I am a post graduate engineering student(Computer Science). I have only one conference (not very good) publication in my name as a first author. One of my seniors labmate, worked on a very good research project a few months ago and wrote a paper. I have been approached by him to generate a few more results for his paper and proof reading and extending his paper with literature survey and elaborative explaination of results. I have been offered co-authorship(2nd author) for this paper. Now, though I can dedicate some time to do that work, but is accepting 2nd authorship worth.
I would like to ask in general as well, that is it worth to put effort in papers and get 2nd authorship given that the paper is not related to my primary area of research or rather work and dedicate time on one's own research and get papers as a first author ?
Note: I have seen that in academia (where I want to go), usually advertisements call for applications from people having at least X no of papers as first author.