Two questions we often get asked by our members are “how can I make my Bolster profile standout?” and “what else can I add to my profile to make sure I get in front of hiring CEOs?” We know it can be a challenge for some of us to “sell” ourselves. The Bolster profile is unique and multi-faceted and includes several different components in an effort to showcase who you are and not just where you’ve worked or where you went to school. To help you better understand what makes a great profile, we’ve put together a short guide with pointers and examples of how to make your profile shine within the Bolster platform.
Introducing the Anatomy of a Great Profile.
When members create their profile on our platform, they tend to paint in broad strokes because they think that will help them be matched more frequently and, in fact, the opposite is true. Our clients typically have pretty specific expertise needed when they request a fractional, interim or advisory executive so being laser focused on your superpowers can be more useful in being matched to the right opportunities. You can do this in the short bio section or your experience tab by calling out specific accomplishments in former employee roles. Or, perhaps you’ve done a lot of consulting work and have projects you’ve done over and over again with success?
The Anatomy highlights the different areas of the profile and how you can maximize each section. We know building your profile can be time consuming but we have found that members that have more information in their profiles tend to show up more frequently in our searches.
The profile snapshot. In this section you’ll have the opportunity to write a brief bio about yourself. We limit it to 250 characters because the truth is most people won’t spend time reading paragraphs upon paragraphs about your history and you should be able to highlight in a few sentences what you do best. This section also includes things like other roles you could be hired to do, your availability (which we know changes frequently and we encourage you to keep up to date), high level education, and industry expertise.
Skills and Projects. When you initially signed up for a Bolster account you completed a skills assessment. This section highlights those and if you’ve decided to add an additional functional role you’ll want to make sure you complete the skills and projects section here for those roles as well. This is part of what our clients use to find you and how you’ll get matched to opportunities. You can select up to 3 Superpowers, those things that people should absolutely hire you to do.
User Manual. We thought it would be useful for you to be able to share your work style, preferences, what’s important to you and other things around your leadership values and principles. Often these things can be really helpful when engaging with a new client and setting expectations upfront how best to work together.
Experience. You have the opportunity here to highlight the work you’ve done and you can choose to simply list your career history and highlights or feel free to call out specific consulting type work you’ve done and which clients you’ve worked with. One piece of advice is in the description it can be really helpful to list key accomplishments while on an assignment or when with a specific company.
Board Experience (where applicable). If you’re someone who indicated that you’re interested in serving on the Board of Directors you’ll see the Board tab enabled. In this section you’ll have the opportunity to showcase any previous experience you’ve had serving on boards and your own personal philosophy to this type of work. This can include corporate boards and non-profit or community organizations. The bottom section of this page is unique to you and specific to your approach and style when serving on a board.
We hope you now have a clearer sense of what makes a great Bolster profile. Remember your profile is what differentiates you from everyone else and the more built out it is the better chances you have of getting matched. We welcome you to go back and spend a few minutes to really make your profile shine!
-Jen Goldman, July 8, 2021
