That's what I'm working on now as part of the Staffing Plan that I'm writing for my client's recompete proposal. I always find it kind of amusing when I have to do this, because writing blurbs is the first thing that I was assigned to do when I was learning to write proposals about a billion years ago. Although they are boring to prepare, good key personnel blurbs are critical if you want to have a winning proposal.
I've talked about blurbs in an earlier post and also provided an example of one. For this particular proposal, I have to prepare blurbs for several key people. Each blurb is about one page long but may eventually need to be shortened to 3/4 of a page due to space constraints. When writing each blurb, I keep a hard copy of the person's resume on my desk and go through it several times. My objective is to identify the types of work and activities that the candidate has performed that are similar to the work that will need to be done for the proposed project and that meet the evaluation criteria set forth in the RFP/RFA. I then try to summarize, paraphrase and emphasize each key person's qualifications, skills and experience with the aim of pursuading the proposal reviewers that this individual is indeed the best-qualified person to perform the work.
Some people's resumes don't contain enough information for a good blurb. In those cases, you or someone else on the proposal team may need to interview the candidate to gather more specific information. Most likely, the resume may need to be re-written as well.
Writing blurbs may seem like an easy task, but it's not. It's time-consuming and it's often difficult to make someone sound like they are the most wonderful person in the world. But that's what a blurb is all about.
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