LinkedIn is the place to be if you are looking to expand your business network. It is a bit like social media for businesses, and is the most professional of all the social media networks.
As with all social media, LinkedIn has the option of setting a headshot. It is a great idea to include a headshot in your LinkedIn profile, as this helps to complete your profile, and makes it seem far more professional to other viewers on the platform.
Since the platform is mostly about work, it can be quite stressful to choose the right photo. This is especially true for people who are generally camera shy, or those who struggle to take photos of themselves that they feel are representative of what they look like in their business environment.
What are LinkedIn Headshots?
A LinkedIn headshot is a photo of your head and shoulders that acts as your profile picture for the site. Generally a headshot should be a professional photo, in work-appropriate clothes suitable for your job.
You’ll want to make sure the photo looks good when compressed to the small size of a profile picture on the platform. To this end, make sure your picture is around 400 x 400 pixels, with an aspect ratio of 1:1. This helps to make sure that the end picture comes out looking as good as it was when you took it, and without any blurring or pixelation.
You’ll also want to make sure you have an up-to-date photograph. This is because LinkedIn is usually used for professional connections within your industry, so it’s worth assuming that you’ll eventually meet the people you are connecting with on the platform.
How to Take A Good LinkedIn Headshot
Taking a good headshot can be a bit tough in the best of circumstances, but when it’s for work it adds an extra layer of stress. This stress tends to show up on your face, which can add tension to the photo and take away from your natural charm.
One of the best tips is simply to relax! But, we do acknowledge this is easier said than done, so here are the 5 top tips on how to take a good LinkedIn headshot.
1. Poses to Choose From
Since the headshot is simply from your shoulders up, most people think that there is little to no posing involved in taking a headshot. In fact, there are a variety of poses that you can choose, and each of them helps to add some interest to the photo.
- The classic: A simple face on shot, the classic headshot is named as such because it’s the most common of all headshots. That’s not to say that it’s a boring shot! It allows you to show off all your natural features, and is great for allowing your natural looks to shine through.
- The lean: Taking a photo while leaning slightly forward to the camera helps to add dynamic movement, which creates a feeling of friendship between the camera and the viewer. This adds some interest to the photo and is more visually stimulating than the classic, but still allows you to show off all your natural features.
- The over the shoulder: As the name suggests, this picture is taken over the shoulder. This pose helps to create intrigue, and is often used for a more dramatic and edgy look. For most industries, this is likely to be a bit much for LinkedIn, but it can be a great choice for those in the creative or artistic realms.
Whichever pose you choose, it’s important to keep in mind your facial expression when taking your photo. You want to make sure you aren’t just blank and neutral, as this will be quite a boring photo.
For most industries a simple smile will be a great choice. You can also choose to laugh, or go for a more moody photoshoot depending on the industry you are in, and how you are choosing to advertise yourself.
Think of your photo as capturing a moment in time, rather than as a still-life painting. This will help to capture a sense of movement and being in the moment, which will breathe life into the photo and make it much more captivating to the eye.
2. Choose Your Wardrobe
An important consideration for your LinkedIn headshot is your wardrobe. What you are wearing in your picture will have a significant impact on the overall tone of the picture. It can also have a significant impact on your comfort level, and feelings of tension can easily transfer across into your headshot.
A good tip is to avoid bright colours or patterns. These tend to draw the eye away from the main focus of the picture (you), and can create a distraction. Instead, try wearing neutral colours that suit your skin tone and hair colour.
Many people look good in solid jewel tones, or in neutral colours like cream, grey, tan, or navy. Try staying away from white, as this tends to wash most people out. Black can also create shadow in the image, so it is usually best to avoid wearing this colour for a headshot.
However, because your LinkedIn profile is a business profile, it might not be suitable to wear colours in some professions. In that case, black or white are perfectly acceptable. It all depends on what you do, and what you feel comfortable in.
3. Consider Your Background
The next most important thing to consider in your LinkedIn headshot is your background. A neutral background is usually the best choice for a headshot background, as it helps to avoid taking focus away from the subject of the picture.
However, you can also choose to take your headshot in certain locations. For example, if you are working at a particularly well known institution you may choose to take your headshot outside by a sign for it. This lets recruiters know right away that you are affiliated with that institution.
