For anyone looking to write for a company in the tech industry, the HackerNoon Tech Writing Fellowship seeks to help tear down barriers of entry into the job market.
People spend so many years writing reports and essays for school assignments, yet they’re unable to find opportunities that take this experience into account. Only those with professional, real-world experience are considered. HackerNoon is changing this by giving writers the exact experience they need.
The HackerNoon Tech Writing Fellowship Explained
HackerNoon is a community of 15,000+ writers looking to share news and opinions about technology. Programming, cryptocurrency, and gaming are only a few topics that new writers can delve into. The Fellowship allows its members to focus on their niche, writing articles each week in order to gain experience and learn the secrets of great journalism.
Fellows will work with HackerNoon editors in writing new articles to be published on the HackerNoon website.
These up-and-coming writers will pitch articles, aiming to write a set amount per week on the topics they enjoy covering the most.
They’ll also meet with each other to discuss writing techniques and check up on progress. After a Fellow publishes 20 articles, they’ll be officially recognized as a Verified HackerNoon Writer, ready to make their mark on the journalism world!
Benefits of Joining the Writing Fellowship
As a Fellow, an aspiring writer will learn numerous ways to improve their writing and gain followers through their articles.
1 to 1 Mentorship: Fellows gain advice from editors with each article, ensuring they can keep up with the numerous demands of online journalism while also building valuable connections. With good use of this advice and experience, Fellows can amass thousands of readers on each of their articles.
Gain Experience with Remote Working Tools and Software: Fellows are given experience with various workplace tools, such as Slack, AHREFs, Trello, GSuite, and Notion.
Learn SEO Basics: The fellowship training focuses on keyword research, search intent, and on-page SEO.
Certification: After graduating from the Fellowship, you will receive a digital certificate you can add to your LinkedIn profile and resume. Further opportunities with HackerNoon will become available.
Certified writers will still be able to speak with their former team members.
Case Studies
Davis David, Data Science
Davis David is a writer formerly part of the HackerNoon Blogging Fellowship. He joined in order to gain knowledge on SEO and improve his writing skills. His time with the Fellowship both exceeded his expectations and led him towards new opportunities.
“After the Fellowship ended, I started receiving emails from different companies asking me to write articles in the areas of Data Science and Machine Learning. I have learned a lot from the Fellowship, especially SEO and how to find topics to write about.”
Jessica Truong, Cybersecurity
Jessica Truong was one of our cybersecurity blogging fellows. She joined in order to improve her portfolio and land a job in the cybersecurity space. Shortly after the fellowship, Jessica got a job as a security engineer and tech writer.
“The fellowship experience helped me with the writing part of the role! The company really liked the work that I did through the fellowship.”
Marc Magrini, Gaming
Marc Magrini is another former Fellow that found success from working with HackerNoon. He joined to gain the experience required to find stable jobs in writing. During his time writing articles on video games and technology, he eventually found a freelance position with a game journalism website.
He believes it was thanks to HackerNoon that he was able to obtain this position, and he continues to use what he learned from the Fellowship today.
Jack Boreham, Gaming
Jack is one of our most successful Blogging Fellows. When he started the fellowship, he was in the middle of his master’s degree at the University of Essex, while maintaining his personal blog, PixelPolitics.co.uk.
In less than 6 months, Jack built up a portfolio and received 3rd-party validation from a world-leading tech publication.
He learned the basics of on-page SEO optimization, internal backlink strategies, and content promotion.
Under a year after Jack graduated from the fellowship, he became the Editorial Director at Metaverse Insider!
“The fellowship exceeded my expectations, especially when I saw my hard work pay off (seeing my articles rank high and get hundreds of thousands of views)”
These are only a few examples of writers that found success thanks to the fellowship program.
The number of verified writers on HackerNoon continues to grow each year. The Fellowship seeks to ensure all writers can reach their potential. With what they’ve learned through work with editors and team members, Fellows can push forward into turning their writing skills into a full-on career.
Requirements
Those joining the HackerNoon Blogging Fellowship are expected to work with editors as they write articles.
Each week, Fellows will pitch a set amount of articles based on the topic they want to focus on. If these articles are accepted, writers will begin working on a draft in Google Docs, sharing it with the editors when complete to ensure it reads well.
After this, Fellows will submit the articles onto HackerNoon themselves, adding pictures and citations when necessary.
There is a minimum output of 2 articles a week. The editors of HackerNoon are flexible, and the Fellowship is for the benefit of the writers.
If a Fellow’s schedule changes or they simply can’t keep up with greater workloads, they should not hesitate to speak to their editors and work something out.
Additionally, members of the Fellowship are expected to meet in a bi-weekly seminar over Zoom. There, the team will discuss essential skills for making a career out of writing. These meetings are not required, but you should make it to the majority of them.
You will also meet with your mentor biweekly for a quick weekly check-in to answer questions and go over progress.
How to Join the HackerNoon Tech Writing Fellowship
The Fellowship will have very few spots open during each quarter of the year, so applying early is the best way to guarantee a spot.
Simply create an account with HackerNoon and then apply using this form:
We hope you consider joining the HackerNoon Blogging Fellowship!