How to write a great employee profile

A couple of weeks ago, Ragan Consulting Group (RCG) co-founder and senior partner Jim Ylisela co-hosted a writing workshop with RCG senior consultant Tom Corfman at Chicago’s Soho House. Attendees were asked to find a stranger — someone they didn’t work with — and interview them throughout the afternoon for what would eventually become a profile.

Along the way, Ylisela and Corfman broke up the activity with advice and tips on what goes into writing a good profile of someone at work. Here are a few of their key points.

Become a hunter-gatherer of news in your organization.

“As communicators, we have to learn to be really good reporters in our own organizations,” said Corfman. “And that’s going to require a shift in attitude, because too often as communicators at organizations, we’re often in the position of being on the receiving end of the story. We’re already told what the story is.”

Corfman said that changing our thinking to become a reporter requires an understanding that good reporters don’t expect to be handed the news, but instead think about how they can break the news by finding scoops.  He likened this practice to becoming a hunter-gatherer of news within your org.