In the world today, everyone is working hard to establish a profound personality identity wherever they find themselves. It is becoming more important than ever nowadays to have a personal biography scribbled up and professionally ascertained such that it would fit in any career setting or otherwise anywhere. The competitive nature of the labor market in recent times requires extra prowess added to the base level requirements. Hence, having a very good insight on how to write a captivating and professional personal biography will surely set your standards one or more steps ahead of the competition. In this article, we will see about ‘How To Write A Personal Bio?’.
How To Write A Personal Bio?
Herein highlighted, are a couple of noteworthy points to better give you an insight into what a good personal biography should look like with ideas and thoughts you should take into cognizance while putting up one for yourself. Considering who your audience is, writing in third person, writing a crisp and engaging bio are points that help in making your personal bio impressive. Read on to find out How To Write A Personal Bio.
What is a Personal Bio?
A personal biography is a crisp definition or explanation of one’s self that provides an abridged version of your professional profile and achievements, credentials and education, certifications and endorsements, and other information that makes up who you truly are.
Personal bios are used to show a person’s level of professional experience, accomplishments, personal background and certain histories, skill set, strengths, and so on. It is used on social media profiles, job applications, company team profiles, or personal websites. Where a bio is going to be used influences how lengthy it should ideally be
Introducing yourself
The hardest yet easiest part of writing a personal profile is getting started. It is hard because so many thoughts of who you are and what version of you should be on that biography will flow through your head, hence, you might lose the grip of what to first begin with.
- Collect yourself and cite on a piece of paper every first phrase or short sentence about you that comes to mind. By doing this, you can have a visual of what you are about.
- Proceed to choose the most captivating startup phrase (trust and follow your instincts) and explain it in precise but strong detail.
- Take into consideration what every paragraph within the introduction shall entail; skills and strengths, ethical values, attributes, your mission, and vision. While compiling all of these, remember to summarize your details so as not to bore the reader.
The ideal length of your biography
In a general sense, it is very important to optimize the content of your biography and keep it short, yet engaging to motivate the reader to finish reading it. In a situation where you are writing a personal bio for a Resume, it is important to list your details in a sentence rather than explain every point stated and to keep the entire character count below 500. In an avenue where your biography is required on a professional website or an application such as a college or job application, get a little flexible and make room for more characters between 1,300 and 2,000.
Write in the third person
Remember that this is a biography and not an autobiography. It will be a lot less confusing and less biased if you sounded like you are talking about someone else. Be cautious regarding the frequency of your name.
Know who your audience/reader is
Knowing the reader of your biography as much as possible is an extra arm in the armory for you to unleash specific details and information about yourself. It is necessary to be honest about every one of your details but some of this information might not be of value if added to your bio targeted at a particular audience.
For instance; humor and explicitness are often acceptable in a professional setting, yet they could sound offensive to a particular audience niche. Research your audience!
Highlight important points
Key areas to focus your attention on while paying the same focus on all the criteria mentioned above include but are not limited to;
- Explain your personal and professional history (as related to an audience).
- Identify the purpose of writing the biography. If it is meant for a job application or for a professional website. This will make it easier for the reader to decide whether to continue reading or not.
- Identify your accomplishments. Relate a short instance where necessary.
- Education and credentials; and
- Certificates and endorsements.
Keep your bio interesting yet honest
Formative anecdotes will help make the reader immersed in your biography. This pattern has been used by many people when writing personal bios. A reader tends to want to read further upon noticing a captivating introduction. Halfway through, they find it straight to the point, then they see a short tale about the person they are reading. It will not only make them yearn for more but will make them pick an interest in you.
Include your contact details and a little more
Your contact information like an email, phone number, address, and Social Media will breach a reachability gap between you and the reader.
Your portfolio is quite as important as your contact information. Include a link(s) to your portfolio because this offers a transparency scheme to the reader. They will find your assertions in the entire writ a lot more compelling.
Conclusion
Now we have learnt ‘How To Write A Personal Bio?’, Conclusively, be sure to proofread and edit every bit of your bio to avoid unwanted mishaps, and check for mistakes and grammatical errors as this has a huge impact on the first impression.
Know that in the art of crafting a personal biography, you know yourself best and only you can tell the story about yourself. So don’t go overboard trying to over-emphasize some points. That is a red flag for most people as you’d sound too egoistic and it’s harmful, rather, find the best way to put yourself in writing.
Frequently asked questions
- Can I copy and paste a bio template?
This is strictly not advisable. Imagine the website you copied and edited a template has a huge community, you will be having a personal bio that is not unique and hence has little or even no value at all.
- What is the ideal character length of a bio?
In this regard, the length of your biography would depend on where you are using it. If it’s on a resume, keep it short, precise, and below 500 characters. If it is on a professional website or any dedicated requirement for a bio, 1,500 to 2,000 characters will do well.
- What are the don’ts of a personal bio?
The following highlighted points will aid you to know what to avoid in your biography;
- Lies and fake accomplishments.
- Do not write in the first-person
- Avoid padding while trying to reach a word count goal.
- Exaggeration should be verily avoided.
- While avoiding exaggerations, be sure not to play down your accomplishments.
- Too Much Information is not a safe bet. Remember precision.
