Professional Bio Personalization in 5 Easy Steps

Is your Professional Bio lacking life in it? Yes, you have the merits and experience to smash the glass ceiling of your career, but you need to learn how to communicate and articulate this. You have corporate diction; you can work and deliver like a bot. No doubt you are an expert in your craft. However, the façade of perfection is gradually losing its lustre. People are increasingly drawn to vulnerability, uniqueness, and imperfection, seeking more humanizing qualities.

Here are the top five ways of revealing your persona professionally

Give a Background story in Your Bio(Geographical, Familial, Cultural, Socio-economic)

Relating to your target audience is the first step of winning their heart. Never underestimate the power of “me too”. Make a beeline to your recruiter by giving them relatable anecdotes on:

• The specific village or town you hail from, the panorama of the place, childhood memories that come flooding in and specific experiences that honed your character.
• A quote from your mentor that you carried with you.   
• Your upbringing or lack thereof and how it contributed to who you are now.
• The limiting beliefs you had to unlearn.
• The ground-breaking gaps you bridged in the specific field you are in.

Highlight specific struggles you have had to endure in your professional journey.

Any good story is embedded with conflicts in its plot. Please do not give a sob story and leave it at that. We are not here for a pity party. We are listening to you to borrow the survival and thrive guide. Highlight the greatest challenges you overcame and how you got to the other end. Happy endings give people hope and inspiration. As much as a skill or talent may have come naturally to you, the setbacks you conquered give you more credit. We want to hear the proverbial sleepless nights, sweat, blood and tears.

Discuss a vision and mission that goes above you in Your Professional Bio

Beyond securing the bag and leaving a good legacy for yourself and your family, what’s in it for society? How are you committing to social responsibility, and what roadmap will you follow once you get the opportunity you seek? It does not have to sound like the Gates Foundation or old money philanthropy, but whatever little effort you may contribute to your immediate community counts for something. How are you making it easier for the generations that will follow? For Kairos, if you have environmentally conscious projects you are working on, mention them.

What are your weaknesses?

Now, this is a tricky dance. You want to avoid oversharing and risk the opportunity. People have been advised to talk about how they are perfectionists and workaholics.

However, in the progressive work culture, recruiters are conscious of people who do not prioritize rest or set themselves up for burnout. They need consistency and optimal productivity. It is not about the hours put in but the quality of deliverables. To avoid falling into a trap, counter the weaknesses by highlighting what you are doing to work on it.

Include the things you love in your Professional Bio

The things you do as hobbies show your personality type. Be strategic and intentional while mentioning your hobbies, but do not feel the need to lie. Your social media should show some of these aspects because, in this hyperconnected era, someone might look you up.

• Baking shows creativity and an eye for aesthetics.
• Hiking is associated with perseverance and resilience.
• Having nature walks and a connection to nature implies you are a grounded person with a stable temperament.
• Adrenaline sports like skydiving and bungee jumping can reveal the risk-taker you are.
• If you are a voracious reader, mention it. Book lovers love their fellow book lovers. The quest for knowledge is always attractive, giving you information on a wide array of subjects. You can hold stimulating conversations in a highbrow space and provide fresh problem-solving and decision-making perspectives.

In conclusion, a background check on your TA can inform what is worth mentioning and relevant to your professional bio. Refrain from dumping all this information; two or three-pointers that let people see the person behind are enough, especially where the professional bio needs to be concise. The level of vulnerability also matters because you want to maintain your odds of getting a job, a scholarship, an endorsement, a promotion or even a deal. As you measure your words, let them gravitate toward your authenticity.