The first thing someone sees when they come out to your LinkedIn profile is your
profile photo.
How does yours look?
Hi I’m Jeri Walker, Career and Job Search strategist and in this video I’m going to
tell you what your LinkedIn profile photo should look like.
And just as importantly, I’m going to show you what it shouldn’t look like.
Now before we talk about what your profile photo should look like, let’s take a look
at what it shouldn’t look like.
First up we have The Family Photo.
I can appreciate a 3 generational Family photo just like the next guy but unless you're running
a family owned business and that's part of your marketing strategy LinkedIn is not the
place for it.
That's what Facebook's for so keep your family photos there and not on LinkedIn.
Now what I've seen happen a lot is the next one and that is The Afterthought.
This is someone who has taken that family photo or picture at a wedding or a birthday
party or family reunion and they've cropped out as well as they can the other parties
and thrown this up as their LinkedIn profile picture.
Not a really good idea.
Next up, and I've seen this a lot is the Ill Sized.
I don't really have a whole lot to say on this one other than it's just sloppy.
What you want is a square photo, always use a square photo.
LinkedIn says that 400 x 400 is the ideal size, just make sure that it's square so it
fits correctly into that field.
Now the cousin of the Ill Sized is The Fallen.
I'm honestly not sure how this happens if you’re paying even the least amount of attention
to your profile picture this should never happen.
This takes the phrase “I've fallen and I can't get up”, to a whole new level because
you will see your career opportunities fall if you can't make any more effort on your
profile photo than this.
And I have seen a lot of these lately.
Next up is The Face.
I assume that this is just another example of a really bad cropping job that she had
to zoom in so closely to get something out of the picture that it ends up looking like
this.
This is not best practice in fact I don't know that this is much different than this
because this is exactly what I think of whenever I see one of these face shots
And then the exact opposite of The Face shot is this one and that's the Mini-Me.
You don't want to have your photo so zoomed out that you can't even tell who this person
is or what they look like.
Remember a lot of times recruiters are on their mobile phones and something like this
kind of a picture is going to be extremely small on a mobile phone so don't zoom out
too far.
The next one is the one that I call The Mugshot.
I have actually had several clients when I first brought them on that I honestly was
a little hesitant to work with them based on their photograph.
They were extremely pleasant people but you sure could not tell by their profile photo.
Now the next one is what I call The Chameleon.
Be very aware of what you're wearing, what your background is, as well as the color of
your hair.
Make sure that you don't have a mono chromatic type of photo where you really can't even
tell where your clothes began and the background begins, or your hair begins and the background
begins.
It can look very awkward, make sure you're paying attention to that.
Now this next one is what I call The Glamour Shot.
LinkedIn is a professional networking platform.
Now of course this is all relative.
If this individual makes their living as a model or makeup artist, or some type of creative
then that's fine but I do not want to see this type of picture for somebody who's applying
for say an engineering position or an accounting position.
That's not okay.
And the next the one I see quite a bit.
It's similar to the mug shot but instead of just looking unhappy she looks downright scary!
I would not want to hire this person.
She looks like somebody that I would not want to manage, I would not want to work with just
based on her expression.
This is one that I see a lot when people take photos outside.
They may be squinting because it's bright outside so be aware if you do decide to take
an outdoor picture.
Make sure you're taking that into consideration and don't squint.
Now that said, that doesn't mean put on sunglasses just make sure that you're not looking like
this person!
When I see these types of profile photos, the message I get is….”I don’t want
to make the effort to do it right, so let me just throw this photo up in my profile.”
That’s not quite the impression you probably want to make on a potential employer or customer.
Be honest, does your profile picture look like any of the ones that we just looked at?
Comment below “Changing it!” if you plan on changing it!
Now if your photo is good but it’s more than a few years old and you no longer even
resemble the person in that photo, it’s probably also time for an update.
So, the basic guide to your LinkedIn profile photo is you want a head and shoulders shot,
you want to look professional, and you want to have a warm smile.
You don’t have to get a professional headshot done for your profile photo.
All you need is a decent camera on your phone, a neutral background, and some lighting on
your face.
Just crop the photo at about the shoulders or chest height and you’re done.
Now if you don’t currently have a photo because you’re self-conscious or for whatever
reason you aren’t comfortable with having your photo out there, I do encourage you to
reconsider.
LinkedIn has said that you are 21 times more likely to have your profile viewed if you
have a profile picture so you’re really hindering yourself if you don’t have one.
Plus, people are going to be more likely to connect with you if you have a profile photo.
And also, be sure to adjust your privacy settings so people can see your photo—it doesn’t
really do much good to have a profile photo if you’re not going to allow anyone to see
it.
I hope you appreciate the importance of having a professional looking LinkedIn profile photo.
If you need a little bit more help on LinkedIn you can grab my checklist just to be sure
that you’ve done the ten basic steps that LinkedIn wants you to do to complete on your
profile.
I hope you liked this video, please give it a thumbs up and subscribe to my channel to
get more career and job search help.
Thanks for watching, I’ll see you next time.