The art of writing a good bio

Once you’ve joned Cambly, one of the first things you’ll want to do is set up the bio that your prospective students will see.

Apart from a nice smiley pic, and your rating, your bio is probably the most important thing that students will look at when choosing a tutor.  (Yes, I have asked several students why they chose me as a tutor.).  Your bio is the first chance for a student to get to know a little about you. Sell yourself, promote your good points, tell them what you can bring to the classroom!

So first off I’m going to share some bad bios with you…  These are all taken from the Cambly Tutor page and are actual bios. (with slight adjustments to protect the guilty 🙂 )

1:  A blank bio.  You’d be surprised at how many tutors leave this blank and then complain about a lack of students.

2: Repeating info:  “My name is John and I’m from England”.  Yes that was all the tutor put! The introduction card that Cambly shows to students already has your name and where you’re from on it, don’t waste your limited number of characters repeating yourself!

3: Bad English.  Sadly I see a lot of these. Your lack of  English will not impress a prospective student! .  “I am a grammar expert. I use to be a carpenter and then I use to be a shop assistant. Now I teach. I look forward to meet you” and  “I’m a qualified English teacher I done the CELTA course”

4: Stating the obvious. Several tutors just have…”Online English teacher” or “I am an English teacher”. I’ve also seen some that just have one word… “Tutor”.    Really? No shit Sherlock!

5: Don’t be rude.  “READ THIS CAREFULLY!  NO KIDS. ”  Maybe there’s a better way to put that across?… and you really don’t need to shout. 😛

OK, now that we’ve looked at the bad and the ugly, let’s see what makes a good bio.

1: Sell yourself.   Are you an experienced tutor? Do you have qualifications?  Put that info in your bio!

2: Do you have a speciality? If you are a pilot, a lawyer, a doctor, a business person, IELTS specialist etc. let your students know. A lot of students will want English in a certain speciality and will use Cambly’s search option to find a tutor specialising  in that area.

3: Tell the student if you have certificates.  If you have a teaching certificate, let the students know!

4: Be brief, to the point and get your message across. Students don’t need your life story. Use the Bio to get them interested and wanting to have a class with you.

Now that we’ve worked on the plus and minus points, here’s an example bio.. (it’s from one of the tutors here at camblytutorblog.com)

“I have been a tutor for 7 years and have a TEFL certificate. I specialise in Business English as well as the IELTS exam.  Patient and will give corrections. Also happy to answer any questions.”

Hope that helps, see you soon. The White Rabbit.