Hey guys. It's great to see you again. If you are new here, my name is Bill Benoist. I'm a Certified
Professional Career Coach here in Silicon Valley. And this little person, her name is Piper. Piper
is a rescue dog. She is a Papillon mix. She's been with me for about two years now. She's
really super sweet. She is photogenic. She loves to be in front of the camera. She's quite a clown,
but the bottom line is she's not a good subject for the LinkedIn profile photo.
So, you got it. What I'm gonna be talking about today is 10 tips on really maximizing the impact
of your LinkedIn profile photo. And unfortunately, Piper's not one of those 10 tips.
Piper sheds a little bit. So, as I mentioned, I have 10 tips today to significantly improve your
LinkedIn profile photo, but make sure that you stay to the very end of this video, because I also
have a bonus to a website where you can upload your LinkedIn profile photo or actually any photo.
I mean, if you have a photo for a dating site or maybe something for social media, you can upload
this photo to a specific website and have individuals review it and give you feedback
in three different areas. So, it's a really cool little feature doesn't cost to you. Anything that
I think you would really enjoy playing with. So, let's just start talking about the 10 tips. So,
tip number one, and this one is really kind of a pet peeve for me, has been for a long time.
Annette is making sure that your LinkedIn profile photo represents who you are today.
You know, how many times where, you know, when I was working, I would call someone name for an
interview. And, you know, oftentimes I'd look at their LinkedIn profile and take a look at
their picture. And so, I had an idea of who it was that was gonna be coming into the office.
I go out to meet the individual and it's like, who are you? And it was because their LinkedIn profile
photo was like, like 20 years old or something. So, make sure that you are representing yourself
accurately on LinkedIn. If it's been more than say three or four years, update that photo. Number
two, make sure that you're using a high-resolution image. You know, I've shared this in videos in the
past fact I'll rep uh, go ahead and link one in the upper right-hand corner, how recruiters
and hiring managers will do a search for candidates on LinkedIn using specific keywords.
Well, once they have this search done, they have a number of individuals that they're looking at.
And, but what they're seeing is just really thumbnails of their LinkedIn profile photo.
Now, we already know that if somebody doesn't have a photo to 21 times less likely they're even gonna
be clicked on, but those individuals that were using low quality, um, pitchers, low resolution,
they're likely gonna be passed over as well, because you know, when low resolution at a
thumbnail level, it looks very blurry. So, make sure that you using good high resolution, number
three, make sure that your face is taking up about 60% of the frame. So, this is also something I've
talked about, one on one clients when we're going over the LinkedIn module, and that
is distance from the camera. So you wanna make sure that you are in the, you know, in the frame.
So good rule of thumb is making sure that you're taking up about 60%
of the frame. Don't go too far back in the background. Number four, and this is another one
that's really kind of a pet peeve of mine. P the only person in the photo I like I mid mentioned
earlier. Piper is not a good subject to be in that photograph with you for LinkedIn,
but neither is, or you should have a group photo shot, make sure there's no animals, birds,
rocks, anything like that. It needs to represent youth. This is again, this is not Facebook.
This is a professional networking platform five. And this is I think, a really good tip and that
is get someone else to take the photo. Don't try and do a selfie. You know, one of the problems
with doing a selfie is you're gonna be using the front facing camera on a phone, on a smartphone.
And really those cameras are not the best in the world. All right, tip number six is the
expression. This is also really super important. You need to make sure that you're smiling
in the photo. You know, there was a study that was done. They looked at some 800 photos,
LinkedIn profile photos, recruiters, and hiring managers. And what they saw, what they found
was that they believed that people that were, are smiling in the photos were more influential
and more likable and more approachable and other videos that I've done. And again, I'll link one
of these in the upper right-hand corner. You know, it was your resume that validated your competence.
But when you go into the interview, it's more about likability and compatibility than it,
about confidence, cuz your confidence was already validated during the resume
and during the phone interview. Now they wanna know if you're gonna be a fit on the team.
Well, let's just get this out there in the very beginning. A nice smile really makes it look like
you're approachable, you're likable and you're gonna be a good team member. So, make sure that
you're smiling in that photo. All right, number seven. And that is avoid distracting backgrounds.
So earlier I said, you know, make sure that your frame within 60%
of the, um, or that your face was within 60% of the frame, but the rest of that, just make sure
that it's not distracting out there. So try to have something in the background that's neutral,
or if you are using a camera somebody's using it, make sure that they have the aperture set.
