
Ask HN: In what unexpected ways has writing a blog affected your career? - tcgv
There are several reasons for maintaining a personal tech blog, among them:<p>- Create a personal knowledge base<p>- Learn something yourself by teaching it<p>- Improve your writing skills<p>- Build a personal brand<p>Besides that, as someone who started maintaining a blog quite recently (9 months ago), I was curious in what (unexpected) ways writing a blog affected your career, in both positive and&#x2F;or negative ways. And if it didn&#x27;t, that would be interesting to know as well.
======
shrikant
I got my current job on the back of it!

I don't interview particularly well (interviews are a lot of about first
impressions, and I make a [ranging from poor to] indifferent first
impression), and especially used to struggle with interview exercises that
require you to think on your feet. For e.g., read this case study, present
your analysis of the client's requirements, and draw up a technical design,
all within about an hour.

During my interview process for my current employer, I had come across one
such exercise, and in the follow-up interview, was challenged on some of my
poorly thought through responses. I was a bit too exhausted then to play
games, and said outright that I struggle do that sort of thing well under time
pressure, especially one that's not representative of a real-life work
situation where we've usually got more time than an hour to analyse the
situation, prototype various approaches, and eventually arrive at a refined
solution after a few iterations of build-validate-redesign.

The interviewer then basically wanted to know how I could prove that I was
capable of structured thought, careful analysis, and reasonably cogent
writing. At this point I spoke about a few blog posts that I'd done, and he
wanted me to email links to them after the interview was done.

A few days later I got a call saying that they were happy to extend me an
offer.

I met the above chap who interviewed me some time later over a few drinks, and
he told me that it was the blog posts that had changed people's minds about
hiring me. I've been happily employed there for nearly 5 years since, so I'd
say it all worked out really well! (Although I did stop writing blog posts for
mostly laziness-related reasons...)

~~~
iillexial
Great story. Would you mind to share a link to your blog?

~~~
shrikant
Sure, didn't want to plug it unnecessarily :) I haven't updated it since I got
the job though, make what you will of that!

[http://tech.theswamp.in/](http://tech.theswamp.in/)

------
extremelearning
I found out that someone did their 4th year honours project focused solely on
one of my blog posts: [http://extremelearning.com.au/unreasonable-
effectiveness-of-...](http://extremelearning.com.au/unreasonable-
effectiveness-of-quasirandom-sequences/)

This discovery was quite surreal as I only found out months later, because
neither the student nor the lecturer contacted me at the time.

Also, despite being a math/IT guy working for many years in government, my
blog posts have mainly got the attention of graphical computing people in the
private sector (eg animation, game studios, digital imaging, etc). This has
meant that my work has made some (small) impact in industries beyond those I
have worked in or been formally trained in. This has been a nice surprise. It
has also markedly increased the breadth of my professional network to now
include practitioners and experts from a diverse set of industries.

Finally (like many technical people), although writing is a crucial skill in
mid-level management roles as well as consultancy, for most of my career I
have had a mental aversion to writing reports, and has been the cause of much
work stress.

However, after writing intermittently for many months on topics that I have
personally chosen, and on topics that I have some knowledge on, I have found
that this has had noticeable effects on both my confidence and capacity to
write reports in my day job. I can now write reports faster -- and with
considerably less anxiety.

And thus, between all these points, I believe that I can genuinely attribute
much of my recent career successes and opportunities to writing my blog.

;)

~~~
myridium
This is a really nice reply. I can imagine it. Thanks.

------
jstanier
I got a book deal!

I answered a whole bunch of questions over on a Show HN a while back if you're
interested:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22033129](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22033129)

I'm happy to answer any specific questions around this. My email's in my
profile, or you can reach me on Twitter (@jstanier).

~~~
tcgv
Thanks for the availability!

Took a look at your book's content table and it definitely resonates with my
current position, transitioning from being hands on developer to leading a
small, growing team of developers.

------
aprdm
I was kind of "famous" in the embedded system community in my home country...
I got a bunch of paid side projects from it, friends and job offers.

I never even considered any of the job offers as I was happy with my employer
and they were in other cities.. but.. I did get a friend to one of them and he
is still in the company (it has been 8 years now).

I don't blog anymore (has been 4 years :P ). I feel like I am super happy
where I am with my career and would rather do other things in my free time.

~~~
huanwin
That's very cool! Congrats on getting to a great place in your career.

I just started doing embedded work, and would love to read your blog if you're
open to sharing.

~~~
aprdm
It is in Portuguese unfortunately and I did abandon the embedded systems
industry.

------
CM30
Well, it's not really a personal blog, but the main website I run has been
responsible for at least two, maybe three of the full time jobs I've gotten so
far.

Also given it used WordPress and a few past jobs were based around WordPress
development, it also gave me the skills needed for those roles as well.

Plus practice with whatever other web development techniques I've needed to
practice over the years.

