Every professional needs a bio. A professional bio is arguably the most important piece of copy you’ll ever write about yourself. It’s introducing who you are, what you do, your achievements and interests. What you choose to highlight in your bio plays a key role in others deciding whether to connect with you, contact you for an interview or invite you to participate in an event. The bio provides an opportunity for you to market your expertise and personal brand. It’s practically a sales pitch of yourself!
Writing a professional bio can often be hard, especially when contemplating what to write and how to effectively portray your experiences. According to the team at Adoni Media, you’re basically writing to showcase your experiences, competence, and areas of expertise in a compelling and engaging way to job seekers, potential clients, colleagues and influencers.
Next time you write your professional bio, remember the following to create a successful professional bio.
Ingredients of a professional bio:
There are several ingredients that helps to create a successful professional bio:
- Your full name and your current occupation – including some key responsibilities of the position
- Your field of knowledge – most relevant background information and experience
- Qualifications that you’ve earned throughout your career
- Industry award you’ve been acknowledged for
- Optional professional photo of yourself – remember this is very important as it’s their first impression of you. Try and keep it as professional as possible.
Remember talking about your professional success is not necessarily bragging, it provides pivotal information and shows your credibility in your field to the readers.
Tips to writing a successful professional bio:
The following 7 tips assist in ensuring that you write a successful professional bio:
- Write according to your purpose
You need to identify your target audience, who is going to read your professional bio. Understand your purpose of connecting with the audience.
- ‘Third person’ perspective in your bio
By speaking in third person, this allows you to appropriately highlight your achievements.
- Long, short and micro
Depending on the purpose for your professional bio, you may require a different length of bio. Prepare three versions of your professional bio, long, short and micro.
Micro – One to two line about yourself.
Short – A paragraph including your important attributes.
Long – Complete information about yourself including ‘nice to know’ facts in two paragraphs.
- “Inverted Pyramid”
By using the inverted pyramid, readers will see the most important information about yourself first. In the case of LinkedIn, this is very important as readers may need to click ‘show more’ – allowing them to capture all the important information about yourself right at the top.
- Show your personality
Show your personality through your professional bio by adding some humour to make your readers smile. This will positively reflect your personality.
- Contact Detail
Recommended to add your LinkedIn profile link or email address to allow your target audience to contact you.
- Proofread
Most importantly, remember to proofread your bio!
Your professional bio is an important tool to market yourself. It gives you the advantage and opportunity to connect and expand your networks in the industry. By using these tips, you’ll be able to create a successful professional bio in no time!