Knowing How vs Believing You Can. Why Confidence Gaps Block Employment
The Gap That Changes Everything
There's a critical moment in every training programme. It comes right after someone learns how to do something. In that moment, two very different things can happen:
Scenario 1: They feel a sense of capability. They think, "I learned this. I can do this. Maybe I can apply for that job." Confidence builds. They take action.
Scenario 2: They feel relief the training is over. They think, "That was hard. I don't know if I could actually do that on my own. I'll probably mess it up." Confidence collapses. Nothing changes.
The difference isn't in what they learned. It's in what they believe about themselves.
This is the confidence gap, and it's where most digital skills training programmes fail. They create knowledge but don't bridge the gap between knowing and believing.
What Research Shows About Confidence and Employment
Psychology research calls this self-efficacy, the belief in your ability to succeed in a specific situation. It's not the same as self-esteem (how you feel about yourself generally). Self-efficacy is specific: "Can I actually do this particular thing?"
Here's what matters for employment. Self-efficacy is a stronger predictor of job success than actual skill level.
Someone with moderate digital skills but high self-efficacy will apply for jobs, ask for help when needed, persist through problems, and learn on the job. Someone with strong digital skills but low self-efficacy will avoid opportunities, assume they'll fail, and retreat when something gets difficult.
Long-term unemployment specifically damages self-efficacy. When you've been out of work for months or years, you stop believing you're capable. The longer the unemployment lasts, the more your belief in your own ability erodes regardless of your actual skills.
This is critical for funders to understand, if you fund training that doesn't address this confidence erosion, you're funding something that can't reverse the damage.
The Employment Paradox
Here's what we see repeatedly: someone who's been unemployed for 18 months learns digital skills. On paper, they're now "job ready." But they don't apply for jobs. Why?
Because knowledge isn't enough. They learned that websites exist and how to use Google Ads. But they don't believe they can do it in a real work situation with real pressure. They don't believe they won't freeze up. They don't believe they can problem-solve when something goes wrong.
This is the gap. And most training programmes don't address it.
Why In-Person Matters for Building Confidence
Confidence isn't built in isolation. It's built through experience, through seeing yourself succeed in front of others, through getting real feedback from a real person, through belonging to a group working toward something together.
This is why in-person training is non-negotiable for confidence-building. You cannot build genuine self-efficacy through a screen. You can transfer knowledge. You can create the appearance of training. But you cannot create the conditions where someone actually believes in themselves.
When someone learns a new skill in a room with others who are also struggling and learning, when they see other people figure things out, when a trainer gives them live feedback on their work, when they're part of a group that's collectively problem solving that's when belief starts to change.
Virtual training removes all of that. It's transactional. Content moves from trainer to participant with no relational connection, no social proof that "I'm capable," and no accountability beyond a screen.
The Three Elements of Confidence-Building
Genuine confidence in employment situations comes from three things:
1. Mastery — Actually succeeding at something difficult. Not just learning about it, but doing it, struggling through it, and completing it. This has to be real, not simulated.
2. Social proof — Seeing others like you succeed at the same thing. When you watch a peer figure something out, it changes what you believe is possible for you.
3. Personal relationship with someone who believes in you — A trainer who gives you honest feedback, pushes you when you need pushing, and demonstrates that they genuinely believe you can do this.
Virtual training can deliver mastery experiences (sometimes). It cannot deliver social proof or personal belief-building. Those require presence.
What This Means for Your Commissioning Decisions
If you're funding digital skills training because you want to reduce long-term unemployment or help self-employed people grow, you need a provider who understands this confidence gap.
Questions to ask:
How do you build confidence, not just teach content?
How do you create the conditions where people believe they can use what they've learned?
Why is in-person training essential to your model?
How do you measure confidence alongside skills?
Any provider worth funding should have clear answers to these. If they tell you they use virtual training, you should ask why. The answer "it's more scalable" or "it's more convenient" tells you they're optimising for delivery, not for changing lives.