Website Review and Suggestions

**shwizle** · 05-20-2007, 03:00 PM

I'm strugggling with writing the "about me" section of my website.

I'd like to give people an idea of who I am, without getting too specific, and (obviously) without scaring anyone off. I'd like to come off as an intelligent, mindful, and enthusiastic young man who will be a valuable addition to a creative firm.

I have 2 versions of the writeup:
http://www.ivancash.com/about.html <---please refer to this page as page 1
http://www.ivancash.com/about1.html <---please refer to this page as page 2

Thanks for your feedback and opinions,

Ivan

**highanddry** · 05-20-2007, 03:34 PM

Most about me sections are not written using "I" but rather words like "He."

This sentence "I am also very interested in examining and being exposed to different outlooks on life, whether they be sociological, psychological, philosophical, ecological, or political."

Is long, complicated and a little convoluted. I think you should shorten it a bit and rephrase for clarity. This part - "that I enjoy and am enthusiastic about", I understand that you are try to convey your passion, but I think you should use less pairing of descriptive words and more direct field related words/lingo. That is to say for example " He is well versed in (your field) and after completion of college, looks to attain a career in (your career goal), given his experience with (your experience).

**Republikin** · 05-20-2007, 05:10 PM

I agree with highanddry except for using third person rather than first. I've never quite understood why it is a fopah(sp?) to write about yourself in the first person but I find it to be less mechanical and thus, in your case, exactly what you need, more personal.

Also, being that your going to use this site to market yourself to potential employers you may want to use a more professional photo. I don't suppose seeing a picture of a kid wearing a backpack looking up at some mysterious object is going to leave a lasting impression on some HR manager (although it is an interesting photograph otherwise)

**vangogh** · 05-20-2007, 07:46 PM

I agree about using 1st person. Maybe a big corporate site should use 3rd person, but the rest of us would do better to write about us in the 1st person. People online want to get to know you better.

Ivan I know these pages can be hard. They should be the easiest since you should be quite familiar with yourself, but I know it's hard knowing what you should say sometimes.

I think the best approach is to be honest. Let people get to know you. Get some of your skills across to reinforce the idea that someone should hire you, but feel free to share who you are as a person.

One thing I find helpful when struggling with a page of content is to look at other sites in my industry and see how they handled the writing of a similar page. You don't want to use their content, but it should generate some ideas. Read their sites to see what they do well and what they don't do well. Borrow the ideas of the good stuff and figure out why the bad stuff is bad and offer something better on your page.

Know too that you can probably get away with a lot of things on your about page that might not work on other pages. It really is a page where you're allowed to say what you want about yourself and let people know who you are.