Week 3: Write a Short Professional Bio That Is Not Academic Jargon

Let’s get something out of the way immediately: If you cannot explain who you are and what you do in plain language, you do not control your professional narrative.

Someone else will control it for you, and they will usually do a worse job.

This week’s task is simple: Write a 75–100 word professional bio that will be useful if you are staying in academia as well as if you are leaving.

You can adapt your bio for:

• LinkedIn
• your personal website
• email introductions
• networking conversations
• people who can open doors outside your immediate disciplinary bubble

Your bio should answer three questions:

1. What do you do?
2. Who is it for?
3. Why does it matter in the world outside your subfield?

That’s it. No theory names. No methodological throat-clearing. No “examines,” “interrogates,” or “situates.”

It should not include:

• “My research explores…”
• “I am broadly interested in…”
• “My work sits at the intersection of…”
• citations, parentheses, or em dashes doing heavy labor

None of these phrases help you. In other words, if your bio only makes sense to five people on Earth, it is not doing its job. The language signals uncertainty, over-qualification, and distance.

You are allowed to sound competent. You are allowed to sound specific. You are allowed to sound like a professional.

Try this formula as an exercise:

[Name] is a [profession or role] who [does concrete thing] for [specific audience or problem]. Their work focuses on [2–3 clear areas] and has been used by [who benefits]. They bring expertise in [skills, not theories].

And no, you don’t have to do your bio in that style. It is an exercise to help you focus! If it feels inaccurate, of course it does! Academics are trained to hedge, qualify, and anticipate critique. Remember it is not a defense document. It is a point of entry.

Just like last week’s audit, this exercise is challenging (perhaps even annoying). It goes against your training. Academia rewards opacity, but as I explain in every discussion of application documents, the job market does not.

Hiring committees, collaborators, editors, and clients make decisions quickly. They skim. They pattern-match. They move on. If you cannot make your professional identity legible in less than 100 words, you will be overlooked; not because you aren’t qualified, but because you made people work too hard.

One more thing: I think the added benefit of this exercise is that the bio can become the backbone of your understanding of yourself! And more practically, your networking pitch, your resume summary and your LinkedIn headline.

Write the bio!

Clear. Direct. Non-academic.

This is how you start controlling how you are seen.