How to Complete Your ASJA Member Profile

Want to land more clients? You may want to update your profile in the ASJA member directory.

Your profile in the ASJA member directory may be the key to getting into your dream publication or landing more clients. It is an opportunity to highlight your background and work experience as well as identify your expertise and specialty. But if you’ve been procrastinating about completing or updating your profile, a recent webinar by ASJA’s Membership Engagement Committee offered step-by-step instructions on how to complete the ASJA member profile.

During the webinar, ASJA member Marijke Vroomen Durning explained, page by page, how to complete your profile in a way that would stand out to potential clients.

“Only 382 of us have our profiles up,” Vroomen Durning noted during the webinar. “There are a lot more than 382 people in ASJA, so we have to get those numbers up, so that when people come to look for writers they have a good variety.” Here are a few tips to create a profile that will land you new gigs:

1. Your photo. Upload a professional headshot or photo. Be sure to read the instructions on how to resize your photo to fit.
   Your bio. Write a bio that demonstrates your expertise, who you’ve worked for and your accomplishments. The form allows up to 500 words. The form also allows you to write a shorter bio, up to 35 words.
2. Expertise and experience. If you’ve written about a subject, check it off!. If your area of expertise is not listed, complete the Specialty Subjects section. This section allows you to list several subjects that you write about or cover. “Take the time and really think about your specialty subjects,” Vroomen Durning said. “This is going to make you stand out.”
3. Skills section. Check off all that you’ve done whether its blog posts or communications strategy or ghostwriting or photography or radio production.
4. Writing Credits. List the publications and clients you’ve written for and the books you’ve authored. You can even include a book where you’re a contributor.
5. Awards and Recognition. This section gives you an opportunity to brag about your accomplishments and achievements. If you’ve won any type of award or participated in a fellowship program, add it to this section.
6. Websites and Social Media. You may not want to share your Facebook, Twitter or Instagram accounts and that’s okay. However, potential clients will certainly want to take a look at your LinkedIn profile and personal website. Make sure they are updated and include your latest work.
7. Clips. You can add up to 10 clips to your member profile. Choose your 10 strongest clips that demonstrate your expertise, creativity, innovation and different writing styles.

It will take at least 24 hours for information on your profile to update, so you may not see the changes right away. Vroomen says make sure you see a green banner across the top of your screen that shows your work has been saved.

Vroomen Durning said she completed her profile over a few days, so you may want to save your work and continue completing it another day. 

“It took a couple of hours over a few days,” Vroomen said of working on her profile. “This is a living document. You can add things, take away things.”