We live in the golden age of information. Unfortunately, not all that information is helpful or accurate.
Scrolling through LinkedIn, your feed is likely flooded with advice from career experts. Everyone sounds confident, but with so many voices in the room, the guidance can often feel contradictory and overwhelming.
It’s confusing, and, occasionally, derailing. The truth is: not all advice is good advice. Following the wrong tip can lead to missed opportunities and frustration in your job search.
So, how do you discern helpful career advice from hurtful advice? Let’s explore how to evaluate job advice so you can focus on what actually helps.
How to Identify Helpful Job Advice
There are two key indicators that help you evaluate helpful job advice
First, the advice is contextual. Truly great advice will be tailored to your industry, career stage, and goals. For example, an executive-level employee and an entry-level employee will have vastly different career needs and support. Contextual advice also leaves room for nuance. Hard “always” or “never” rules are a red flag. These tips acknowledge trade-offs and exceptions.
Another key sign of legitimate advice is its reliability. Before taking advice, consider its source. Did it come from someone with provable experience and expertise? Is the advice backed by research? Advice that stems from experience and provable facts is much more reliable than advice from a content creator.
How to Spot Red Flags in Job Advice
Bad advice is focused on being attention-grabbing over being practical. This kind of advice spreads quickly on social media because it’s simple and catchy.
Watch for:
- Overgeneralizations:
- Outdated rules: Hiring practices are always changing, and often vary based on the organization.
- Toxic hustle culture: Avoid advice that glorifies burnout or shame. It ignores your mental health and can lead to a negative impact on your work and personal life.
- Advice that skips over ethics or balance: If a piece of advice feels uncomfortable or wrong, don’t follow it. Especially if it encourages you to sacrifice your values, such as faking qualifications.
Analyze Who is Giving the Advice
A crucial part of learning how to evaluate job advice is examining the messenger. Before following someone’s advice, take a moment to ask:
- Do they have experience in your industry or job function?
- Have they worked in a hiring or recruiting capacity?
- Are they trying to sell something?
Sometimes, well-intentioned advice comes from people who simply aren’t familiar with your world. A marketing executive might give great advice to someone in advertising, but that same advice might not translate to someone applying to public sector jobs.
Their motivations are also important. Are they genuinely trying to help or are they trying to sell something? That doesn’t mean advice from content creators or career coaches is automatically untrustworthy, but it does mean you should be thoughtful about the intention behind the message
How to Evaluate Job Advice
Use this 4-step filter to evaluate job advice:
- Does this apply to my field or career level?
- Is there data or experience behind it?
- Has this worked for people like me?
- Does it feel aligned with my values and goals?
If the answer is mostly yes, it’s probably worth trying. If not? Hit pause.
It’s easy to feel overwhelmed or jaded in a world where everyone’s a self-proclaimed expert. Just remember, the goal isn’t to reject all advice, it’s to get better at filtering it.
The job market is constantly changing. What worked five years ago might not work now. And what works for someone else might not work for you. That’s okay.
The key is to be intentional. The best job tips are the ones that resonate with you and bring you closer to your goals.
