advice HUGE anxiety

Hi,

i would like to know your opinion:

I have huge anxiety after i accepted the job i wanted. The problem is i didnt win the open competition but the winner rejected to accept the job and i was the second one in open competition. It was job in public administration where its a must to go through open competition so when you have the job everyone assumes you actualy WON the competition.

So when the winner rejected the employer asked me it i as a second one wanna accept the job. i accepted and know i have huge remorses- because its my first job ever- that people will or someone (whoever) in the future can say im incapable to get the kind of carrer i have now without a huge luck i have. Anyone can say im not good enough because i would get the job if i werent lucky. Now i worry that from now until the end of my life anyone can question my abilities because i started like this. Im so SAD and devastated i cannot do anything with this. In addition as i wrote above everyone assume i had to won to get the job so they think im better than i actually am and i feel very guilty and ashamed to say where i work and i dont enjoy it because i feel like i was lying because im not so good as i can seem to others right now.

Would you have any problem to accept the job from the position of being the second one in open competition? thanks a lot for your opinion

Something similar happened to me in a previous job. And it was difficult. For the first 6 months or so. To get past that feeling of being in the other candidate's shadow. Or being the "second best."

After that time, though. I could see what value I was bringing to the work. And how my contribution was appreciated by management. So I thought about it much less once I realised that.

I think it would be an ignorant thing to say. To say that you only got the job through luck. Because, in a way, that's true for everyone. People are lucky that they saw the job advert. Or that they got through the first interview. Or that they went to the "right" school to be in with a chance at all. Or that they knew someone who gave a great reference. That's life. Luck is involved. But then hard work shows what people make out of that chance. No one can get by on luck alone.

How many other people were in the open competition. Do you know? I'm just thinking that. Getting the "silver Olympic medal" is still very very good. In comparison with the many who aren't quite at that standard.

By now you are probably comfortable in your job. You ran tried for it and second on the list of successful candidates is fabulous in this day and age when people are starving for good jobs.
The other guy's name might have been entered by a consulting firm who wanted to win the contract when in reality he was already on contract somewhere else. In the end they had no candidates to fill the slot. There's lots of reasons the first guy didn't take it. Or his wife told him it's too long of a commute.
We need to stop assuming we got the dregs. Congratulations! You got the job you went for!