Your RESUME may not be enough, think about a BIO

You put your resume skills to work and have a good resume, but a resume is not always the right document to use in every situation. You also need a BIO for those times when a resume won’t work. - -

Marketing yourself with a Professional Biography

Everyone who is looking for a job pretty much knows enough to put together a good resume.  However, many people are finding it useful to also have a “Bio”.  You may want to join them.   Similar to a resume, a “bio” (sometimes called a “profile”) is a marketing tool for a product.  You are that product.  But, a BIO is used in different situations than a resume and conveys similar, but different information than a resume.  It also does not have that “I’m looking for a job” connotation (even though that may very well be it’s purpose).

What is a good resume used for?

Let me start off by explaining a bit about the resume (for help and advice in how to construct and format a good resume, take the OurExperienceCounts.com resume workshop).  A resume is the key document one uses to secure an interview.  That is its only purpose unless you want to include providing a place for an interviewer to doodle during the interview.  Because of this, a resume - no matter how well or poorly it is written - screams “I’m looking for a job, please hire me”.  If you are applying for a posted job or advertising yourself as a job seeker this is exactly what you want and the resume is the document to use.

Don’t use your resume in the wrong setting

However, sometimes you need to be more subtle or take a less direct approach.  In fact, in some more casual or informal job network situations where there is no established “hiring” agenda, handing someone a resume can be a death knell.  The recipient may have an immediate and profound negative reaction.  The red flags will go up in the other persons head, his shields will be raised, and his photon torpedo’s armed.  The last thing he wants to do is get into a “hire me” conversation.  These are the situations where a bio can be used instead.  I keep a few copies of both my resume and my bio with me in my portfolio whenever I’m in a business or potentially business situation – even when I’m not in the job market.  You never know when opportunity may knock.

Situations where a resume won’t work

Let’s look at a few situations where a bio would be a better document to use than a resume.  If there is interest in more detail on any of these let me know and I’ll post a blog on it, or you can look for information in other articles and workshops on OurExperienceCounts.com as well as other places

• Informational meeting - Let’s say you have done your research and have identified a company you would like to join.  This company does not have a posted job opening so you can’t really use the job application route.  However, you know that the company employs people with your training and background.  In addition, you believe that your skills, training, experience level, and track record could be beneficial to the company.  Based on this knowledge you have identified a person you’d like to talk to for 20 minutes and need to, or have, set up an informational meeting with this person (as different than a job interview).

• Casual professional contact - Sometimes you wind up talking to someone in another company who is in a senior position that could turn into a future opportunity.  Perhaps you sat at the same table during lunch at a seminar, or sat next to them in the audience at a trade association meeting.  Perhaps you attended a lecture and had a short talk with the speaker afterwards.

• Non business social settings - Maybe, you were just socializing at your church Pot Luck and ran into someone who could be a potential resource for you.  Or someone was on the treadmill next to you at the gym or your barber is willing to pass your info along to another customer who is in a company you’d be interested in.

Position yourself for an as yet un-posted job

In each of these cases there is no “job” to apply for but there is an opportunity to become professionally known to a person in one of your target companies.  By becoming known to a company outside of the HR coordinated job filling process, you are positioning yourself to take advantage of a future job opening, maybe even without it ever being opened to the outside world.  It is also not unheard of that you can convince your contact that they should create a new position based on what you can offer them.  This gives you a distinct advantage over the masses if and when the company needs to bring someone in. - -

Craft a Professional Bio to use instead of a Resume

So, here is the problem.  In these situations you need some sort of document to use either at the time of initial contact, or as a follow up that isn’t a resume.  You don’t want to leave the person with nothing to remember you by and a business card just is not enough.  You also want to save your resume until there is an actual job being discussed at which time your resume can be adjusted to address the actual job requirements.  This is where a “bio” comes in. 

Think of your “bio” as the sort of thing you would read about a key note speaker in a seminar agenda.  Or, perhaps in a marketing brochure about the founder of the company, or in the “about us” section of a corporate web page, or even on the dust jacket of a book about the author.  Unlike a resume that is (usually) a chronological history of employment with company, date, job title and a few high points and success stories scattered about, a bio is non linear advertising about you and your accomplishments.  In the Bio there is no need to list all the companies you worked for, or the dates, or your job titles.  But rather you focus on what you accomplished, your successes, the value you added, the type of worker or leader you are, what people think about you, etc.  In short, it is an advertisement where you are the product.

Here are some rules for your bio:

• Include contact info – if they don’t know how to reach you, why bother
• Organize it by areas of interest to the reader.  For example, “accomplishments”, “skill set”, “areas of expertise”.
• Must, must, must be on one side of one page in legibly large font (10 pt or bigger)
• Print it on good paper.  We’re looking for a professional look and feel. 
• Think “Madison Avenue Advertising” (result should be appropriate to print in a magazine – not that this is the goal)
• Leave out things that don’t help “sell” the product. E.g., if you got promoted 3 times in 2 years, say that.  But, if you got demoted 3 times in 2 years, leave that out.
• Proof read it 10 more times than you think is necessary.  Have at least 5 other people proof read it as well.

Once you have both a good resume and a good bio within easy reach, you can choose which to use in any given situation.  My experience has been that the times when a bio is a better choice turn out to be easily recognizable.

Example of a Professional Bio

Click here for an example of a bio to give you the idea

Categories: Resumes & Cover Letters, Job Search Help, Strategies for Unemployed, Things You Need to Know