The best advice for women with imposter syndrome ? Don’t have it, says the president of a top women’s college at Cambridge University. Dorothy Byrne , former head of news and current affairs at Channel 4 and now president of Murray Edwards College, Cambridge, said she gives her female students advice when they graduate in order to boost their confidence. “My students are all women, and I always tell them: ‘I don’t have imposter syndrome, I would encourage you not to have imposter syndrome.
’ I say, ‘I have been a television journalist for more than 40 years, I’m not an imposter, I’m real, but I know loads of men who are imposters.’ So I say start off now not having imposters syndrome,” she told the audience at Hay Festival . Speaking at the event in Powys, Wales, which is partnered with The Independent , Byrne added the two things she always tells women in the college.
“The first thing is, women tend to wait until they have all the qualifications to apply for a job, and men don’t. What I want you to do is think of Boris Johnson – he had no qualifications at all for a job and he applied and he got it,” she said. Byrne notably called Johnson a “known liar” when delivering the Mactaggart Lecture at the Edinburgh TV Festival in 2019, criticising his refusal at the time to be interviewed by Channel 4.
She added: “The second thing I say is: always ask for a pay rise, because men do, and in the end you’ll get one. So personally, I would encourage.