Other options for backgrounds can be simpler, for example, a brick background. These can help to add some colour and contrast to the photo without being overwhelming. However, in most cases the background should be blurred to allow your face to stand out.
4. Show Your Uniqueness
Although LinkedIn is a professional social media site, it’s not exactly the same as being at work. You don’t need to follow all the rules if you feel like showing off some of your unique attributes or interests.
You may include some of your unique physical attributes like your natural hair, or play around with some fun colours in your make-up. You can also have fun with internet filters, and add some subtle changes to your headshot if you want to.
In most cases these changes will be best kept to specific industries. For example, if you are a multimedia artist, you could use some face-paint in your headshot to showcase your talents.
However, it’s probably not a good idea for most people to go too crazy with the filters and special effects for their LinkedIn headshot. You should try to keep it as natural as possible so you are easily recognisable for your work connections.
5. Ask For Help
If you’ve read this far and you are thinking that it all sounds like too much for you, then it might be worth getting some help. Try hiring a professional photographer, or using AI image generators to help create headshots for you.
Professional Photography
A professional photographer can help to guide you through the process of creating a headshot, and is a great resource for making sure you end up with a high quality product.
The professional photographer will have access to a range of high quality tools, like a commercial grade camera, a studio space, and the ability to retouch or edit your photos for you after they have been taken. All of these factors help to produce higher quality photos than can usually be achieved by a person on their own.
The downside of professional photography is that it is often prohibitively expensive. Headshots will usually cost you anywhere from $400-1,500 per session, depending on the expertise of the photographer, the number of headshots, the number of looks, and the amount of post-session editing done.
You also need to find a professional photographer that you like and trust. A good option is to ask your friends and family, but many of them may not have had headshots taken in the past.
You can always leverage other social media tools in order to look for photographers in your area. This usually provides a portfolio of work for each photographer, allowing you to see the quality and type of work they do. This will help you establish whether the artist is right for you.
For a LinkedIn profile, most people won’t want to pay this much for a headshot. However, it is a great option if you need to have the headshots done for something else and need a headshot for your LinkedIn page as well.
AI Image Generators
An AI image generator is a great, low cost alternative for getting a variety of different headshot options. These generators take several photos that you upload into the generator, and use an algorithm to “learn” your unique features and facial structure.
This allows the generator to create a new image of you. A headshot generator will create professional images of you posing for headshots, and can help to avoid the issues people often run into like feeling tense for your photo, or having a dimly lit background.
Headshot generators often also give you a host of headshots to work with, so you can pick and choose which of the images are best for your particular situation. You might choose to post one of them to your LinkedIn as a headshot profile picture, and have another one be on your CV, and a different one be on your email.
However, people often have concerns with AI image generators, and it’s not without good reason. There are a few things that can go wrong in the process of generating new images, so you need to be careful about which AI you use.
Some of the most common pitfalls of AI is that the images can have too few angles or use not enough pictures to generate the new image. This means that the algorithm doesn’t have enough data to learn your face correctly, and it can result in the end result coming out as warped, or just not looking like you.
Additionally, some AI tools have data privacy concerns. This is particularly concerning in today’s world, where data privacy is one of the most important things to think about to protect yourself online.
Choosing a reputable AI image generator will help to protect your data. One such generator is PixelPose, which encrypts your data while it has it, and deletes it after a certain amount of time. Your data will also never be sold to a third company, guaranteed.
PixelPose is a great choice for an image generator for LinkedIn headshots because it is cheap, and offers several package options. The Lite package option is an excellent choice for LinkedIn users because it offers 20 HD photos, with a turnaround time of only 60 minutes. This means you can have your perfect headshot in as little time as one hour.
Are LinkedIn Headshots Worth the Effort?
As much of a hassle as they may seem, a good LinkedIn headshot really does wonders for your activity on the platform. If you are actively using the platform for job hunting, or trying to increase your network, then it can make a real difference to have a headshot in your profile.
Research shows that people who complete their LinkedIn profile with a headshot get a whopping 21 times the amount of views of those who don’t have one, and 9 times more requests for a connection. That’s a lot more eyes on your profile.