How to Write a Short, Professional Bio On Yourself (Learn from a master)

November 7, 2008 by Pete Kistler
Filed under: All, Brand-Yourself.com, Careers, Featured Articles, How To, Personal Branding, Web Identity, reputation management

Need to know how to write a professional bio on yourself? You’re not alone. Bio writing is difficult. It forces you to prioritize what’s most important about you. It’s an intimidating task to boil down your entire professional life into one paragraph that’s clear, concise, and works for you.

Luckily, you don’t have to start your bio from scratch. Before writing your bio, let’s dissect Dan Schawbel’s. If someone is already doing things right, why not learn from them? Personal branding guru Dan Schawbel’s short bio is an excellent example of a brand-building, professional bio that works for him. I’m going to break it down piece by piece to show you what you can learn from it.

1. LEARN BY EXAMPLE

Dan Schawbel’s Bio:

“Dan is the leading expert in personal branding for the generation-y audience, with an award winning and world recognized Blog, a TV podcast series that he directs, Awards that he gives out, and a Magazine that benefits the American Cancer Society. He has written over 20 publications for major magazines and online resources and has been featured in Fast Company Magazine and Yahoo! Finance and is EMC’s social media expert. He is also establishing the first 360 degree personal branding website, DanSchawbel.com, creating a new standard for career development. Recently, he has redefined personal branding by establishing a collaborate wiki, which he is using to acquire knowledge from all the leading experts to establish a single definition for personal branding.”

2. ANALYSIS OF DAN’S BIO

Let’s break down Dan’s bio now, one piece at a time.

“Dan is the leading expert in personal branding.” This immediately tells you Dan’s niche, without hesitation and without confusion. When you’re writing your own bio, be crystal clear about what you do from the get-go. Your first sentence should have people nodding their heads with along with you… ahh okay, so that’s what you do.

“…for the generation-y audience.” This makes it very clear who Dan’s audience is. Personal branding focuses on achieving success by making yourself the best solution for a particular audience. It would be difficult for Dan to say he’s the leading personal branding expert in the entire world. It’s much easier to be an expert for a certain group of people - for Dan, that’s Generation Y (today’s twentysomethings). Who is your ideal audience? It could be individuals (the disabled, the elderly, women in their twenties, etc.) or groups (cancer researchers, failing not-for-profits, green startups, etc.). Choosing an audience helps you attract more ideal opportunities that better align with your long-term goals. That way, everybody wins.

“…with an award winning and world recognized Blog, a TV podcast series that he directs, Awards that he gives out, and a Magazine that benefits the American Cancer Society.” This sentence highlights Dan’s professional accomplishments. What have you done that directly backs up your first “what I do” sentence? Include your most important achievements, but be picky because you don’t have too much space.

“…He has written over 20 publications for major magazines and online resources and has been featured in Fast Company Magazine and Yahoo! Finance and is EMC’s social media expert.” This showcases Dan’s “credibility boosters” - items that build a strong argument for his authority in his field. What credibility boosters (awards, certifications, memberships, etc.) might make you a more attractive job candidate in your bio?

“…He is also establishing the first 360 degree personal branding website, DanSchawbel.com, creating a new standard for career development.” This shows what Dan is doing to stand out in his area of expertise. What things (side projects, past work, etc.) have you done that differentiates you from your peers?

“…Recently, he has redefined personal branding by establishing a collaborate wiki, which he is using to acquire knowledge from all the leading experts to establish a single definition for personal branding.” This demonstrates how Dan is contributing to his niche. Are you doing anything novel or innovative in your niche that might make you more memorable to readers of your bio? If so, be sure to include it.

3. THE NEXT STEP

This analysis is a good starting point to think about how to write your bio. The next step is to read our second post in this series: 8 Tips to Write a Professional Bio.

: Author: Pete Kistler

Support me by sharing this post:

Tags: how to write a bio, how to write a bio on yourself, how to write a professional bio, how to write a short bio, short bio

Comments

9 Comments on How to Write a Short, Professional Bio On Yourself (Learn from a master)

Ben Roberts on Fri, 7th Nov 2008 6:08 pm

Great post. I used it to help me upgrade my bio. You don’t realize how lame the old one sounds till you start thinking about how others are looking at it. Thanks again.

Quiver & Quill » The Art of Writing an Effective Twitter Profile on Mon, 1st Dec 2008 10:43 am

[...] How to Write a Short Bio on Yourself, by Pete Kistler [...]

Barbra Sundquist, Bio Writer on Fri, 19th Dec 2008 8:42 pm

This is a great article on writing a professional bio. I think for most people the hardest part of writing a bio is choosing what to put in and what to leave out. Because after all, a bio is supposed to be short. But most of us have done lots of different things in our work careers. How do you decide what to focus on?

As you illustrated in your sample - just focus on what’s going to be most relevant and impressive to your target reader!

Yakiema on Tue, 10th Feb 2009 3:08 pm

I thought it was very detailed. It will definitely help me on writing my biography. Thankyou.

John P on Wed, 18th Feb 2009 11:44 am

Great thoughts. I agree that writing a bio is difficult to start - so thanks for breaking it all down. The hard part is when you have worked your tail off and don’t have an awards to list. I think this holds true for most people out there. I have a great solution. I created a professional portfolio in personvita.com to brand myself. It allow me to list all the project I have worked on in my career what have been validated by my colleagues and boss. It might not be an “award” - but it show my accomplishments.

elizabeth on Mon, 23rd Mar 2009 12:44 am

That really helped me how to write a biography. It was awesome that i read this
page. Thank you very much for all of this, I got great marks for this!

Adam Dupuis on Mon, 13th Apr 2009 10:04 pm

I am having problems doing it

Pete Kistler on Mon, 8th Jun 2009 11:02 am

@Ben: Great to hear from you Ben. You’re absolutely right - seeing how other people do things is often just what we need to improve ourselves. Glad to help!

@Barbra: Deciding what to include in a bio and what not to is a brutal process! It really makes you think deeply about what you’ve done and how to articulate your value. It’s a great exercise to help concretely define the your personal brand.

@Yakiema: Glad to hear it!

@John: You’re right, many people don’t have a long list of awards. That’s why it’s so important to make sure you’re compellingly describing what you HAVE done