What is Bumble Bizz? How to use the dating app's professional networking mode to make new connections

• Bumble Bizz is a separate section of the dating app that focuses on making professional connections.
• Bumble Bizz works exactly the same as the Date section, but you show off your work experience and professional goals.
• Just like the rest of the app, men can't message women first - women make the first move.

The advent of dating apps like Tinder and Bumble changed the dating game, introducing phrases like "swipe right" and "swipe left" into our lexicon and bringing the idea of speed dating to a new generation.

Later on, Bumble users asked the company for a service to help make friends instead of lovers - and in 2016 they got Bumble BFF, which allowed users to have two separate profiles for dating and friendship.

Since then, Bumble added another way to help people connect with one another in the digital age: Bumble Bizz.

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What to know about Bumble Bizz

When you open up Bumble, you can decide what you're swiping to find that day - if you go with your dating profile, you'll be swiping for dates and potential partners. If you switch to Bumble BFF mode, which contains an entirely different version of your profile, you'll be swiping to look for a new friend.

If you choose Bumble Bizz mode, you swap to yet another public profile - this one containing information about your work experience, education, professional goals, and passions. When you look through your swipe deck on this version of the app, you're not looking for a partner or a friend - you're networking.

Bumble Bizz lets you swipe through the names of professionals in your indicated industries and make connections with potential employers, experts in your field, recruiters, and fellow professionals.

The advantages of Bumble Bizz

Some people may hear about this new feature and wonder how it sets itself apart from other networking sites like LinkedIn. The benefit of Bumble is that it encourages connecting with new people, not just people you already work with.

On sites like LinkedIn, you're often reliant on adding people you meet in real life to help you establish connections. Other than that, you can fill out your profile to the best of your ability and hope you get contacted by someone looking for a worker like you, but making those new connections isn't the site's primary function.

Bumble Bizz was created to help people form new connections - an ability that's been severely impacted by the pandemic, disproportionately affecting young professionals who are too new to have large networks.

That's not the only thing that sets Bumble Bizz apart, either. The central tenet behind Bumble is that it's an app where women have to message men first, rather than the other way around.

Seeing how well this feature worked in the dating arena, Bumble decided to keep it when creating Bumble Bizz - in any male-female match, the woman always has to be the one to message first. In any same-sex pairing, the opportunity to speak first goes to whoever was the second person to swipe right.

Bumble hopes that this will cut down some of the sexual harassment that some women have reported on sites like LinkedIn.

How to get started with Bumble Bizz

If you're looking to up your networking game and make new connections in your field, you should make a Bumble Bizz profile to see if it works for you. Signing up is easy and quick, especially if you already have Bumble downloaded.

Note that this is an entirely separate profile from your Dating and BFF profiles, and your other profiles won't be visible when you switch modes.

1. Open Bumble and tap your profile icon in the bottom-left corner of the screen.

2. Tap the gear icon in the upper-left corner of the screen to open the Settings menu.

   

3. Tap "Choose mode."

   

4. Tap "Bizz."

   

5. Tap Done, then tap "Complete my profile" under your name to fill in your profile.
6. A long page will appear, allowing you to enter all your relevant information. First, add a profile picture or two. You might want to use the additional photo fields for pictures that show - rather than tell - what you can do. For example, if you're a realtor, fill it with pictures of houses you've sold. If your job isn't really a "showy" job, you can also show off pictures of desk space, degrees, certificates, and so on.
7. You also need to add a heading that tells people who you are, what you do, and what you're looking to find on Bumble Bizz. It's sort of like an elevator pitch for yourself, but not geared toward any specific person or company.

8. Next, add info on yourself, your experience, and your education, then fill in some prompts to help get conversations started, and use the "About Me" section to add anything else you want.

   

9. Once your profile is filled out, tap "Done" in the top-right, then return to the home screen and start swiping.