What should a biography look like

Begin your bio by stating your first and last name. This makes your name easy for your audience to identify and remember. If you have a personal brand or business - for example, a blog, freelance business or eCommerce site - be sure to mention your brand name at the beginning of your bio. Next, briefly explain your current position. In addition to explaining what your job entails, highlight milestones that make you stand out.

This is one of the most important elements to focus on as you consider how to write a bio. Think about the values and passions underlying your work, as well as your professional philosophy.

What gets you up in the morning? You can also think of this part of your bio as a kind of mission statement. Perhaps your mission is to serve others, contribute to society, grow your expertise or learn new skills. Whatever your reasons, expanding upon these ideas can help your audience get a better understanding of what truly matters to you.

The most effective short bios will not only focus on your professional experience, but will also touch on what you like to do in your spare time. Consider mentioning:. Bio to Introduce a New Employee If you're writing a short biography that will be sent out in a company-wide email to introduce a new employee, keep in mind the occasion and audience.

This kind of bio should focus on the person's work history and experience, with perhaps a few personal facts that will help co-workers get to know the new team member. Such information isn't appropriate for the situation or for the target audience.

On the other hand, that information might be highly relevant if you're writing a biography that will be used in a psychological study. Writing for an Unknown Audience Of course, you won't always know who your target audience is — if you're writing a book, for example, you can't always tell who will read it. In such a situation, a good approach is to focus primarily on what makes this person special, and target your research accordingly.

A biography about someone who achieved a great scientific discovery may focus on the person's education and early experiments that led to the great discovery. These are the things that people reading about the subject are probably interested in learning. Choose Your Focus Knowing how you'd like to divide the story and what points you'd like to discuss will help you determine what information is most important.

Sample Biography for a Student Student bios should include current information and future goals. She serves on the student council as treasurer, a role she enjoys because she is able to combine her enjoyment of all things mathematical with an opportunity to serve her school while developing leadership skills. She plans to study math and secondary education in college with the ultimate goal of becoming a middle school math teacher.

Short Professional Bio for Yourself Professional bios intended to be published online should be engaging, upbeat and focused on business. An experienced digital marketing professional, Michelle Rogers spends her days helping companies build their brands and attract customers as the Chief Marketing Officer for Digital Dynamics.

Not only is she recognized for her outstanding technical skills, she has a reputation for crafting visually appealing websites that increase sales and boost bottom line results.

Colleagues and clients alike describe Michelle as a true expert in her field. Personal Biography Essay In some circumstances a longer personal bio in essay format may be called for. I love branding and marketing so much that I expect I would have pursued an advertising career even in the days before digital marketing. As a digital marketer, my first concern is to build and protect the brands of the companies I work with.

Better yet, what values do you and your colleagues share that would make your business a worthwhile investment to others? Start to wrap up your professional bio by simply explaining what gets you up in the morning.

Transition from describing your values in work to describing who you are outside of work. This may include:. People like connecting with other people. The more transparent you are about who you are personally, the more likable you'll be to the people reading about who you are professionally. End your professional bio on a good note — or, more specifically, a funny note.

Leaving your audience with something quirky or uniquely you can ensure they'll leave your website with a pleasant impression of you.

It's important to follow the steps above when writing your bio, but don't obsess over any one section. Remember, the people reading your bio are suffering from information fatigue. If you don't hook 'em in the first line, you'll lose them quickly. Want to give your professional brand a boost? Take one of HubSpot Academy's free certification courses. In just one weekend, you can add a line to your resume and bio that's coveted by over 60, marketers.

Alright, I know what you may be thinking So what? It's just a bio. I mean, how many people read professional bios, anyway? The answer: A lot of people. More importantly, though, there's no way to tell exactly who is reading it — and you always want it to be ready for when the right people come across it.

And when they do, you want it to catch their eye. In a good way. You see, while your resume is only useful for when you're actively applying for specific positions, your professional bio is much more visible. It can live on your LinkedIn profile , your company's website, your guest blog posts, your speaker profiles, your Twitter bio , and many other places.

Bottom line? People will read your professional bio. Whether they remember it, and whether it makes them care about you, is a matter of how well you present yourself to your intended audience.

Below, we've curated some of the best real professional bio examples we've ever seen on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and the various websites where you might describe yourself.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie begins her professional bio with an invitation into her world. In just one sentence, she describes the depth and breadth of her body of work as it has been translated into thirty languages and several publications. Along with her notable writing career, Chimamanda showcases her speaking career which introduces readers to a well-rounded view of who she is as a professional. From there, her bio seamlessly flows into her recent work and a glimpse into how and where she spends her personal time — the United States and Nigeria.

