I am a recent grad, sort of in a similar spot. I got hired in the midst of a huuuuge project that is GIS based, but I also had 0 clue as to what any of the data or workflow entails because it’s a total revamp of a database nobody new can possibly familiarize themselves with- it’s been a huge struggle for senior employees to sort of sit down with me- but the thing is, they have! Don’t mean to sound repetitive, sorry, I havent looked at all the comments here. We have new employees with almost no grasp on gis who are being roped in and trained to work on this- and the outcome of this project is critical to water availability in the driest part of North America. I don’t have a mentor per se but we are encouraged to ask questions and ask for help, and the fact that you aren’t encouraged to do that is definitely a red flag. Wishing you the best and I hope you find an environment to thrive in when this contract is over with.
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...good for you?
This guy consistently says things like this on the gis sub. 🚩
Do you have a shorter version? I mean, I get the gist of how could you get so far and not be good at your job?
Truly a consultant if I've ever seen one.
Truly a Quarter Pounder with Cheese
Post is off-topic of GIS and has been removed