Tech skills confessions: Assessing workplace proficiencies of employees

Tech-related skills have become essential for quite a bit in everyday life, influencing how we work, communicate, and navigate the digital world. From workplace tools to various emerging technologies, these competencies are shaping productivity and innovation across industries.

It's one thing to profess coding expertise, network troubleshooting skills, or adeptness with productivity software, but the question arises: how proficient are people in the tech skills they claim to have? Adobe wanted to find out, so we surveyed over 1,000 full-time employed Americans to find out!

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Key Findings:

Over half (57 percent) of surveyed employees in tech roles feel pressure to appear tech-savvy.
To cover up skill gaps, 55 percent of respondents in tech roles stayed late for an average of 38 hours in the past year, secretly learning what they pretended to know.
Fewer than one in four respondents in tech roles know how to create interactive PDFs.
Over one in 10 (12 percent) respondents in tech roles have been caught red handed faking skills at work.
Over two in five (42 percent) respondents in tech roles have experienced imposter syndrome from exaggerating their tech skills knowledge.

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Coping with the demand for tech skill proficiency

Have you ever nodded along in a meeting, hoping no one asks you to explain the tech jargon being thrown around? Well, you’re not alone! Nearly half of all employees surveyed feel the pressure to appear tech-savvy in today's workplace, an expectation that intensifies for those in roles that are more tech-heavy. Our study reveals that people in these types of tech roles experience 97 percent more pressure than their non-tech counterparts.

Time constraints: the top document challenge for working professionals

Document processing and management can be tiresome for many professionals. Our study found that employees face many challenges when dealing with daily document-related tasks, such as reviewing PDFs, summarizing contracts, or analyzing spreadsheets. Take a look at how employees really feel about document usage at work:

Infographic exploring pressure to appear tech savvy and how employees learn new skills.

Ongoing hours of tech skill development

Whether it’s mastering the latest software update or keeping up with emerging AI trends, staying ahead often feels like a full-time job in itself. Respondents in tech roles report that they spend an average of 64 hours annually upskilling on and off the clock. Their go-to learning sources? YouTube leads the pack (71 percent), followed by online courses (50 percent) and hands-on experience through work projects (48 percent).

Whether you're a pro or not, we've all been there before. Staring at a screen, frantically searching for a quick tutorial on how to do something before a deadline. Maybe it's a last-minute scramble to edit a PDF before a big presentation, or a panicked Google search looking up a term or acronym you've never heard before. The pressure to appear tech-savvy is very real.

Working past office hours to learn “new” skills

Over half of employees (55 percent) in tech roles and 28 percent of respondents in non-tech roles admit to staying late, secretly brushing up on skills they’ve pretended to know. Whether it's needing to learn how to reduce PDF file size, creating a data dashboard, writing basic code or figuring out how to combine PDF files for a presentation, the drive to expand tech toolkits is ever-present.

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1 in 7 employees with a tech role cannot correctly define “PDF”

With the lengths employees go to appear tech-savvy (from secretly staying late to learn new skills to feigning knowledge in meetings),this raises an important question: What tech skills and tech terms are they struggling with the most?

Infographic revealing tech skills and terms known by tech vs. non-tech roles.

Tech proficiency in non-tech roles

Technology is evolving so fast that even those working with tech can struggle to keep up with the latest tools and terminology. For employees in non-tech roles, the gap is even wider with respondents in these positions being 123 percent more likely to struggle with cloud management and 156 percent more likely to lack proficiency in AI compared to their tech-focused colleagues.

This tech skills gap presents a clear opportunity to boost efficiency in non-tech roles. In education, for instance, where one in three lack PDF conversion skills and nearly half (46 percent) can't merge PDFs, addressing these deficiencies would significantly improve educators' ability to correctly store and save their teaching resources. The same applies across a variety of other non-tech roles that could benefit from simple tech skills.

Technical jargon and acronyms

Even basic definitions can be a challenge. Many professionals, regardless of their role, find themselves nodding along in meetings when terms like "PaaS" (Platform as a Service) come up, unsure of exactly what they mean. Nearly half (43 percent) of those surveyed in tech roles confess to pretending to understand technical concepts during meetings, highlighting the pressure to appear knowledgeable in the workplace. It’s a reminder that while technology drives nearly every industry, true fluency in it is far from universal.

Skills essential for managing PDFs

We even found that 17 percent of respondents in tech roles admit they lack proficiency in essential PDF skills, such as using a PDF compressor to reduce file size or merging PDF documents efficiently. The need for accessible resources, such as free PDF converters, clear tutorials on how to combine PDF files, and user-friendly online PDF editors, can help empower employees to confidently navigate these tasks.

12 percent of employees in tech roles have been caught faking skills in the workplace

This infographic explores proficiency to add skills to resumes as well as top skills and explores imposter syndrome.

Including skills on resumes

The pressure to appear tech-savvy often leads to inflating skills on resumes, but where do employees draw the line on what they list?

Most respondents (54 percent) reported feeling comfortable listing skills on their resumes once they possess intermediate knowledge and are confident with common applications. Amid the current tough job market, it’s understandable that applicants may be adding these skills. In a study on resumes from Adobe in 2024, we discovered that 51 percent of job-seekers acknowledged omitting pertinent skills from their resumes. These new findings suggest that imposter syndrome may be influencing the selection of skills job-seekers are choosing to showcase on their resumes, based on individual self-perceived proficiency levels. It's acceptable to highlight skills you're still developing, provided you're committed to learning.

The struggle with imposter syndrome

More than two in five (42 percent) of respondents in tech roles said they experience imposter syndrome, often due to overstating their knowledge. Additionally, 12 percent have admitted to faking skills in the workplace. With a tough job market this year, many professionals may feel added pressure to stand out, which may be leading some to exaggerate their expertise to land a gig. This issue is especially common among Gen Z, with 45 percent of those surveyed reporting feelings of imposter syndrome, and one in 10 have confessed to being caught pretending to have certain skills they don’t.

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Empower your digital skills with Adobe Acrobat and AI Assistant

Enhance your tech skill proficiency with Adobe Acrobat's powerful tools for efficient PDF management. Seamlessly organize, edit, and protect PDF files to streamline digital workflows and boost workplace productivity.

You can also leverage Adobe Acrobat's AI Assistant feature to accelerate your learning curve. Using AI Assistant, you can effortlessly extract key insights and summaries from PDF documents through the Chat PDF function, enabling you to grasp new concepts and skills efficiently.

Methodology

To uncover the tech knowledge and skill gaps of American employees we surveyed 1,009 individuals, including 557 employees in tech roles and 432 in non-tech roles. This sample size provides a 95 percent confidence level with a low 3 percent margin of error. Because this exploratory research relied on self-reported data, respondents may have biases, and discrepancies may exist between their answers and their actual experiences.

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Tech Skills Confessions: Assessing Proficiencies at Work

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A visually striking digital illustration featuring an array of glowing tech-related icons floating in a futuristic, high-tech environment. Icons represent various skills like coding (HTML, Python), cybersecurity (shield, lock), cloud computing (cloud, server racks), and AI (brain, neural network). Some icons appear vibrant and strong, while others look faded or glitchy, symbolizing the hidden gaps and confessions in tech skills. The background includes subtle survey-related elements like bar charts, checkmarks, and question marks, adding a sense of data-driven discovery.

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