So it blurs out the background. It's really kind of important. You need to be the primary focus
of the photo tip number eight, wear what you would wear if you were going to work.
I mean, I was a vice president information services. I didn't really need to wear a tire
or anything, but I would wear a nice button-down shirt. This is how I would dress. When I would go
into the office. This is the way that I want to dress on my LinkedIn profile photo. So where, what
you would be wearing if you were going into work number nine in that make sure that you're using
kind of a soft light, you know, no harsh lights or anything. So again, if you're inside, you know,
not, not trying to be under harsh, fluorescent lights, a soft, light's gonna add just a nice glow
to your face. So, make sure that, you know, soft versus a harsh light and finally number two 10,
and that is be careful with filters. You know, LinkedIn has six different filters that you can
use after you upload your profile photo, you know, use 'em wisely, be careful about this.
You don't want to, you know, go through all this motion, and then find out that
you've ruined it with using the wrong kind of alter. So, make sure that you take a look
at the filters. If you're gonna play with those use 'em wisely. Now, as I mentioned,
I have a bonus tip for you. And that bonus tip is a website called PhotoFeeler.com.
And let me share my screen with you. I'm gonna show you exactly how this works. So, this is photo
feeler.com. The website is www.photo feeler.com. And I'll leave a link in the notes section below.
So, this is really cool. This is a place where you can upload a photo and select one of three
categories to have this photo judged it. So, the three categories are dating social
and business. And so, what we're talking about today would be using the business area because
we wanna check a LinkedIn profile photo, but you could do this with dating or social as well.
So, for example, if we were to look at business here, competent likable influential, if we
were to take a look at D smart, trustworthy, and attractive, and then if we were to look at social,
it would be confident, authentic, and fun. So, these are the three areas of each one of these
categories where people can go ahead and vote in completely anonymous, um, with this. So, you're
really kind of putting yourself out there. You gotta have a little bravery with that,
a little bit of a risk taking, but let me show you how this works. So, I've created an account
again, this is completely free for the first photo where they're gonna nail you is if you want to
upload a second photo or a third photo. But so for the first one, what I'm gonna do is once you've
created the account, I'm gonna here to, uh, my tests and you see, I don't have anything here.
So the first thing I want to do is I'm gonna upload it. So earlier I said that Piper is
probably not a good idea for a business LinkedIn profile, but let's just select her here it is.
There's Piper myself. I'm gonna click on this and now I have the chance I can go business,
social or dating. You know, I bet you anything. I'm not gonna do it, but I bet you anything. I
could probably see select dating and get a really high mark there. Maybe even social. In fact,
you know what I'm gonna do? I am actually, it doesn't matter whether I hit business. See they're
gonna treat confident, likable, influential, social, confident, authentic, fun, uh, dating,
smart, trustworthy, attractive. How could I not be attractive with, you know, acute, uh,
puppy on my shoulder there, but you know what? I'm gonna go back. I'm gonna do business competent.
It doesn't look like I'm very competent. Likable, probably. Influential - it's down the drain.
Let's go do social. It's the same thing all the way through I'll hit next.
And how many people in this photo? Just one next and which size karma test free. Oh, here,
rough test. 10 credits, quick and dirty. Just get a few opinions, 20 credits. So, this one here is
where I can actually buy things. So for example, if I wanted to buy 20 votes, if I click on this
hit confirm, spend 20 credits for 20 votes, notify me when this is ready, I'll hit confirm,
and I don't have enough credits because I have to vote on people to get credits. I'm gonna go
back because the only thing I can really do right now is just go
Into the free one. Your test is now active, do nothing else. And you may
get a few votes in a few days or weeks. I'll get a few votes in the next couple of days,
but that's all there is to it. That's all there is it. And if you wanted to buy some credits here,
get credits. Let me just show you what this is. Get 40 credits for $9, a hundred credits for $19.
This is how they get you. Um, this is actually how I selected my LinkedIn profile photo.
And I probably spent about 20 bucks on this because tried three different photos before.
The one that I currently have was the one that was getting the, the highest ranking
in all three categories. Hey guys, I hope you found this video informative and useful.
And if you haven't already done, so make sure that you subscribe to this channel,
hit that bell notification. That way it's gonna excite Piper because you love of bills
and also means that you're not gonna miss any videos moving forward. Thanks for stopping by.
And I look forward to seeing you next week. Take care. Bye bye. See, bye Piper. Bye.