The way the founding batch of BST started understanding the concepts of personal branding and professional visibility right from the first week of college.
Starting college is not just about attending lectures, programming, and exams. It is also about making new friends, learning new things and planning for the future career.
For the first batch of Bosscoder School of Technology (BST), it also meant getting to know LinkedIn and being professionally visible right from the beginning.
After the Orientation Week, the students started sharing their experiences on LinkedIn. They shared about the sessions they attended and what they learned from industry experts at BST during their first days at college.
It was a small step but the start of a great journey of being professionally visible even before they got their first job.
Why LinkedIn is Important for Engineering Students?
Most engineering students usually consider using LinkedIn once they start thinking about internships or placements.
However, a professional portfolio can be started much earlier in life.
While in college, students can use LinkedIn to highlight:
- Projects and technical skills
- Internships and achievements
- Learning experiences
- Events and competitions
- Professional interests
- Contacts with industry professionals
Rather than creating a professional profile at the last minute before graduating, students can start documenting their growth process from the beginning of their engineering journey.
Making College Experiences Into Professional Stories
During the Orientation Week at Bosscoder School of Technology, the students had several experiences to learn from and share.
The first batch had the opportunity to connect with professionals in the industry such as Sunil Bhatia, Engineering Leader at Google, Dr. Aloknath De, Former CTO of Samsung R&D Institute India, and Vivek Shah, Vice President at JioHotstar.
Students were also engaged in communication workshops, interactions with the faculty, campus-related experiences, and others.
Certain experiences were even made into LinkedIn stories.
This was how a straightforward process was created:
Experience → Reflect → Share → Connect
All a student needs is to turn an industry interaction, project, or campus experience into a professional story by sharing lessons from the experience.
Building a Professional Network From Day One
LinkedIn is not just a means to share accomplishments. It can also be used by students to find professionals, companies, technologies and career opportunities.
An engineering student can use LinkedIn to:
- Connect professionals and alumni
- Follow technology leaders and top tech companies
- Find out about various careers
- Discover internships and other opportunities
- Showcase projects and technical skills
Early commencement will give students more time to make their professional connections.
Building a Professional Identity Over Time
It is not about making posts all the time or being an influencer when doing personal branding.
For students, it is just about reflecting their progress and development.
A first-year student might start with an Orientation Week post. In the future, the same profile may contain a lot of projects, internships, technical articles, participation in different competitions and other things that will demonstrate their professional development.
This strategy is also linked to the recommendation given by Sunil Bhatia during BST's Orientation Week, when he advised students to make their professional accomplishments visible via platforms like LinkedIn, blogging and GitHub.
Starting Small, Building Over Four Years
Professional branding does not happen overnight.
An engineering student may choose to build from these small steps:
Build → Learn → Share → Connect
Over four years, these small things can turn into a valuable professional story.
In the case of the first batch of Bosscoder School of Technology, today’s post on LinkedIn can be about their very first week at college. In the future, these accounts can highlight the projects, internships, research, and other professional achievements.
This is the more important idea behind starting early: students don’t have to wait till they graduate to building their professional identity.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Q1. Why should engineering students start using LinkedIn in college?
By doing so, students will be able to slowly start building a professional profile about themselves by mentioning their projects, accomplishments, and learning experiences.
Q2. How can students build a professional brand on LinkedIn?
Students can complete their profiles, share genuine learning experiences, showcase projects and connect with professionals in their areas of interest.
Q3. What can engineering students share on LinkedIn?
Engineering Students can share their projects, technical knowledge, internships, competitions, achievements, events and any valuable learning experience gained in college.
Q4. How did Bosscoder School of Technology students use LinkedIn?
Students belonging to the first year of BST documented their orientation week experiences through the various sessions, industry interactions and learning from the first few days of college.
Q5. How can LinkedIn help students before placements?
LinkedIn can be helpful for students in showcasing their work, discovering opportunities, learning from professionals and developing a professional network before the placement season.
