LinkedIn for Engineers

Social Media has changed the landscape of marketing. Younger generations are effectively using snapchat, Instagram, and tiktok to promote their skills, and art, right from the comfort of their bedroom. New York Post took a look at how teens are getting rich using tiktok.

Meanwhile, in a parallel universe, many over-qualified, yet underpaid engineers are stuck with their extremely challenging design and review tasks, spending their precious time in boring meetings with colleagues and managers. What they ignore (intentional or not) is the very interesting platform they have: LinkedIn. In this post, I would like to write about my personal and professional development through LinkedIn for Engineers.

Engineering Your Success

Engineers are obsessed with details. Often times they dive so deep into their problems and forget about the big picture. They develop the best vehicles, space crafts, computer software, and of course, social media platforms that they rarely use themselves.

My background, by degree, is civil engineering with focus on structural evaluation and testing. I know, it doesn’t sound super fancy in the age of Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, and Robotics. My industry has been far from digital for many many years, and this has made many professionals in this field to adapt. Our networking skills remain as classic and vintage as our own industry.

Most of them spend little to nothing on networking and building their network. Their valuable skills remain unnoticed or sometime even wasted simply because they spend 0 minute promoting them. For a few years, I was in the same loop of ignoring Online Networking myself. I was highly qualified, graduated from one of the best engineering schools in Canada (McGill University). But my network was very limited, given the fact that I was an immigrant, and very shy Read about my immigration story here).

and then I started in LinkedIn

The first time I really gave LinkedIn a try was back in 2015-2016. Back then I was still doing my boring engineering task at my former employer. I tried to change a few things, and inject some fresh blood. But that was not received very well. Anyway. I started by posting brief notes and articles, and sharing it with my very limited network of approximately 160 people. But in fact, 100 people were mainly my friends, who happened to have exactly the same problem !

LinkedIn For Engineers

How can LinkedIn Help Engineers?

Engineers are often too disciplined. They follow certain protocols and procedures in their personal and professional conduct. This is largely a side effect of looking into codes and guidelines for many years. We are accustomed to overthinking everything that we often fail to act. Here is how LinkedIn can help Engineers rebuild confidence and trust.

1- Start a Conversation

We have spent so many years in engineering schools and engineering offices to develop certain skills. Most of them are too technical we cannot even explain to our colleagues. These skills might be very useful for other engineers.

For a long time, I thought I have nothing to share with others. It is just the same boring stuff in the books and codes. But I was wrong. Since I started writing about things I had learned in my school years and also through self-studying. The short piece that you share on LinkedIn post can help another engineer in India. What you do for optimizing your busy schedule in Canada might equally work for someone in Singapore.

Most of keep telling ourselves that others will learn these through their own managers, and HR. But in fact, LinkedIn Posts can go far beyond this. You can start changing the culture. Don’t be afraid. If you have received an engineering degree from a reputable school, you will be qualified enough to share your own story with the world. Let the world tell you!

2- Contribute and Share

We learn to write excellent technical papers, lengthy articles, and prepare complex analytical modeling and simulations. However, we often fail in writing them in Layman’s terms. (Plain English)

If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.

Albert Einstein

Discussing complex problems in plain English helps you better understand the topic. It can also help others contribute to your thought process. As long as you keep them in your brain, no one else will know what you are thinking about. If you have a passion, start talking about them. If you are passionate about concrete, then give it a try. You will be surprised to see so many other professionals in the world are also interested in the same topic.

Sharing is caring. If you are concerned about global warming, the Keystone Pipeline in Canada, Autonomous vehicles, etc., and you read about them on journals, and in the internet, simply share it. Sharing helps you connect with like-minded professionals, and better critics. LinkedIn helps Engineers with a cost-effective and extremely efficient tool to present their contributions to their field of expertise.

3- Connect with People

If you are shy or an introvert, and don’t know how to connect with people, LinkedIn gives you a great tool. If you follow steps 1 and 2, you will find many people interested in what you do. A common ground is a great way to start a professional relationship.

When I talk to my friends, I see they only use LinkedIn as an inbound platform. They only go outbound when … you know, they have lost their job. While inbound is also great, it is the reaching out before the trouble that will help you most. Most people delay connecting with the manager they want to work with until it is too late.

You can use LinkedIn to connect with people. The best time to connect is when they don’t need you, and when you don’t need them. If you need them, and you don’t know them, how are you going to ask for their time? How on earth can you convince a busy project manager to take his chances with you? That being said, it is never too late.

4- Celebrate the Moments

We can’t talk to everyone in our network on a daily basis. A good time to re-connect with our network is when they share a success story. When they are celebrating another year in their position, a simple congratulation note can go a very long way.

5- LinkedIn for Business Owners

LinkedIn is a great B2B platform. It provides great tools such as sales navigator for social selling. It is not my intention to promote LinkedIn for business in this post, but since it has helped myself and my company in the past, I would like to share this little step with you as well. Business Owners can promote their brand and offerings through LinkedIn Company Page. Here is a link to my own company, FPrimeC Solutions.

Everything starts from Zero. Once you start your page, you want to keep sharing your notes, posts, products in your page. Finding the first few followers is always tough. Simply reach out to your friends, and ask them for a favor. In exchange, you can take them for coffee. The truth is that all of us have a friend that has a friends that knows someone. This is the golden rule. Use your network of friends and colleagues wisely.

6- Build A Personal Brand

If you are good at something, never do it for free!

Joker, The dark knight, Christopher Nolan

LinkedIn is a great place to create content, share content, and connect with professionals around the globe. Not a long time ago, we had to fly long distances (we might miss them right now in the covid era), participate in conferences and tradeshows. Now we are able to connect and chat with anyone in a few minutes.

If you want to promote your personal brand, LinkedIn is the best place to start. It comes with great analytics, and you can always track who is looking into your profile. This way, you can enhance your visibility in the global community. If you have a recent publication, share it with your network. This will help strengthen your position in your area of expertise.