How to rock your LinkedIn Headshot!
As a professional headshot photographer, it’s hardly any surprise that I should be writing about the importance of having a great profile picture for LinkedIn; I think it’s probably fair to say that there’s a bit of vested interest going on here!
So I thought I’d kick off with a slightly more impartial stance, and share some stats that help hammer home just why it’s so essential to make the right impression when people visit your profile page, especially now that face-to-face meetings have become the exception to the rule as we all attempt to navigate our way through these challenging times of Coronavirus.
First and foremost, your profile is an opportunity for you to promote yourself, whether that’s to prospective employers or new clients for your own business. Your headshot is the first thing people will see, and it’s the often most important factor that determines whether or not they’re likely to want to find out more about you.
I’ve written a more detailed article about the psychological impact of business portraits, but suffice it to repeat here that it takes just one tenth of a second for people viewing your photograph to make lasting judgements about a bewildering array of your personal characteristics from likeability, to trustworthiness, to intelligence, and right through to their own likely compatibility with you. The potential impact that can have on your professional life is huge.
So here are my top tips to help ensure that the first time that people engage with you for business online won’t be the last.
It goes without saying that building trust is one of the most fundamental elements of building lasting business relationships, and ensuring that your digital profile is an accurate representation of who you are is every bit as important as being authentic when you meet in person.
For business headshots, I generally advise that you wear what you would normally wear when meeting new clients for the first time. But obviously that’s going to vary hugely from individual to individual and from sector to sector, and it very much depends on the brand image you want to communicate.
If you do a quick Google, You’ll find any number of articles devoted specifically to what to wear for LinkedIn headshots, which often boil down to quite vanilla advice such as ‘look professional’ and ‘don’t wear anything too bright’. But professionalism comes in all guises these days and if you’re naturally someone who stands out from the crowd, then why not celebrate it?
When you’re booking a headshot photographer, make sure they understand your personal brand and business philosophy and that they style your shoot accordingly. As an executive coach and facilitator, Jen Tarjanyi has carved a successful career out of helping individuals and large Corporations alike break free from the chains of conventional thinking to address their business challenges, so asking her to tone down her own personal style and adopt some kind of generic ‘professional’ dress code for our headshot session would have made no sense at all.
Jen’s headshot is also a great example of the importance of an authentic expression; research has shown that smiling is a key factor building trust, but if you fake it you could equally well come across as disingenuous and untrustworthy. Once again, make sure you have a proper chat with your photographer prior to the shoot to reassure yourself that you’re likely to feel sufficiently relaxed and comfortable with them to be the ‘real you’.
2. Keep it simple
Robb Cunningham | Green Growth Platform
For fear of stating the blindingly obvious, a headshot should be just that: because your LinkedIn profile appears as a thumbnail, your picture should focus on your head and shoulders and fill at least 60-80% of the frame; go for a full body shot and there’s a risk of being unrecognisable.
To ensure that the focus stays firmly on you, avoid backgrounds that are too busy or distracting. Although I’ll often recommend using clean and simple neutral or single block colour backgrounds as a way of doing this, I’m also always mindful of using a background that has relevance to someone’s role. Given that he works in the green energy sector, it made sense to photograph Robb Cunningham in a natural environment and I used the dappled sunlight behind him to create some asethetically interesting textures; but by throwing the background out of focus, I also ensured that Robb remained the star of the show.
You should also make sure that your head is the only one that’s visible in the image; don’t make the mistake of thinking that including your partner, kids, friends, dog or any combination of the above will make you appear any more ‘human’ or approachable - you wouldn’t put them on your business card, so why put them on your professional profile? Remember, this is LinkedIn, not Instagram.
And it’s certainly not Tinder! It might be tempting to use that favourite picture of yourself from 10 years ago on holiday with a sun-kissed beach body, but if your digital profile is unrecognisable from your real one when you meet your LinkedIn contacts in person, it wouldn’t be unreasonable of them to wonder what else you’ve got to hide. So make sure that your LinkedIn photo is kept up to date and actually looks like you.
The same applies to editing your headshot; although it often feels nowadays as though people’s digital lives are lived through a filter of one kind or another, presenting only the very best versions of themselves, think twice about over-editing your headshot to cover up any insecurities. There’s no shortage of easy to use retouching programs out there, including an editing tool within LinkedIn itself, but remember that a big part of showing confidence is being happy with the face you’ve got!
Having said that, some degree of editing is entirely standard practice in my world, and one of the benefits of working with professional headshot photographers is that they should also be experts in the art of retouching, who understand the difference between you at your best and you after a bout of plastic surgery. If you’ve ever ventured into the treacherous world of on-line dating as a woman, the chances are that at one time or another you’ve swiped right only to meet someone who turned out to be more chips than Chippendale, and if that’s the case, you’ll probably also agree that whilst looks aren’t everything, honesty’s not a bad start to any beautiful relationship.
3. Work with a professional
David Green | Shoot Me Now
‘And here’s the pitch’, I hear you cry. Well yes, obviously I’d love you to come to me for your headshot session; but even if you don’t, I’d implore you to book a photographer who specialises in headshot photography.
Spend some time looking at different photographers’ websites; if they’ve got sections covering property, cats, dogs, food, weddings, corporate events and…..headshots, make sure sure that as well as being a jack of all trades they have also got the skills (and the right equipment and resources) to master yours.
Make the time to talk to your photographer before booking to get a sense of whether they understand what you’re looking for and whether you’re likely to get on; if you don’t, it’s odds on that you’ll feel uncomfortable during the shoot and your headshots will look less ‘captain of industry’ and more ‘rabbit in headlights’.
A huge part of my job is spending time giving direction and coaching on expressions and posing techniques to make sure that you feel comfortable enough to get the most out of your session and present yourself at your most self-assured, relaxed and approachable - the three qualities that are at the heart of most great professional headshots.
Working with a professional means that you are acknowledging that a great headshot is an investment in your career and shows others that you are taking yourself and your business seriously.
And although there’s no question that the quality and functionality of some smartphone cameras is phenomenal nowadays, the selfie phenomenon is fraught with its own risks in terms of portraying the wrong image if you decide to do it yourself.
So I hope that’s given you something to think about if you’re considering coming out of this lockdown all guns blazing and ready to put your best foot (and face) forward in the world of digital business; hopefully it won’t be too long before we’re meeting real people as well as pixels again, but if you are looking to get your online house in order, I’m always very happy to chat through my approach to headshot sessions to see if feels like it’s going to be up your virtual street.