Become a Power Networker in LinkedIn and Beyond in Your Engineering Career

Anthony Fasano posted 2015-03-24

The following is a summary of Episode 51 of my podcast, The Engineering Career Coach (TECC) Podcast. I will summarize the main points in this post; however, you can also listen to the show through the website or by subscribing on iTunes. I offer a career-changing tip at the end of each podcast session.

In this session of The Engineering Career Coach (TECC) Podcast, I interview Sanjay Gupta who has thousands of LinkedIn connections and is a true networker. He oversees the Linking Construction LinkedIn Group with over 140,000 members.  In this interview he describes his powerful approach to networking.

Here are the six strategies Gupta gave to become a successful networker:

  1. Focus on the relationship above all else. Gupta uses special days including holidays and birthdays as a way to follow up with people. Do not underestimate your connections with people, even if they are young, you never know, you may be connecting with people that might be running their companies in the future.
  2. Meet people daily and apply the three-pronged approach.
    1. Build LinkedIn network effectively.
    2. Focus on getting to know the people that you work with every day.
    3. Leverage your alumni association.
  3. Build your credibility through your networking approach. Be responsive to people but don’t overwhelm them with correspondence.
  4. Connect people where it makes sense. Connect people that will benefit from the connection. Connecting people is a skill, and one that will not only help the people you connect, but you will see positive results in your life for facilitating relationships.
  5. Use your network positively to help other people. If you face a problem or challenging situation, try to use what you have learned to help people with similar problems through your network.
  6. Attend live events when possible. When people get together at events, amazing things can happen, relationships are created, and businesses are born.  Online networking is good, but make it a point to network in person as much as possible too.

Please share some of your networking strategies below.

Anthony Fasano, PE, author of Engineer Your Own Success, found success as an engineer at a very early age and now writes and podcasts to help other engineers do the same. Visit Anthony’s website at EngineeringCareerCoach.com to access all of the free engineering career resources he has created to help engineers succeed.