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Crafting a perfect professional bio is one of those things that many people have some difficulty with, hence why many company executives simply outsource the whole thing to a professional writer. But it’s really not that complicated. The main mistake many people make is thinking that their professional bio is simply a bullet point list of their work history and accomplishments – that’s called a resume.
A professional bio should read more like a short essay, almost like the summary of a character biography in a novel. There are several key ways to make your professional bio really stand out, and we’re going to go over some actionable tips you can use to start brushing up your bio-writing skills immediately.
Establish your qualifications but avoid buzzwords
A good bio will establish your experiences and qualifications, but without sounding like an AI model trained on professional bios full of buzzwords did the work for you. You want to avoid sounding like you stuffed your bio full of job description stuff.
According to Followup Boss, a great bio will give the reader an idea of what it’s like to really work with you, such as when writing a real estate agent bio. The idea isn’t so much that you’re writing your qualifications to get a job (again, that’s a resume), but that you’re making your accomplishments and personality relatable to the reader.
A professional bio should read more like a short essay, almost like the summary of a character biography in a novel. There are several key ways to make your professional bio really stand out, and we’re going to go over some actionable tips you can use.Click To TweetSo overall you want to write in a tone that shows your professional 9 to 5 side, but doesn’t neglect who you are outside of office hours. Even in a very conservative field or company, you want to avoid using industry-specific jargon.
Write smarter, not longer
Your professional bio isn’t your autobiography. There may be situations where you’d want to write a longer professional bio, but in most cases, it’s best to keep things short and concise. This is because most people have short attention spans and skim-read, typically in an F-shaped pattern.
There’s also social media character limits to consider, so if your bio will appear in a press release boilerplate or blog bio box, a paragraph may actually be all you really need.
Use the third-person perspective
While talking in the third-person is usually a sign of rampant egoism or psychotic personality disorders, it’s actually preferable in your professional bio. This is because your bio will most likely be cut and pasted on various media, so the third-person perspective makes the most sense.
However, if you are writing your bio for your own personal website, the first-person perspective would work.
Include a professional photo
When writing a bio for a website, it’s worth including a photograph of yourself at the top as is the case with this bio page from Travis Preston of CalArts. A photograph can help to put a face to the name – which will make your bio more engaging and improve trust.
Of course, this photo needs to be professional, which means not just using any photograph of yourself. Instead, consider a formal profile photo of you dressed in work attire. Make sure that the photo is high quality – it could be worth hiring a photographer to take your photo.
Give the most important information first
It’s important to prioritize the order of your bio information. A standard outline will typically look like this:
- Name and job title.
- Description of your role and job title.
- Most notable achievements at your current job.
- Past work history and notable achievements in those roles.
- A bit of personal information such as your hobbies and interests.
- Where to find and/or contact you (website, notable blog contributions, etc).
Of course you wouldn’t put it in bullet point format, so an example would be something like:
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