Your LinkedIn Profile Picture May Be Killing Your Job Prospects
I don’t really consider myself an HR person. I like to think I’m a practical technologist. However, I do occasionally attend HR-related training. Yesterday was one such occasion and inevitably, I had a shock.
The discussion moved from hiring techniques to LinkedIn photos. Many of the folks in the room agreed that LinkedIn photos should be professional. No argument there.
But someone told us a story that made us all cringe. And if you are in HR, you may cringe as well.
This recruiter was working with a candidate who had hired her to position him for a job. He had a fabulous resume. She had trouble finding anything to change in his material — but then she took a look at his LinkedIn profile photo.
The guy looked like an axe murderer. She said, “No wonder he wasn’t getting any interviews, despite his killer credentials, no pun intended.”
So he retook his photo, and I kid you not, within a week he had several opportunities arise.
(Let’s just ignore the more frightening social implications of that for now, and accept the fact that your photo makes a big impact).
So I ask you, does your photo strive too hard to be what you think “professional” is supposed to look like?
Or are you using it as an opportunity to convey your personality?
I’m not a photographer, but I would like to offer some profile photo tips.
- Don’t be afraid to show personality. You can have personality and be professional at the same time.
- Experiment with action shots. There isn’t a lot of room, but the more you can demonstrate YOURSELF in action the better. Can you fit yourself giving a presentation into the photo, shaking hands, or even leaning on a hand?
- Play with the negative space. You notice the first photo in this post has uniform negative space around the guy’s head. The second photo is visually more interesting. He accomplished this by turning his body and tilting his head.
- Smile and think inviting thoughts.
That’s my amateur photography advice. If you have some more ideas, please share them in the comments below.
About The Author
Joshua Waldman
Joshua Waldman is an authority on leveraging social media to find employment. He is the author of Job Searching With Social Media For Dummies, and his writing has appeared in Forbes, Huffington Post, Mashable and the International Business Times. Joshua’s career blog, CareerEnlightenment.com, won the About.com Reader’s Choice Award for Best Career Blog 2013. When he’s not writing, Joshua presents keynotes, trainings and breakout sessions around the world for students, career advisors, consortiums and professional organizations.
Joshua,
GREAT advice!! I have been preaching this for year. As a recruiter and career coach, I judge a candidate by the types of photos they put on their social media sites, esp. Linked In. It’s a test of sorts: if you can not manage a professional head shot by the time you are a year or two into your career, you are not giving enough thought to career management in general.
Thanks – I’ll be sharing this post!
So true, Joshua!
Here are some additional tips:
• Don’t use an old photo. There are few things worse than meeting someone for the first time and not recognizing them because the profile on their LinkedIn profile is from 10 years ago (or longer)!
• Use a photo of you in your profile — don’t use a photo of an object.
• Consider using a full body shot of you sitting or standing. At a minimum, your photo should include your head and shoulders, not just a close-up of your face.
• Smile! Radiate warmth and approachability in your photo.
• Don’t have other people in your photos (and don’t crop other people out of your shot — there should not be any errant body parts in your LinkedIn photo!).
• Make sure the background in the photo isn’t distracting.
• Relax. Look directly at the camera.
• Take multiple shots and ask people their opinion on which one makes you seem most “approachable.”
People sometimes want to express their creativity with their profile picture. I certainly do for most of my other social media profiles. But I decided LinkedIn is not the place to be creative, so I went with a nice “professional” picture!