Social Media

[FlashSet]

Through a forum search I couldn't find much mention of Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter since 2010 or 2011. As technology can change so drastically it seems only appropriate to ask everyone how they have used social media in 2013. I am mostly curious how fellow engineers use social media in a professional setting, or how your firm uses it.

Personally, I use Facebook to connect with family, friends, and some colleagues at my age group. I do not post things on Facebook, and I am unsearchable. My page is extremely boring. I generally only use Facebook as a way to stay connected to the good friends that I do not talk to on a regular basis.

Twitter I use to follow US and world news sources, engineering news, several big name civil engineering companies, and the Mars rover. I do not post (tweet) things on twitter; I have nothing to say to my meager 7 followers. I do find twitter to be an amazing source of information at certain times (as Hurricane Sandy was making landfall, after the Boston Marathon Bombing, etc), other times it seems like a regurgitated wasteland.

Now I get to the primary reason for writing this post: LinkedIn. I think LinkedIn has great potential, I just haven't witness it being used in engineering. Even though my LinkedIn profile is completely open to the public (unlike Facebook) I keep the professional level by not connecting with anyone that I have not worked on an engineering project with (my wife is still bitter that I declined her on LinkedIn). I keep my LinkedIn profile up-to-date. I don't have 800 connections (because of the rule I mentioned earlier), but I have a good sized following. I have noticed many people on LinkedIn with recommendations and endorsements; do these provide any benefit?

In summary, do you use social media? Do you see benefits to the engineering field through the use of social media?

 

[Sparweb]

Linkedin helped a "little bit" when changing jobs last year. That said, the person I really needed to contact at the time was a member of Eng-Tips who already knew me. By suddenly meeting him in person, I made a sufficiently strong impression that the interview and new job followed in due course. (I'm also a lucky ba***rd). During the job search process I did link-in with other people that I was meeting or interviewing with, but we corresponded by e-mail/phone anyway. There are only 2 Linkedin connections that I regularly correspond with - an Eng-tips friend I've had since before LI existed, and a high-school friend. I also feel the need to declare my opinion that the forums on Linkedin are worthless. About 5% of the discussion group postings are worth reading IMHO. It just doesn't compare to the community at Eng-Tips.


STF

 

[DistCoop]

I use LinkedIn, but don't know that I've seen any direct benefits. I use it to follow companies (job listings, news, etc) that I could ever see myself interested in working for. I also only "friend" people I've ever worked with so that my profile is out there and, just maybe, some dream company will see and like my experience. Primarily I use it as a place to keep track of any skills, projects, tasks, etc in a convenient location for the next time I need to update my resume.

My thought is that it's probably not worth much, but it takes next to no time to set up and maintain and it's possible an old acquaintance I met at that one meeting years ago remembers me and has an interesting job offer.

Otherwise, I keep my Facebook on public lock down and don't use any other social media.

 

[MikeHalloran]

I don't grok Twitter.
I use Facebook to keep up with family and friends, as you do.

I've used LinkedIn to reconnect with old work friends, mostly just to say I'm still alive. I usually decline to link with strangers.

Once upon a time, I thought LI would be a good way to connect with recruiters.
As you know, most of LI is befouled with recruiter spam, mostly posted by bottom feeders who don't actually do much work beyond posting links to Monster et al. We have been fairly successful in keeping them out of our LI group by strict enforcement of a simple rule.

I have received a few phone calls from alleged recruiters who found me via LinkedIn. The last one was one of those nasty behavioral interviews where they act all friendly and nice, but ask questions that are designed to eliminate you from further consideration. First 'wrong' answer, and they can't wait to get off the line. You can hear them shuffling the script.
If any real, professional level, professional recruiters are using LinkedIn, they haven't found me there.

We are still trying to figure out what, if any, value a LI group has in engineering. So far we've attracted mostly technical questions from students, and complaints of difficulty getting into E-T.

Did you feel any need for social networking before LI existed?



Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA

 

[DRWeig]

LinkedIn is good for me to keep up with old colleagues and friends as they move about from job to job. I've landed a couple of contracts by way of messaging them within LI when I see they have changed to a job with a company that might need my services. BUT, they're old friends anyway. It's just a good way to find them.

Facebook is family and a few select friends, nothing more. We share our pics and stuff. When business associates send me Facebook requests, I do advise them that my Facebook page is strictly family.

Twitter is a pain in the tail. I have completely de-twitterized myself. I turned off text messaging too.

Sum: LinkedIn is an OK resource. If I were unemployed or unhappily employed and looking for a job, you can bet I'd be in touch with all the folks in my LI contact list. When I see my contacts moving around, I'll hit them up for work if it looks promising. If work is slow, I might hit them all up.

If you're interested, here's a take on my opinion of marketing through the social media in the Language/Grammar Skills forum:

http://eng-tips.com/viewthread.cfm?qid=341591

Best to you,

Goober Dave

Haven't see the forum policies? Do so now: Forum Policies

 

[rakuday]

I do not link with strangers, but I search for old friends and re-establish the contacts with them, that way LI has really helped me.

Getting back to the original question, about the recommendations, I truly don’t believe in them. One can get high recommendations from friends and that might not be true. I know of a few people who got very good recommendations from their ex-colleagues and most of them are false information.

The up side of LI is for a new recruiter, they can verify the credentials of the recruit and check if the person was really employed where they claim to be. Earlier days people used to claim working for big names in the industry without even stepping into the gate, these were only discovered when our company used background verification. But with LI atleast the initial level of scrutinization can be done effortlessly.

Apart from these, there are groups (forums) in LI where experts answer questions posted by other members. This sometimes is informative.

 

[ivymike]

I use FB and LI but not twitter. I don't find the LI discussion groups to be completely useless, I've certainly learned some important things there (especially w/r/t regional laws). I've met some people in person who I initally met through LI, and that has so far all been good. I haven't been job hunting since before LI was created, so I can't say whether it'd help..but I suspect it would.

 

[moltenmetal]

LI I do use for business- to debate issues, hear news and network. Unless you want to be in violation of the terms of use of their site, you do not link with people you don't know. You can send and receive messages without forming a connection. Can't comment on its usefulness for finding work, but do see it full of recruiter spam.

FB is for friends and family- and more and more, it's become something like a big snapshot album combined with a blog or diary (neither of which I've ever been interested in, but now with kids is a great way to look back.) It is a strictly no-work zone. The only work related folks I have on there are former colleagues who I'm still friends with. Most professionals I know do the same. Finally, following Google+'s lead, FB allows you to have groups of friends, so you can filter who sees what- and what you see from whom in your feed as well. But you really need to know their rules, and most people don't. If you or someone else "tags" a person in a photo, any of that person's friends - or whoever THEY permit to see photos of them per their privacy settings rather than yours, can view not only the photo itself but likely also the whole album it is in. Security has always been an afterthought as far as FB is concerned. It's best to treat everything you say and otherwise post there as if it were carved forever in stone on display in a public place.

Twitter is of no interest to me.