I have to write a short bio about myself for work, and I hate writing about myself.

Which bio you need: team page, program, introduction or profile

Bios get requested in four places, and each wants something slightly different. The word counts below are rules of thumb, not anyone's requirement; when an employer or organizer gives a limit, theirs wins.

Team page or company website. Third person, about 80 to 150 words. Current role first, then what you work on and for whom, one or two achievements, and a personal line at the end if your colleagues' bios have one.

Conference or event program. Third person, as long as the organizer says. CISSE, an academic conference on security education, is a typical example: its speaker page asks for 100 to 150 words in the third person, usable on the website, in the printed program, the proceedings and promotional material, opening with your current role and moving through your expertise and achievements to your link with the event's topic.

Introduction read aloud by a host. 30 to 60 seconds, which is roughly 65 to 130 words at a speaking pace of about 130 words a minute. Short sentences, no lists, your name said clearly at the end, and a pronunciation note for the host if your name needs one: “Lindqvist (LIND-kvist)”.

Your own profile or website. The first person reads more naturally where you're the one talking. For LinkedIn, the Career format's About type fits better than this page: it writes in the first person and checks the 2,600-character limit.

One set of facts, three bios

Here is the made-up set of facts from the example request, turned into three bios by hand.

Team page, 47 words: “Maya Lindqvist runs operations at Harbor & Pine, a 60-person furniture importer, where she works on inbound shipping and lead times. She started as a warehouse shift supervisor 12 years ago, and in 2024 led the company's move to a new warehouse without missing a delivery day.”

Event program, 91 words: “Maya Lindqvist is head of operations at Harbor & Pine, a furniture importer with 60 staff. She started as a warehouse shift supervisor and has spent 12 years in supply chain, most of it on inbound shipping and lead times. In 2024 she led the company's move to a new 90,000-square-foot warehouse without missing a single delivery day. Her talk, What a Missed Container Taught Us About Lead Times, takes one late shipment and walks through what it taught her team. Away from work she runs a weekend bike repair stall.”

Read aloud by the host, 60 words, under 30 seconds: “Our next speaker started on a warehouse floor as a shift supervisor. Twelve years later she runs operations at Harbor & Pine, and in 2024 she moved the whole company into a new warehouse without missing a single delivery day. Today she's going to tell us what one missed container taught her team about lead times. Please welcome Maya Lindqvist.”

The facts never change between versions. What changes is how many fit and which one leads: the job on the team page, the talk in the program, the story in the room. If an organizer wants 100 to 150 words and you're at 91, add a fact, such as a second achievement or a qualification, rather than adjectives.

Writing about yourself without bragging or shrinking

Most people either inflate a bio with adjectives or shrink it until nothing is left. Facts fix both. A number or a named result sounds confident without sounding like bragging, and writing in the third person makes those facts easier to put down.

Before: “Maya is a passionate, results-driven operations leader with a proven track record of driving excellence across the supply chain.”

After: “Maya moved a 60-person company into a new warehouse in 2024 without missing a delivery day.”

What to cut:

Adjectives the reader can't check: passionate, seasoned, visionary, dynamic. “Proven track record” and its relatives. A full job history. One earlier role is enough, if it explains the current one. Internal awards with no context. “Employee of the year” means more as “chosen from 400 staff”. More than one personal detail, and any joke that needs you in the room to land.

Use the present tense for what you do now and the past for what you did. And a decision rule for person: if someone else will publish it or read it out, write in the third person; if it sits on a page where you speak for yourself, use the first.

How to ask the Anything format for a bio

There's no dedicated bio type, so this page opens Anything, the format that works out the kind of text from your request, with the tone set to Professional. That makes the request do the work: say where the bio will appear, which person to write in and the lengths you need. Ask for several versions at once and each comes back under its own short heading. For one bio of a fixed size, set Length to Enter a word count and type a number from 50 up; for several lengths in one draft, leave Length on Auto and name them in the request, as the example does.

Unlike the Career format, Anything has no built-in rule about placeholders, so write “use only these facts and put [brackets] where something is missing” into your request, and read every line before it goes anywhere public. A light red pen pass cuts stock phrases and shows a naturalness score before and after; that score is an editing aid, not an AI detector. On a plan, a voice built from emails or posts you wrote keeps the rhythm and word choice close to yours.