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Interview Yourself to Update Your Professional Bio

ebarrows • Feb 11, 2021

It’s difficult to write about yourself. You do what you do best and don’t spend much time analyzing how you do it. But as an expert in your field, you need a current professional bio. You need it for your website about page, LinkedIn profile, media kit or job application, and as an intro for public speaking engagements or workshops.

Review your bio at least once a year to make sure it still captures your current career focus. It should tell a mini-story about how you arrived at this point in your career, how you’ve developed your expertise and what you’re currently doing with it.

If your bio needs a little tweaking or is missing pertinent information, interview yourself to fill in the blanks.

Create Your Interview Questions

Like any good story, your professional bio should have a beginning, middle and end showing how you arrived at where you are today within your career. Identify the areas of your story that are missing. Ask yourself interview-style questions to help fill in your narrative.

Questions to help illustrate the beginning of your career include:

What college or training did you complete to start on your career path?

What foundational work experience did you do in your career?

How did you decide this career path was right for you?

Questions to help illustrate the middle of your career include:

What challenges have you faced in your career and how did you overcome them?

Do you specialize in a certain area within your career field? Why do you enjoy this specialization?

What sets you apart from others in your field?

Questions to help illustrate your current career include:

What do you love/enjoy most about what you do?

What are some of your current career priorities, and how are you acting on them?

Share recent accolades, testimonials or successes.

How to Interview Yourself

There are a few ways you can interview yourself.

Interview yourself on paper : Write out or type up the answers to your tailored interview questions.

Respond on a voice recorder : Read the interview question aloud and record your answer on a voice recorder or app.

Do a traditional interview : Have someone else ask you the questions. The other person should voice record your spoken answers and also jot down written notes to capture what you say.

Write Your Updated Bio

Once you’ve answered the interview questions, you’ll have a lot of content to work with to either create a new bio or update an older version. Edit down your answers to their essence, keep your answers in story order beginning, middle and end, which should result in a compelling bio that showcases your expertise.

If you need a little more guidance or want someone else to write your bio for you, contact me for assistance. I’d be happy to create a glowing professional bio to present your best self.

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