This book is like a wake-up call in the best way—blunt, honest, and packed with the kind of practical advice you don’t get enough of in traditional career books. Badan blends humor, hard truths, and hard-earned wisdom to create a guide that feels refreshingly human and incredibly relevant, whether you're just starting out or trying to pivot into your next move.

I appreciated how straightforward and actionable it was. Badan doesn’t sugarcoat anything. She tells you what matters, what doesn’t, and how to actually make work work for you. She talks about building value, navigating feedback, handling messy human moments, and showing up with both grit and grace. The tone is bold and unapologetic, but still accessible. I could see myself coming back to certain chapters as little reminders when I need a push or a reality check.

The only reason this isn’t a full five stars is because a few parts felt more anecdotal than applicable, and I would’ve loved even more depth on some of the more challenging situations (like how to pivot or deal with burnout). But overall, this is a sharp, energizing read that gives you the tools and the confidence to own your path (even when it’s messy).

Highly recommend for readers who like their career advice real, useful, and a little rebellious.

If only this had been a series of books rather than an attempt to lump everything into one. As much as she said she struggled to carve out time on weekends and force herself to write this, it could have been a better book if she had broken it down into 1-2 topics or experiences and left room for sequels for the others. I guess there is a push from her publisher or editor to cram it all into one book and hope for a bestseller to then publish a sequel. I thought the editing should have been much stronger, way too many parenthetical comments that added little to the text and repetition (accompanied with more parenthetical asides).

Disclosure. I received a copy from St. Martins Press via Netgalley with the hope but not requirement of writing a review. There is a lot to glean from the book and I made a lot of highlights. But the amount of lessons, along with all the snide parentheticals and gen-z writing style, was a put-off for me and I did not finish this book before its publishing.

Badan has a lot of self-awareness and an interesting albeit brief career (she’s still in her 40s). She’s not afraid to share her mistakes, her weaknesses, and regrets while also being very confident about her strengths and her advice to the reader. This memoir is sort of an A-Z of working from how to get a job, how to succeed and grow in that job, and how and when to leave that job. It would be too much information for someone just starting his/her career to remember on the first read, but very applicable for someone who may be a few years in and looking to navigate a challenge, seek other challenges, or find some other ways to improve their situation at the margin.

One particular practice stood out to me, and I adopted it: Badan lays out a set of career questions to ask yourself every 4-6 months, both big-picture and about your current role. Why am I here? What am I trying to learn? What does my boss want me to achieve here? What does success and failure look like here? Where do I want to go next and how far am I from that point? I created a document with the specific questions and a calendar reminder.

A frustrating aspect was the lack of personal connection. Through most of the book, it sounds like she’s married to her career, indeed she indicates that was her choice since college. How she navigates a personal life while apparently being on-call 24/7 is absent from the book. You only find out towards the end of the book that she navigated pregnancy and juggling a job with childcare, that she felt rather reluctant to share the obvious with her boss and gives advice on what she learned from that experience to others in the same space (I shared sections with my wife who was navigating pregnancy in a new job and she found it helpful). There’s also not a lot of book recommendations, it’s clear she gets wisdom from places but doesn’t cite many. (Also, who includes a playlist at the end of a book but doesn’t create that list on Spotify so that everyone can quickly subscribe to it?)

Her experience at Barstool was unique because Barstool itself is different from most any company and pushed a lot of boundaries, good and bad. Being a CEO was her first real management role and she learned plenty of small but seemingly obvious lessons like don’t accept everyone’s meeting invitation and then chair their meetings just because you’re the senior person in the room but also larger lessons about navigating different personalities and fighting to stay on-brand when Penn National Gaming buys you out. I think what’s left unsaid is that when you’re CEO of a company that’s riding a cultural and technological wave of new ways of consuming media combined with growing sports popularity you get more leeway than a CEO who is tasked with turning a struggling company around. I kind of hope that’s her challenge one day soon and she writes a book about that. (Seeing her answer career questions on Instagram, I've noticed she doesn't seem to exactly understand some of the questions-- which seem largely to come from young people in the consulting world, which she may be thankfully unfamiliar with.)

Would I work for her? Yes, I think she’d be a great boss. Anyone as self-aware as she is, willing to listen to feedback and admit that she doesn’t know everything is most likely a very good boss. She has high expectations and wants others to have the same (she writes that quiet quitting is quitting on yourself rather than the company) but will always expect more from herself than she does of others.

Would I like to edit her book? Yes, I think I could have trimmed it down about 50%, keeping just enough of her voice to make it hers but more of the lessons themselves.

In all, I give it 3 stars out of 5.

Unfortunately, I had to DNF this book at around the 30% mark - the writer's tone was just so very off from the content advertised. It felt more like self-promotion, and less like actual helpful career advice.

You know that friend who gives you the kick in the pants you need to get out of your feelings and into the actions that will make a difference? Badan is that friend. Woah, I needed this book. It had so many reminders and things that you think you know but haven't been committed to doing. That stops now! I can't read this book (and reread it) and keep sugarcoating things for myself. Thank you, Erika, for this boost! 4.7!

I appreciate the spirit of what Badan tried to do with this book and I did find some of the advice helpful and relevant. That said, there are a lot of topics and ideas that might not vibe well with someone's career choices or the speicific culture they work in. This is very much a book where you either take the advice or leave it, depending on your own situation. I personally would not follow some of the career advice in this book.

DNF @ 32%. Entirely contrived, not at all supportive career advice. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the free advance copy.

I really did not enjoy this. I did not think it was helpful and would not recommend it to other readers.

Thank you to St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review. I am not a huge non-fiction/self help reader, but this book seemed interesting to me as a college student approaching graduation. Badan uses stories of her career to propel the narrative forward as she gives advice on how to navigate the professional world. Her story is incredible and I greatly admire her work ethic and tenacity throughout her career journey. While I found there was some value in this book, it felt a bit repetitive throughout. The tidbits of advice (often in callout boxes or bolded) were insightful, but it truly felt like this book could have easily been 100-150 pages shorter. Overall, I felt it was a valuable read but perhaps just not for me!
Please note: I shortened this review on Goodreads to maintain a positive tone and removed notes for the publisher!

I do not typically read self help books like Nobody Cares About Your Career, but this was one of those books where the title caught me and the fact that the author was a female CEO at what one would assume would have been a male- run organization.

I am glad I picked it up. This book was great. The author sounded like me. There was no fancy language and I felt like it made me think more about what I wanted from a job and what I wanted my contributions to be based on what was important to ME. As a woman I found this book and her words so meaningful. I loved it and will read it again. I will also make sure it is. Book I share with my kids as they enter the “real world” after college