Try to make yourself sound as interesting as possible. I mean it. If you are painting a self portrait you might as well use the right colors. Before we leave our homes what do we do? We all spend at least five minutes in front of our mirrors in an attempt to make our selves look as presentable and as impressive as possible.
Well, the same thing applies to our profile. Remove all drab details about yourself that might be of no interest to the reader. If you job is something like editing journals on the etymology of words derived from ancient Aramaic, well, just say that you have an editing job.
Similarly try to bear in mind that anything can be put down in two ways. You can either make it interesting or boring; so work on it until you are sure that it will not bore a reader to death and the best test for this would be to hand it over to a close friend and ask that friends opinion. Nobody likes a bore so take all efforts not to sound like one.
The Vagueness PitfallAt the same time what ever you put down about yourself must not be confusing. It just does not work to put down a statement like, “While I am not really given to sports, nor am I considered to be an outdoor person, I have developed a passing interest in watching football, and have had my stints with Terra firma.”
Phew! If, anything drives people away, statements like this certainly do. For Heavens sake avoid phrases like “I am different,” especially when you are talking about your appearance. The other person will in all likelihood conjure up images of a three horned monster or a lion tailed monkey.
Another example is when you use phrases like, “ I don’t play by the rules,” or “I am game for something new.” These expressions can be hopelessly misleading and it is the easiest thing in the world to add a sexual innuendo to such an expression and that would be a sure shot method of biting off more than you can chew.
Now that we have discussed the major pitfalls, let us go the real profile. The reason I said real profile is that the profile must indeed reflect the person you are.