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Ask HN: Blogging to get contracting/job leads?

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Ask HN: Blogging to get contracting/job leads?

#1
How many of you have received contracting or job leads purely from blogs/articles you've written? What sort of posts were they, and for what sort of client? Are they heavily domain-specific, or more broad in nature? How valuable is this as a source of leads vs. other means (e.g. in-person networking, referrals by past clients, etc.). Do you have other advice here?

My own short story stolen from a co-worker: they had written an article on basic vagrant setup of popular open-source online school software (think edX, Canvas, etc.). This had eventually resulted in a contact by an agency doing work on that platform, who needed contract hours. I was always struck by how relatively "cheap" an ad this article was, and liked that it did provide value in the dev community.

Re: Ask HN: Blogging to get contracting/job leads?

#2
I've gotten freelance gigs based on my work for my side project, a newsletter called Tedium (https://tedium.co/), though my situation may be different because I'm in this to be a writer rather than a more technical employee.

I will say, however, that writing is one of those things that works better if you do it a whole lot rather than once in a while. Stay in practice. And be willing to syndicate your thoughts beyond your own website. Your goal is to spread ideas—spread them wide.

Re: Ask HN: Blogging to get contracting/job leads?

#3
I think blogging shows you know how to think — one, if not the main, of the hiring qualities I assume employers look for.

All in all, blogging is a win-win. You write, first and foremost, for you and for your growth. If it helps others or gets you leads, all the better.

Re: Ask HN: Blogging to get contracting/job leads?

#4
Two lifetimes ago, I was running a game dev company [0]. As part of that, I did some research about client-side prediction for twitch games. Ended up not making such a game, but I wrote a few articles with the results of my research [1]. Over time, and to my surprise, they became one of the three often cited articles about the topic, the other two being the Valve wiki and Gaffer on Games.

One lifetime ago, I was working at Google Zürich. I was at my fourth year there and I was not really looking for a new opportunity. But a recruiter from Improbable [2] found me thanks to these articles, because client-side prediction knowledge is very relevant to a company making a massively multiplayer, massive-scale simulation platform. He somehow convinced me to leave the comfort of Google Zürich for the crazy adventure of Improbable in London, at a time that we were ~30 people, had no investors, and no product, only some really cool tech.

I made the jump and never looked back. And my bet has paid off [3] immensely [4] :) All thanks to these four blog posts.

[0] http://www.mysterystudio.com

[1] http://www.gabrielgambetta.com/client-server-game-architectu...

[2] https://improbable.io

[3] https://www.uktech.news/need-to-know-2/everything-you-need-t...

[4] https://www.mcvuk.com/business/netease-signs-partnership-wit...

Re: Ask HN: Blogging to get contracting/job leads?

#5
I just started to write on my own personal blog (http://cjhudson.com/blog/) mainly to share articles and ideas to solutions in Sales Ops/Salesforce that I've faced. For me, it's probably too early to know if I would get contacted regarding a job or contracting offers, however - it can act as an online resume of things that I have done.

If you enjoy writing and sharing ideas, it couldn't hurt to put yourself out there not only on a personal site but as u/shortformblog pointed out, spread them to other online communities as well.

Re: Ask HN: Blogging to get contracting/job leads?

#6
I know of someone who regularly receives work simply from providing solutions on different specialized board (for instance voip-info). I think boards, and other places would be a better alternative to starting your own blog. You can at least leverage their online reputations with search engines.

Re: Ask HN: Blogging to get contracting/job leads?

#7
I’ve received some consulting gigs, more on the management or tech lead side, thanks to articles such as “One on one meetings are underrated whereas group meetings waste time.”

http://www.smashcompany.com/business/one-on-one-meetings-are...

I think this kind of writing is important. It helps to communicate to the world who are, and what you focus on. Even when such writing doesn’t directly lead to a gig, I think it helps build your reputation in the long run.

Re: Ask HN: Blogging to get contracting/job leads?

#8
I've written a bunch of tech blog posts over the years over a bunch of different topics, with the main intent of being able to actually show employers that I'm able to produce rather than only talk about it. It's worked out for me, and through cycles, I get a few hundred views per day through search engines on all the different posts.

The one thing I will say is that there are stories out there like your co-worker's or some others here are those that write articles and strike it off super rich with new job opportunities or contract work. Plenty, the vast majority, don't make it that far. So before you start writing articles, make sure you want to do that because you like the topics and projects rather than only trying to put yourself out there.

Re: Ask HN: Blogging to get contracting/job leads?

#9
As a potential client, it is very valuable to me. I have reached out to a few people based on their blog posts. It doesn't always convert in an opportunity but it does give you a good advantage and edge. Plus it is not a lot of work if you really think about it. It just comes down to your ability to put your thoughts and knowledge into words. It does help.

Re: Ask HN: Blogging to get contracting/job leads?

#10
Well that is one of the major use cases for blogging.

Consider the company tech blog. Some are very forthright that the blog is a recruiting tool, like cloudflare. Some are more subtle about it, like gocardless.

Just be careful that you don't become one of the folks that blogs because you like the sound of your own voice.

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