Your Bio Is Probably Written in the Wrong Person
Somewhere on your website, your LinkedIn profile, or a speaker introduction page, there is a paragraph that describes you in the third person. It says something like "Julie is a seasoned communications professional with over a decade of experience helping businesses find their voice."
Julie wrote that. Julie knows she wrote that. And anyone reading it knows Julie wrote that too.
So why are we all pretending otherwise?
How the third-person bio became the default
Third-person bios have a legitimate origin. Press kits, conference programs, and media profiles traditionally use third person because someone else is supposed to be introducing you. When a moderator reads your bio aloud before a panel, third person makes sense. It sounds like an introduction because it is one.
The problem is that format migrated into every other context, including ones where you are clearly speaking for yourself. Your website About page is not a press kit. Your LinkedIn summary is not a conference program. And when you write "Sarah is passionate about helping entrepreneurs clarify their message," the reader knows Sarah typed that, which makes the whole thing feel a little strange.
What third person actually signals
Third person in a self-written bio creates distance at the exact moment you are trying to make a connection. It puts a layer of formality between you and the reader that the reader did not ask for and often does not want.
It can also read as self-important. Referring to yourself by name, as though someone else is doing the describing, carries a faint echo of a celebrity or a C-suite executive whose communications team writes everything. For most professionals, that is not the impression they are going for.
There is also a credibility issue. First person signals that you stand behind what you are saying. "I have spent the last ten years working with small business owners on their marketing strategy" reads as a direct, confident claim. "Jane has spent the last ten years working with small business owners" reads like a reference letter Jane wrote about herself.
When third person is still the right call
There are contexts where third person is appropriate and expected.
If you are submitting a bio to a conference, publication, or event organizer, use third person. They will likely read it aloud or publish it alongside other bios in the same format, and consistency matters.
If your company website features team bios written uniformly in third person, match the format. Consistency across a page reads as intentional. One first-person bio in a sea of third-person profiles reads as an oversight.
Outside of those contexts, first person is almost always the stronger choice.
The rewrite formula
A first-person bio that works has three components.
What you do and who you do it for. This is the first sentence. It should be specific enough to mean something and short enough to read without effort. "I help small business owners write marketing copy that sounds like them, not like a press release" is a first sentence. "I am a dynamic and results-driven communications expert" is not.
Why you do it or what makes your approach different. This is where you earn the reader's interest. Not a list of credentials, but a point of view. What do you believe about the work? What shaped how you approach it? One or two sentences is enough.
A grounding detail that makes you real. This is optional but effective. A specific fact, a former career, a location, a project that matters to you. Something that makes you a person rather than a professional profile. Readers connect with specificity in ways they do not connect with credentials.
Here is what that looks like assembled:
"I'm a business writing coach and course creator who helps professionals communicate with more clarity and less second-guessing. I spent six years as a freelance writer before pivoting to teaching, and I started Writer's Ink because I kept seeing the same problems show up in my clients' writing. Most of them were not bad writers. They had just never been taught to think about who they were writing for."
That bio takes about fifteen seconds to read. It tells you what the person does, gives you a point of view, and ends with something specific enough to be believable.
The question worth asking
Pull up your bio right now and read the first sentence. Does it sound like something a real person would say in a conversation, or does it sound like something assembled from a template?
If it is in third person and you are the one who wrote it, that is worth changing. Not because third person is wrong, but because first person is almost always more honest. And in professional writing, honest tends to land better than polished.