------
karinakarina
It made it easier for people to find me online. Not sure if that's a good
thing though.

When I'm interviewing, it helps showcase my writing skills and previous work.
A lot of potential employers will ask if for writing samples and if I have
experience in SEO/blog platforms. I usually direct them to my website/blog.

I also cover my interests and activities outside of work. I think it gives
them a better picture of who I am - activist, researcher, and taco enthusiast.

I didn't even start as a content writer and now, I write content for
Startpage's blog:
[https://www.startpage.com/blog/](https://www.startpage.com/blog/)

------
rsoto
A few of them:

\- I got a job on a new city

\- Some of my posts have been cited on thesis statements

\- I got new contacts and new projects through it

\- I've learned a few things that would not have been in my interest and that
I looked it up just to write a blog post

\- It somehow has become a relaxing activity

------
cbanek
I know it's not exactly a blog, but academic publishing in journals has been
interesting! It can get you invites to publish all sorts of other things. I
think in this way success begets success.

I've also anonymously written a few small blogs with a couple of popular
posts. What's amazed me is that sometimes a simple post with a question can
drive consistent views (1-2k/views a week consistently). It hasn't been about
the large numbers, but I have met a couple of people who have stumbled across
these posts which have turned out to be interesting friendships!

------
MaximumMadness
Personally, starting a newsletter/blog has been one of the most valuable
personal development experiences I've ever had. It's allowed me to:

\- Meet tons of smart and friendly experts in a field I might want to work in
some day

\- Gain a deeper understanding of what consistency and quality look like

\- Take my interest in my topic of choice (in my case, video games) to a whole
new level

The only drawback I can think of is the scope of it all. There's always so
much good content to write about, prioritizing and weighing personal vs public
interest isn't an easy task.

------
pknerd
Beside sharing knowledge, I was able to get my current job and freelance gigs
due to my blog which is 5+ years old.

------
DrNuke
It depends on the target, really: consumer blog or professional blog? Value
proposition and content seem very different to me... the former geared toward
entertainment or synthesis, the latter toward information or analysis?

~~~
tcgv
Any target really. Most of the comments so far are from professional/technical
blogs, but if you're maintaining a consumer blog for a personal endeavour I'd
be interested in knowing your experience as well.

~~~
DrNuke
I spammed enough over here in the last three months but it served me well to
calibrate, so thanks HN ehehe. My humble take is that indie influencers from
any niche and target audience generally follow each other on Twitter, so a
pool of styles / tones is available for direct mimicking while testing waters?

------
mattbgates
Oh boy, if you're ready to read it... I'll try to keep it brief, but it all
seems to tie in. After graduating high school, knowing it all, working
security for a few years, and going no where -- I asked for a raise and got a
penny, which led me to go to college on company dime. In other words, I'd do
my job, but now I fill the majority of my time up with school.

Off to college... wanting to make something more of myself, and as a former PC
gamer-addict, and self-taught programmer, I wanted nothing to do with
computers anymore. So I went opposite and studied psychology, really enjoyed
it, and graduated with a degree in it. During my time there though, save for a
year of taking off from work completely which was awesome, I became fascinated
with why people go to work, why we do what we do, and how to make the
workplace better, seeing and experiencing all that was wrong with it.

Graduated college... went to Israel for a year, teach English, and this
company had a website they had "been working on for 2 years" and there was
nothing there. At the time, I was just looking for something more to do other
than teaching, so I volunteered to build their website and started learning
more about web design and development and really enjoyed it. I could see
myself doing this. My year is up.. come back home to student loans... apply to
every job that requires a college degree. And I get nothing.

I remember as they charged my card coming back home on the plane, for an
overweight bag, which took $65 from me, leaving me with $10 in my bank
account. Meanwhile, it's been a month and one of my payments is coming up...
like $60 was due, so it wasn't too bad. I had a week to get a job and get
something into that bank account. I applied across the boards and came across
a programming job, visual basic 6.0 fixing bugs and supporting an app that
well.. VB6 has been a long-extinct beast, but I knew it from when I taught
myself programming at 12. Long story short.... tyrant boss, but it taught me
everything I knew and prepared me for programming in the "real world". I
eventually passed over a bribe for a lesser paying job, but that catapulted me
into the field of web design and web development professionally.

And now I've caught you up. So where does my website,
[https://confessionsoftheprofessions.com](https://confessionsoftheprofessions.com)
come into play? So I studied some industrial-organizational psychology and
social pscyhology course, more than just intro, and that's where I wanted to
go, but unfortunately, no one was hiring someone with a bachelors and like I
said: $10 in my bank account with student loans due. I had to get back to
work. And eventually just saw more ROI in the experience of work than going
back for a college degree. I've been in the field over 10 years. I have looked
at the salary I'd be making if I had went after the career I wanted and it
would've yielded slightly less than what I'm making now -- which is nothing to
brag about at all. Keeps me paid enough but under the radar of not being the
first person they look at when they need to start cutting salary. But also,
considering the cost of college nowadays.. and the amount of credits I'd need
for the program I'd want to take for the career I might have a chance to get
into? Yeah.. absolutely no motivation. Knd of glad all this happened the way
it did too. If I had been in that job sector, I would be out of work right
now.

