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Your Professional Bio: How to Introduce Yourself

Your Professional Bio: How to Introduce Yourself

Presentation originally given to the Philly GDI Teacher Meetup on how to craft your professional bio. You want to represent yourself honestly and start a conversation. Included here is a quick exercise to get you started.

Audrey Troutt

December 01, 2016
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Transcript

  1. Your Professional Bio
    How to introduce yourself

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  3. Your bio =
    Introduce yourself +
    Start a conversation

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  4. You need a bio for lots of professional things
    ● Twitter
    ● Linkedin summary
    ● Personal Website
    ● Slack profile
    ● Resume summary
    ● Conference and meetup talks

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  5. Hello, my name is Y
    Ask me about X

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  6. Know your audience
    ● What do they need to know about you?
    ● What do they care about?
    ● Are you trying to convince them of something?
    ● What do you want people to come up and talk to you about?

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  7. Know yourself
    ● What can you do?
    ● What makes you stand out from your peers?
    ● What do you care about?
    ● What tech, practices, brands, or ideas do you want people
    to identify you with?

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  8. ● Actually need short version and long version
    ● Short: the shorter the better, 2-3 sentences
    ● Long: for blog posts or talk advertisements. Still one
    paragraph, maybe 5 sentences.
    Keep it short

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  9. Audrey Troutt
    ------------------------------------
    Energetic mobile and backend developer. Passionate about crafting clean
    code, delivering value, and building healthy communities.

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  10. Audrey Troutt
    --------------------------------------
    Energetic mobile and backend developer and manager. Currently Software Engineering Manager at Tune building tools for
    mobile marketers and app developers to optimize user engagement. Previously, Director of Mobile Development at SnipSnap
    and before that led iOS and Android SDK development at Artisan Mobile.
    I value clean code, automation, and lean, iterative processes. I love to tackle the most difficult technical, organizational, and
    product puzzles. My superpower is creating highly productive, innovative, and happy teams.

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  11. Avoid cliches, jargon, and hyperbole
    ● Brag, but don’t exaggerate
    ○ “Audrey is the best mobile developer in Philadelphia”
    ● Avoid words like ninja, master, expert, wizard, unicorn,
    rockstar, or guru.
    ● Try not to sound like http://www.cipsum.com/
    ○ “Leverage agile frameworks to provide a robust synopsis for high
    level overviews. Iterative approaches to corporate strategy foster
    collaborative thinking to further the overall value proposition.
    Organically grow the holistic world view of disruptive innovation via
    workplace diversity and empowerment.”

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  12. Activity 1
    Make a fun bio
    Head over to
    http://twitterbiogenerator
    .com/ for inspiration.
    ● Be truthful, but silly
    ● Name your superpowers
    ● Declare your passions
    ● Avoid cliche and
    hyperbole

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  13. Activity 2
    Make a long and boring bio
    It’s your abbreviated
    resume in paragraph
    format. Be truthful
    without worrying about
    being interesting.
    For the intended audience,
    what is everything you
    want them to know about
    you?

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  14. Activity 3
    The hard part
    What you want is something
    between the fun bio and
    the boring bio.
    Give an honest intro.
    Encapsulate what makes you
    stand out as a
    professional. Create an
    opening for further
    conversations.

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  15. Next steps: Get headshots!
    If you need a bio, chances are you need a headshot too
    ● Pros are not expensive if you get a group together
    ● You *can* do it yourself
    ● Maybe a local meetup could organize an event?

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  16. Next steps: Consider a professional
    ● I paid Dave Fecak at Resume Raiders
    http://www.resumeraiders.com/ to review my resume and
    linkedin
    ○ He suggested great edits to my intro
    ○ They can do everything from critique to rewrite for you
    ○ It’s well worth the investment

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  17. Next steps: Put this somewhere you can easily find it
    ● Create a folder in your google drive/dropbox/whatever
    ○ Text file for bios
    ■ short and long bios
    ■ Links to profiles (github, website, blog, twitter, linkedin)
    ○ Resume (comes in handy)
    ○ Headshots
    ■ Large versions
    ■ Small versions
    ■ Square versions

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