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Comment by julianeon | Hacker News Reader

This is the age of social media. This person has hit the front page of HN twice now. That's a commercially valuable skill.

At this point, having proved that can do something commercially valuable a couple times now, I think they should run with it. Start a YouTube channel. Keep racking up views. Then, eventually, do partnerships and sponsorships, in addition to collecting AdSense money.

If you like to write or perform for other people, you can monetize that now. This person is good at it. They should continue.

View on HN

You think too much of HN.

Surely many of the kinds of companies this guy is applying to think the same?

As do many employers.

I expect many tech employers also think too much of HN, which is exactly the point being made here.

People think too much of it but also, somehow, far too little at the same time.

Agree. Tough crowd overall. And tougher comment section.

Truth. There's a reason that people say to never read the comments section of HN or YouTube.

I had a post here sit at #1 once for a day, I had 200k views from it. I think an ad would have been $2k? Not to bad I think

I’ve hit #1 multiple times. HN views are low-value and non-sticky, IME.

Sure I don't think you'll build a following just here if that's what you mean, but there is an audience. If you have the skill and technical knowledge to have articles hit the front page you will get a decent amount of views. Which is what i think this comment chain is talking about

> This is the age of social media. This person has hit the front page of HN twice now. That's a commercially valuable skill.

In general yes, wrt HN it's not; literally in this second post he bemoans that the first one didn't pay off for him.

As someone who’s hired many dev advocates, I definitely value the ability to turn mundane topics into posts that hit the HN front page. If they can do this about something as dull as failing interviews, imagine what they’d do with an actually interesting technical topic.

Failing interviews is a favorite topic for HN, not a "dull" one; this is not the only person who's made the front page about it, and certainly won't be the last. HN's audience contains a large group that believes "tech interviews are stupid and broken" and this is right up their alley.

I don't think it is a strong signal of an easy pivot to influencer-as-a-career.

Influence may be intentionally avoided by managers. Applicant should try the marketing team.

The job they were applying for was DevRel, literally one of the goals of many DevRel roles is getting traction on places like HN

I would actively avoid hiring someone with a major social media presence. Too risky.

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