Choosing Engineering Webinars for Skill Gaps: A PE’s Guide to Learning New Skills

choosing engineering webinars for skill gapsWritten by: Jordan Ellis, PE
Published: November 18, 2025

I’m a professional engineer with over 15 years. Every year, I review the professional development plans for my team. And every year, I see the same thing: a random list of “PDH-eligible” webinars, all chosen in the last quarter to meet a compliance deadline.

Let’s be blunt: that’s not a training plan. It’s a “check-the-box” scramble. And it’s a massive, wasted opportunity.

In our field, your skills are your most valuable asset. But those skills have a shelf life. The engineering tech of today – from AI-driven design to new manufacturing processes – is moving so fast that if you’re not actively learning, you’re falling behind. You’re developing a skills gap.

A skills gap isn’t just a personal problem; it’s a business risk. It’s the reason you lose a bid, the root cause of a costly project error, or the new safety or cybersecurity protocol you don’t know how to implement.

As a senior PE, I’ve stopped “collecting PDHs.” I now hunt for specific training to fill specific gaps. This is the difference between a rookie and a veteran. Here’s my practical process for choosing engineering webinars for skill gaps.

Related articles: Free Live Webinars for Professional Engineers.

What’s Your Real Skills Gap? (Hint: It’s Not “I Need 10 PDHs”)

You can’t fix a problem you haven’t defined. Before you even think about a webinar, you have to do a brutally honest assessment. A skills gap is the “delta” between the skills you have and the skills you need to win the next project or get the next promotion.

I find my team’s (and my own) skills gap in three places.

  1. The Performance Review (Your Career Gap): Look at your career goals. Do you want to move into engineering management? If so, you have a skills gap in finance, leadership, and contract law. Stop taking technical webinars on fluid dynamics. Your professional development plan should be 80% management and 20% technical.
  2. The Project Post-Mortem (Your Technical Gap): This is my gold mine. I sit my team down after every major project. Where did we bleed money? Why did we get so many RFIs? Was it a breakdown in problem solving? A missed safety compliance issue? A lack of understanding of new materials? That is your skills gap. That’s the exact webinar you need to find.
  3. The “Lost Bid” Analysis (Your Market Gap): This one hurts, but it’s critical. We recently lost a bid for a major industrial plant. Why? The client required certifications in lean manufacturing and industrial security protocols. We didn’t have it. That’s a massive, expensive skills gap. You can bet my team’s next training plans included webinars on those exact topics.

How to Choose an Engineering Webinar to Fill That Gap

Now that you know the problem (e.g., “Our mechanical engineers are weak in ASME Y14.5”), you can find the solution. Stop Googling “free PDH.” Start Googling “advanced ASME Y14.5 webinar” or “ASME mechanical code training.”

The price of the webinar is the least important factor. The value is all that matters. A $200 webinar that closes a skills gap and helps you win a $2 million project is the biggest bargain you’ll ever find.

Here are my criteria for a webinar that’s worth my time:

  • It’s Active, Not Passive: I don’t want a 2-hour lecture. I’m not in college. I’m a practicing professional. I need active skills training. I look for webinars that promise case studies, real-world examples, and live Q&A. This is how adult learning We learn by doing, not just by listening.
  • It’s Taught by a Practitioner: I want to learn from another PE who’s been in the trenches. I check the speaker’s bio. If they’re a full-time academic, I’m less interested. If they’re a 30-year veteran who has actually designed the thing they’re talking about, I’m in.
  • It’s Hyper-Specific: Don’t take “Intro to Engineering” That’s a waste. Take “Advanced Process Improvement for Manufacturing Engineers” or “Wind Load Calculations per ASCE 7-22 for Non-Standard Structures.” Specific problems require specific training.

The Manager’s Playbook: Engineering Management, Problem Solving, and Knowledge Retention

Here’s the final step, and it’s the one most managers skip. A webinar is useless if the knowledge stays in one person’s head. You haven’t closed the skills gap; you’ve just rented a solution for an hour.

Your goal isn’t just learning ; it’s knowledge retention. As a manager, I have a firm rule: if the company pays for your training, you teach the team.

This is my process for making education stick:

  1. The “Lunch & Learn” Debrief: After an engineer on my team takes a significant webinar or course, they are required to present a 30-minute “Lunch & Learn” on the top 3 things they learned. This forces them to pay attention, synthesize the material, and practice their own communication skills. It forces real knowledge retention.
  2. Update the Standards: The next question is, “How do we integrate this?” Does this webinar on a new safety protocol mean we need to update our internal QA/QC checklists? This is real-time process improvement.
  3. Update the Training Plans: That great webinar you found? It now becomes part of the official training plans for all new hires in that department. You’ve now turned a one-time fix into a long-term improvement in your team’s skills.

This process is the essence of good engineering management. It’s not just about managing projects; it’s about managing your team’s competence. You stop plugging holes and start building a better foundation to eliminate your experience gap. That’s how you close a skills gap for good.

A Practical Process for Your Professional Development – Case Studies

Look, the takeaway here isn’t to just think about your skills gap. It’s to do something about it. Don’t wait for your renewal deadline to force your hand into a last-minute compliance scramble.

Here’s your new process. It’s simple, and it’s what I do myself:

  1. This Week: Take 30 minutes. Do that honest self-assessment. Write down your top 1-2 skills gaps that are holding back your career.
  2. This Month: Actively hunt for one high-quality webinar or course that directly addresses one of those gaps. Vet the presenter. Make sure it’s practical and loaded with case studies.
  3. After the Course: Use my “Lunch & Learn” debrief technique. Schedule 30 minutes to teach what you learned to your team. This forces knowledge retention and proves the value of your training.

This is the difference between passive education and active skills training. This is how you take control of your learning and, ultimately, your career. It’s the most important process you can manage.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

What type of safety training is needed to close the skills and knowledge gaps?

The best training is targeted. Don’t take a general webinar. If your gap is “poor problem solving in manufacturing , ” find specific training on lean process improvement or Root Cause Analysis, preferably using case studies. The more specific the skills training , the better the knowledge retention.

What are the 7 skills of a professional engineer?

While the list varies, I’ve found these 7 skills are what separate senior PEs from the pack:

  1. Technical Competence: Your core engineering
  2. Problem Solving: The ability to identify and solve complex, non-textbook problems.
  3. Communication: You must be able to explain complex ideas to non-technical people.
  4. Project Management: Managing a budget, schedule, and team.
  5. Professional Ethics: A non-negotiable commitment to safety and integrity.
  6. Teamwork: Engineering is a team sport.
  7. Lifelong Learning: A commitment to actively closing your own skills gap.

What are the 4 C’s of engineering design?

The 4 C’s are a framework for the engineering design process:

  1. Creativity: Brainstorming solutions.
  2. Collaboration: Working as a team.
  3. Communication: Presenting and defending your ideas.
  4. Critical Thinking: The problem-solving and analysis part.

Other things to consider are advanced manufacturing certification and safety training.

Is 25 too late to start engineering?

Absolutely not. I’ve worked with fantastic PEs who started their education or made a career change at 30, 35, or even 40. A successful career is a marathon, not a sprint. Your maturity and experience from other fields will actually be a huge advantage.