Fewer and fewer U.S. students are pursuing careers in engineering, and many don’t even know what engineers actually do.
As more people retire from engineering jobs, the U.S. is facing a massive shortage in the pipeline of new engineers able to fill their jobs and the many other engineering jobs that will be needed in the future.
The “Be An Engineer” initiative was created to inspire more teens to pursue careers in engineering, and it was the first time ExxonMobil had ever spoken directly to teens. We launched the campaign by giving teens a glimpse of what a world without engineers would look like – and what a lame world it is.
As #BeAnEngineer started getting traction in social conversations, we expanded the content being posted to show how diverse and multi-disciplinary the field was. As one engineer told us when we were developing the campaign strategy, if you think of something that you’re passionate about and put the word “engineer” after it, that job probably already exists – or it will someday.
To get parents, universities and the engineering community behind the initiative, we created a TV spot featuring kids who were already interested in engineering. Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak and former Xerox CEO Ursula Burns were some of the notable engineers who were excited to join the effort.
In the first three weeks of the campaign, the BeAnEngineer tumblr had 1,266,911 unique visitors and 2,431,400 total views. Post-campaign research revealed that not only did the campaign resonate with teens, it performed strongest with girls, a historically underrepresented group in engineering. And it did indeed inspire teens (+52%) to consider engineering as a profession, with girls being the most inspired (+94%).