We’ve all done it. Eagerly looking for career tips and inspiration online. 

It can be addictive.

A quick skim leads to a few clicks, then minutes turn into an hour. Worse, sometimes longer. 😳 

And somehow, a stranger on LinkedIn who posts, “I quit my job and tripled my income,” can make you feel like you’re doing everything wrong in your career. Now all you want to do is bed rot, question everything, and spiral into more anxiety! 😣 What’s worse is that everyone seems more successful, more attractive, and more satisfied with their jobs.

This is a pervasive problem for many professionals, so the creators of Girlboss Daily asked me to help their readers with some tips, and I wanted to share some of them with you.

First things first: most of the career advice flooding your feed isn’t actually advice. It’s content.

More specifically, it’s content designed to engage and enrage you. It stops your scroll, triggers just enough insecurity to keep you reading, and makes you feel like you’re massively behind your peers. (And that sucks.)

Real advice does the opposite. It helps you think about who you are, what you want, and take actions that move you closer to your goals (not someone else’s highly curated life). Knowing whether your brain is consuming content or real advice matters.

Here’s how to spot the lousy stuff:

⚠️ It’s a personal story, leaving out key details. One person’s success is often misleading. Whether it was luck, connections, or a safety net they’re not mentioning—what worked for them probably won’t work for you. (Besides, they’re often luring you into buying something from them anyway.)

🧩 It skips the messy middle. Social media loves a before-and-after. It overlooks the years of struggle and anguish in between. The unglamorous, daily slog typically doesn’t go viral.

💬 It hypes up trendy terms. Quiet quitting. Bare Minimum Mondays. Soft-launching your resignation. If the advice leans hard on the buzzwords of the moment, it’s probably chasing the algorithm, not actually helping you.

⏳ It provokes shame and urgency. “By 30, you should…” or “If you’re not making six figures by now…” or “Successful people always…” Blah. Blah. Blah. No thanks!

Everyone’s path and timing are different. If it makes you feel like you’ve fallen behind and haven’t achieved a particular milestone by a certain age, it’s manipulation, not career guidance.

Sadly, this type of content disproportionately targets women. It aims to stifle the conversation about ambition. Worse? It keeps you playing small, settling for less, and not betting on yourself. 

Good career advice typically comes from seasoned professionals—experts in their field or those who have led teams, departments, or companies. They’ve been around the block and have gained insight from working in a range of company types and sizes. 

Good career advice is specific, honest about trade-offs, and doesn’t require you to blow up your life to make a change. It helps you think through your options, see more possibilities, and take steps in the direction that excites you.

Before you pause and take any career content to heart, ask one question: Why do I trust this person to guide my career and life? If that answer isn’t obvious, keep scrolling (or better yet, turn off your phone). Look for someone whose credentials you can verify and someone whose career journey you admire.

Trust the slow build. Trust the unsexy reality of day-to-day work that doesn’t make good content. Trust yourself to know the difference between manipulative content and helpful advice.

And contrary to what your feed suggests, you’re probably doing better than you think. Keep going!

You’re equipt to spot lousy career advice.