3 tips for career women to “brag better”

Meredith Fineman encourages women to share their strengths on Breaking Glass

Meredith Fineman is an expert in bragging, and she joined us on Breaking Glass to share why it’s critical for women to be able to promote themselves effectively if they want to advance professionally. A best-selling author, speaker and women’s advocate, Meredith has written a book titled Brag Better, and is the founder of FinePoint, a leadership and communications company that elevates individuals at all levels of their career. In our conversation, Meredith reflected on women’s struggles with self-confidence, and more specifically, how we too often fail to promote ourselves to colleagues and supervisors. Meredith believes that self-promotion is in fact a skill that anyone can build through practice, and she shared three concrete tactics to help women “brag better” below: 

1. Take 10 minutes every week to write down your wins – And keep that list running! This should become your go-to list for professional promotion and maintaining it weekly is much easier than trying to think back later on. This will help you remember your strengths when it comes time for a quarterly review, an annual review or when you’re asking for a raise. If your boss asks you “why?”, you’ll be prepared with concrete examples of success.
2. Update your email signature – Make sure that you have a practical email signature that makes it easy for viewers to contact you by phone and learn more about who you are. Include a link to help people understand what makes you unique or drives traffic to where your work is displayed.
3. Put in a quarterly calendar reminder to update your bio – Keep a few up to date versions of your bio. A “long bio” should be fairly comprehensive and include everything you think is important about your professional experience. From that, you can create a single paragraph version of the original. Finally, try to have a two line bio. Make sure all of these are being updated consistently, and try asking a friend or coworker to look them over occasionally. There are people all around you who can help you along the way.

Meredith describes bragging as a team sport, and emphasizes that it is important to remember that there are people all around you eager to share your wins. Sharing your work and talking proudly and strategically about it is not always easy, but it is a skill you can build no matter how uncomfortable it may seem at first. Ultimately, Meredith wants readers and listeners to always remember this: your accomplishments are worth talking about. Full stop.