Understand Your Goal for Your Professional Bio

So you need a professional bio. The important question: What should you include? This would depend on the goal of your bio. Is your bio for LinkedIn, or is it going to be included on the inside cover of your new book? These are two very different venues, and even though the information is basically the same, the presentation is different. 

For example, for your LinkedIn profile, your bio should be written in first person narrative, while for that new book you just wrote, your bio should be written in third person narrative.

We picked the author’s bio and the LinkedIn bio as our two examples because they are very different in the purposes they serve. For LinkedIn, you’re creating a professional profile so that you can connect with organizations as well as other professionals in your industry. So, the LinkedIn bio has to be short, concise and balanced enough so that who you are as an individual shows through. You want the reader to be left with a strong impression of the “entire” you as a professional.

If you are an author, and the bio is for that book jacket or “About the Author” page, make sure that it is in third person narrative. Also keep it short and interesting. If there is a part of your life that can connect with the book, make sure to include it. For example, if your book is about what happens behind the scenes of Wall Street, and you worked undercover as a stockbroker for three years, then you must include that, because it is intriguing and will help boost sales of your book!

Remember, an author has two worlds — the world they write about, and the world in which they live. Both of those worlds are very interesting to their readers.

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