So you’ve taken the exciting step to embark on a mentorship journey through OneUpOneDown! Now, it’s time to complete your profile to pave the way for fruitful connections.
As well as collecting information that helps us to propose a match, we also collect some information that will be sent to your mentor or mentee before they accept the match. This includes a short bio and/or your LinkedIn profile.
Writing a bio might seem like a challenge – how can you possibly summarize who you are, what you’ve achieved, and what you’re looking for in a paragraph?! You can’t and you don’t have to. All you need to do is come up with a few sentences that do a good enough job of sharing some information about yourself.
In this article, we’ll simplify this task for you, offering guidance that applies to writing any bio, not just for OneUpOneDown.
Elements of a Good Bio:
- A good bio uses as few words as necessary to get your message across. When people write long bios, important information can get lost. It’s better to write a shorter, yet more impactful bio than a long and wordy one.
- A bio is an invitation to learn more. It’s not your whole story. It’s just the first breadcrumb, designed to help the person reading it to determine whether you and they are a good fit.
- A good bio is one that does the job. A good bio relays the necessary information in the context in which it is being read, for the purpose in which it exists. In this case, the context is mentorship and the purpose of the bio is to find a mentor or mentee who is the right fit. Your goal is to relay the information that can help your mentor or mentee determine whether they are a good match for you. If you want a mentor who is in a particular position or industry, then make this clear in your bio. For example, you could say “I am a Product Manager in a high-growth startup looking to move into a Senior Product Manager role within the next 12 months”. If you are not necessarily looking for a role-specific mentor, you could say something like, “I am moving from a technical expert into a leadership role and would like support from another woman who has recently been through this process”.
- Use storytelling to help your mentor or mentee understand your experience. At OneUpOneDown, we make matches based on ‘near-peer’ mentorship, which means we match mentees with mentors who are a couple of steps ahead in particular areas of learning and development. We do this so the mentor can relate well to what the mentee is experiencing.
Crafting Your Bio
Here is a simple template for writing your bio. It is designed to provide you with some guard rails, so you can get through this step quickly and it doesn’t hold you up from being matched.
- Your role(s). A description of your work, or what you do for a living.
Example: I am a Marketing Manager at Sundail, an online retailer in the wellness industry. I am focused on customer engagement and acquisition.
- Your passion(s). What drives you?
Example: I have a passion for health and wellness, and educating people on the benefits of taking control of their own health. I would like to become an expert and throught leader on marketing in this space, as well as continue along my own personal journey towards optimal health, sharing what I learn.
- Your journey. Where you’ve come from and where you’d like to go.
Example: I have been in the role of a Marketing Manager for 3 years and am ready to move into more of a leadership role to increase my impact.
- Your challenge: What do you feel is standing in the way of getting to where you want to go?
Example: I haven’t had experience leading people before and the idea of leading others is quite daunting for me. I feel like I have alot to learn and would like to work on developing my skills and confidence in this area.
Combined, the example bio for a mentee is as follows (with some minor modifications):
I am a Marketing Manager at Sundail, an online retailer in the wellness industry, focused on customer engagement and acquisition. I have a passion for health and wellness, and educating people on the benefits of taking control of their own health. I would like to become a leader in health and wellness marketing, as well as continuing along my own personal journey towards optimal health.
I have been in the role as a Marketing Manager for 3 years and am ready to move into more of a leadership role to increase my impact. I haven’t had experience leading people before and the idea of leading others is quite daunting for me. I feel like I have alot to learn and would like to work on developing my skills and confidence in this area.
Feel free to trim or expand the text to convey your messages clearly, avoiding unnecessary repetitions. Remember, this isn’t set in stone; you can always revisit and refine your bio later.
Don’t let the task of writing a bio stall your progress. Get something down, and fine-tune it as you evolve in your journey.
Happy mentoring!
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