A bio with a hook is sure to keep you reading. What comes next is a unique differentiator in a professional bio. In the body of her professional bio, Chima briefly lists her process at a high level, giving her potential clients a birds-eye view of what they can expect when they book her services.

And even if you don't listen to the type of music he produces, it's hard not to listen to his compelling Facebook bio. For instance, consider his tagline, under "About" — " Quiet during the day. I got goosebumps just imagining a dance club he might play his music in. DJ Nexus's bio brilliance doesn't stop there.

DJ Nexus links his Facebook account to his personal website , where he has the space to tell the full story of his background. Here's a preview, below:. In this story, DJ Nexus describes both when he "became known as DJ Nexus" and a company he founded shortly afterward — all before going to college.

This is a terrific lesson for professional bios: Customers want to learn about you. Consider how you might also lead your Facebook visitors off your Facebook page and onto your personal website to learn more about who you are. When it all comes down to it, your professional bio is no different than any other piece of persuasive copy — no matter where it lives.

One of the most common mistakes people make is thinking of it as its own beast, separate from other pieces of writing. If you think about it that way, you're far more likely to write something painfully uninteresting. When you sit down to write your professional bio and you're watching that cursor blinking on the screen, think about how you would introduce a blog post.

You don't just dive right into the meat of the thing, now, do you? You start with an introduction. The best bios are often concise around — words , so you don't have a lot of room to play around. But a single sentence that tees your reader up and provides context for the accomplishments that follow could make the rest of your bio that much more persuasive. Take Lena Axelsson's bio, for instance. She's a marriage and family therapist — a job where empathy and compassion are a big part of the job description.

That's why she chooses to open her bio with a great introductory sentence: "When human beings experience trauma or severe life stressors, it is not uncommon for their lives to unravel. Then, she goes into why she's passionate about her job, how she helps her clients, and how she caters her approach to each individual patient.

The necessary educational information is left for the end, after the reader has been hooked. Your bio doesn't have to be super serious, nor does it have to start with a joke. This bio shows how you can capture your reader's attention by being empathetic and showing how that empathy shapes a valuable professional. Mark Levy is a small business owner who's taken a more traditional approach to the professional bio on his website — but in a way that takes care to speak to his intended audience.

What we love about his bio is the way he's set it up: On his business' "About" page, he's listed two biographies, which he's labeled "Mark Levy's Biography 1" and "Mark Levy's Biography 2. Click here to see the full version. Like Ann, Mark's given his readers two different options. Use the following bullet points to write out a list of information about you. From there, you can draw info from each line item to start crafting your bio. This is one of the most important pieces of understanding how to write a personal biography.

Always start with your name. When many people start learning how to write a bio, they skip this important part. People need to know who you are before they learn what you do. Remember that your most important details should go in the very first sentence.

Keep the first sentence short and sweet either by describing what you do at a high level or going into more detail about your specific role. When you start writing a bio determining the length may seem like an afterthought — something that just happens once you stop typing.

However, it is something that you need to think about before you start writing — and your ideal word count may shift depending on your primary focus.

From an SEO perspective, the more words you use in your personal bio, the better. If you are writing the bio on your personal website, the longer the better.

Plan to write words — minimum. From a branding perspective, you may have a different take on the length of your bio. Cater your personal bio to your goals. Start small. The length suggestion can change based on your situation and ultimate goals.

This is one of the most common steps that you may struggle with when learning how to write a bio about yourself. While it can feel strange to talk about yourself in the third person at first, there are some very clear benefits from doing so:. From an SEO perspective, writing a bio in the third person allows you to include your full name throughout the bio.

This lets search engines know that this lengthy, original, and well-written piece of content is about you. Never overuse your name when writing a bio or include it in a way that seems unnatural. Instead, use your name when it is appropriate. Now, that may seem like a tall order, but with a bit of planning you can pull it off.

You can understand how to write a bio from a technical standpoint, but looking at it through this lens will help be your guideline going forward. Turn your biography into a story that engages the reader. Those who have mastered the steps of how to write a bio spend a lot of time doing this. Your online bio is the authoritative source on you. That means that it needs to reflect you in the best light possible. This also means that it should be kept as up to date as possible. The proper action plan for how to write a bio is never truly finished because of this.

A lengthy, well-written, and regularly updated piece of content is like search engine gold. As you gain more experience or perhaps shift your professional focus, include these changes in your bios. And keep asking other people that you trust to take a look at your main bios to edit them. Writing a bio is an ongoing process that you should never ignore for too long. Read your bio aloud to yourself, use free editing tools like the Hemingway app , Slickwrite or any other number of free resources that will help you write a great bio about yourself that keeps readers interested.

In addition to being an introduction to who you are and what you do, let your personal bio act as a marketing tool.