Unfortunately, there is one part of a CXO’s executive career marketing documents that sometimes gets overlooked: the executive biography. A CXO needs a branded and unified set of documents for an effective career transition, including a resume, cover letter/value proposition letter, LinkedIn profile, etc. Every piece of information must align with your current career goals and serve to market you to potential employers and business opportunities.
When facilitating your c-suite or board transition, you can use your executive biography to inject character into your executive career marketing documents. The biography is a narrative of your executive employment experience covering your scope and direction and portrays some personality. It is not only valuable for a job transition but can be used for business plans, VC firm submissions, management consulting, board submission nominations, board-level interviews, speaking engagements, and submissions for awards, advanced degrees, major media consideration, etc.
CXOs who write their executive biography should write in engaging third-person language, brand it to the rest of their executive career marketing documents, and keep it to one page.
When writing your executive biography, make sure you do the following:
- Open with a Powerful Value Proposition. In a succinct and demonstrative power statement, describe what you bring to the table. You can include things like your years of experience, industry reach, and leadership scope.
- Tell your Career Story. Start with your current experience and work backwards in reverse chronological order, using examples to back up your value proposition—cover important projects, accomplishments, and expertise, quantifying results wherever possible.
- Highlight your Awards & Recognition. Demonstrate your thought leadership and expertise by elaborating on information that is listed in your resume. Provide more details about award criteria or qualifications.
- Describe your Education & Professional Development. Again, elaborate on the information in your resume. You can include specific impacts or lessons from your courses and how you have applied them to your career.
- Get Personal. Nothing makes a person on paper seem more human than describing who they are outside of work. The focus of the executive biography must be on your career, but mentioning your family, hobbies, and leisure activities can make you come across as much more human and more personable.
To find out how an executive biography can boost your CXO job search, book a complimentary and confidential call with us here.
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C-suite and Board-level executives that have professionally polished, well branded and strategically aligned resumes and LinkedIn profiles not only enjoy easier transitions, more interest, and robust offers—often 25% to 75% above their previous compensation plans—they gain the competitive edge and strategies they need to manage their C-level career transitions as well as they run their companies. Let us take the guesswork out of your next C-level transition. Click here to set up a 15-minute introductory call. We are interested in learning more about your goals and to see if we can help. We offer several executive resume writing services including coaching; LinkedIn optimization; executive recruiter, private equity and venture capital distributions; and strategy-focused private coaching sessions.
Mary Elizabeth Bradford is the Founder and Executive Director of CEOresumewriter.com and Maryelizabethbradford.com and a past executive recruiter. A thought leader in the career services industry for over 20 years, she holds 5 distinct advanced certifications for senior-level resume writing, online branding and executive-level job search coaching (CERM, CMRW, CARW, MCD, NCOPE). She has been seen and heard in major media including Forbes, Time, WSJ, Newsweek and NBC affiliate stations. She holds 2 CDI TORI awards and is a top tier judge for the elite CDI TORI awards for four consecutive years. Mary Elizabeth Bradford’s elite team of award-winning, certified, top executive resume writers, former top executive recruiters, and global HR executives help many of the world’s premier C-suite, board members and thought leaders secure the transitions and compensation packages they want. She works with clients all over the globe.
