Risks in accepting a position if candidate considers themselves unqualified and believes they will fail Freddie was offered a post-doctoral position they did not apply for, by Sasha.  Sasha and Freddie know each other because they used to share an office.  The topic is quite different from what Freddie has known in the past.  Freddie is surprised and hesitates to accept.  Had the position been externally advertised, Freddie would not have applied for lack of self-assessed qualifications, but Sasha convinces Freddie to learn on the job.  Notwithstanding the impostor syndrome, Freddie accepts, being between jobs and enjoying the opportunity to broaden skills if successful.

The risks for Sasha are quite clear: perhaps too optimistic about Freddies skills, and if unsuccessful, that will be bad for the project.  But what are the risks for Freddie in this scenario?  In the scenario in which Freddie is unsuccessful, how damaging would that be to academic career chances?  Is the value of an unsuccessful postdoc positive, neutral, negative?



In a previous version of this question, Freddie was called Sue, and Sasha was called Sam.
The main question here is what kind of postdoc Sasha needs to appoint. Does Sasha have a specific project / task that they expect Freddie to handle? To that extend is this negotiatable?


If Sasha has a very specific task in mind that is largely un-negotiatable (e.g., because of hard commitments to a funding agency, or because there is a specific study that Sasha really wants to do), and Freddie foresees that they won't be able to actually do this, then they are only setting themselves up for failure when accepting the postdoc. The consequence will likely be a personal fallout with Sasha and a big setback to their own career. Nobody wins here, and Freddie should decline.
If Sasha is more flexible, and Freddie can do something that would be of significant value to Sasha's research programme, it is likely that things will be ok. The consequence in this case will likely be that the project gets adapted or shifted to another person, and things will work out alright. (or at least it has the same chance of working out alright than any other postdoc)


Given that Sasha knows Freddie personally, and has explicitly invited them to apply, I presume that the second case is more likely than the first - but a frank discussion between Sasha and Freddie is necessary. It is possible that Sasha is not aware that Freddie lacks these skills, or that they overestimate Freddie's ability to learn the required skills on the spot, but it is equally possible (really: more likely) that Sasha is fully aware that the project will go in a different direction with hiring Freddie, and they are ok with that.

Many academics I know (including myself) care more about the potential of a candidate to do good science in their overall field than whether they are the best fit for a specific project. In other words: I would typically rather hire a great person who is a bad fit for the specific project than a medium person who is a great fit. Ultimately, I care more about good papers being written in my team than what I care about the topic of any particular project. Freddie needs to find out if this is the case for Sasha as well.