Confessions of the Professions was a blog that came to me one day a little
over 7 years ago now when I walked into a bank and saw a teller, and for the
first time in my life, I was working two jobs, making nearly a 6 digit figure
a year, and sending everything full force at my student loans, paying them off
in about 2 or 3 years. Of course, the IRS caught up with me, as I didn't
report the job so I could keep the cash and pay it off. To report both jobs
would have taken too much from that I would have just been working for free
for the government, who'd be taking my entire second paycheck. Eventually,
they did. But anyways, that's for another topic. I wondered what that teller
of the bank saw: she sees what EVERYONE makes. She saw what I was making at
the time, which was probably double or triple her paycheck. And they certainly
are nicer to you when you have more of your money in their bank. So what does
she get to see on the other side of the screen?

And so... the idea was born: I wanted to hear about what people were doing at
work, what their lives were like, if they even liked their jobs. I would
listen to my friends and family, take down all their stories, and that's where
A LOT of my first few hundred articles came from -- just listening and telling
people's stories. The site has since evolved into more than that, but it kept
me connected to my psychology field. Of course, I couldn't write all of these
stories, so I opened up the blog and started soliciting for guest articles.
And while I spent a pretty penny investing in articles in the beginning and
making a lot of people on Fiverr very happy, I am happy to say I did that only
the first year and never have needed to do it again. The website keeps me busy
and there is only so much I can do since it's technically a hobby site that I
can only dedicate about an hour a day.

It also has other benefits: it has taught me about web design. It has taught
me how to write better. It has taught me how to write for an audience that I
could not see. The website got so popular in its heyday and was receiving
around 100,000 visitors a month. Maybe not a lot to some of you, but I had
never advertised the website--all organic traffic. Today, the website is still
going strong, but has settled to around 30,000 to 40,000 visitors a month,
though the quarantine has pushed that number up a bit more -- because what
does my website focus on? A lot of things that are job and career related and
have to do with making money.

Two of the biggest advantages that I hadn't even foreseen was starting it with
passion and without thinking about the money aspect. Not making it for money
is was has kept it going. I would keep it going for free, though having help
to pay the bill to keep it running does help. Eventually, I would figure out
how to monetize it to an extent, and to this day, it has pulled in around
$1,000 a year, on average. Again, not much by any of your standards, and not
enough to quit my day job, but enough to let me know that people validate the
idea of it by emailing me new and unique articles. I publish for free and make
most of the money by charging people a rush fee on it, or to slap someone's
text ad on there every so often. Or some companies will pay you to publish
articles, which has definitely helped cover costs of the server. But the ads I
put on it do keep a little something coming in.

The other advantage was that before this website, I would have never thought I
would be talking to people in India, Australia, South America, Phillipines,
Canada, Brazil, Ireland, etc. While I can't say I've "benefitted" from
anything personally, it has been awesome to see my website validated by
universities, big corporations, law firms, and more. While there are so many
other places to publish... my fans do see it as a type of central hub of
articles for the workplace. The website is definitely a place that many
freelancers and beginner writers like to submit their articles, so that keeps
everything fresh.

I have been publishing non-stop between one to three articles per day, five
days a week, fifty-two weeks a year. Every week, I've got to go through about
10-20 emails and often get around 25-50 articles per month. I have written a
lot of articles because my co-workers, my boss, and the job itself never stops
providing me with things to write about. I write a lot about my experiences
which are really never ending as long as I'm alive. I wrote about my
interviewer's weak handshake... and walking in really wanting the job, but
walking out, not really caring anymore. That article actually went viral. Feel
free to read it: [https://confessionsoftheprofessions.com/power-of-the-
handsha...](https://confessionsoftheprofessions.com/power-of-the-handshake/)

The website helps me get out a lot of my own thoughts about my experiences in
the corporate world, as a college graduate, who came from working dead-end
jobs without a college degree to working dead-end jobs with a college degree,
but "dead-end" in the corporate world, meaning I'm kept where I am at
purposely, but -- it has never stopped me from making the salary I want. It
keeps me connected to the web, keeps me connected to a huge part of what makes
us human: going to work. The website continues to inspire me and many others
who come across it. The times I've wanted to give up on it, just let it go,
pay for it--but no longer post, well... the emails have never stopped since...
technically day one. So as long as people keep it going, they will keep me
going.

As for how it has helped my career, well... I can't say whether it has
affected it directly or indirectly, but it definitely has influenced me in my
career.

~~~
tcgv
Great story. Thanks for sharing!

