From 120 Rejections to Success: A Female Tradie's Journey Through Imposter Syndrome and Industry Challenges

Aimee Stanton is an advocate for women in the trades and worked as a plumber for a number of years before starting a tiny home business. (Source: Aimee Stanton)

The Struggle for Female Tradies in Australia

A female tradie who was rejected from 120 plumbing jobs has revealed the common challenge facing many workers in the industry. Aimee Stanton has experienced imposter syndrome throughout her career and has felt like she had to work harder to prove herself.

Stanton still remembers the exact moment she decided to give plumbing a crack. The now 32-year-old, who goes by The Lady Tradie online, told Yahoo Finance she’d gone to the servo with her dad, a builder, to get an ice-cream.

“I reached for the Magnum, as you do, the most expensive, and dad looked me in the eyes and said, that’s a plumber’s ice-cream, only plumbers can afford Magnums,” she recalled.

It was that simple comment that sparked Stanton's initial interest in the high-paying job. Keen to do something with her hands, Stanton ended up applying for a pre-apprenticeship at TAFE in plumbing.

“I always said I’m going to get an apprenticeship under my belt and go out and chase my dreams,” she said.

“After about 120 rejections for plumbing jobs, I heard back from one and I got the job. That was the start of it and I suppose that was the start of the imposter syndrome as well.”

A Baptism of Fire in the Trades

It was a baptism of fire for Stanton when she started in the trade.

“My first week in the trade was hell. I mucked up so many times. I crashed my car into the job site fence, I fell through a roof, I got a piece of metal stuck in my butt. It was the worst week ever,” she said.

While it’s common for apprentices to make mistakes while they are learning, Stanton felt like the stakes were higher for her as the only woman on site and she’d be hard on herself if she wasn’t as fast as someone else, even if they were qualified.

Like many female tradies, Stanton said she felt like she had to work harder to try and impress her employer and prove herself.

Stanton says she experienced imposter syndrome when working as a plumber and later as a business owner. (Source: Aimee Stanton)

“Before going into work each day, I would run through my head a million times, okay, what do I need to do today? How am I going to make it the best possible? And I would try not to make any mistakes. That was my mentality, I can’t make a mistake,” she said.

Stanton admitted it was “quite confronting”, rocking up to sites where she was the only female amongst a group of 100 or 200 blokes who often assumed she was “just the office chick” or a lift operator.