The highest impact optimization you can make to your LinkedIn profile might just be updating your headshot to appear confident, competent, and professional.
You’ve got 3 options to choose from, ranked from least expensive ($) to most expensive ($$$):
Take your own DIY headshot
Cost: $0
Why: If you don’t have the money to invest, then you don’t have it. Follow the DIY LinkedIn headshot best practices on this page to end up with the best result possible.
Use a virtual photo studio to generate LinkedIn headshots ($)
Cost: $29-$49
Why: Generate up to 240 LinkedIn headshots, indistinguishable from a professional portrait. Get the results 2 hours later. 14 day money back guarantee.
Hire a professional headshot photographer ($$$)
Cost: $250-$1,000+
Why: You’re a highly paid business professional who values the human interaction and experience a photographer brings to the table.
Reminder: we’re talking about a one time career investment that could pay for itself many times over if you land a job on LinkedIn.
What does your LinkedIn headshot say about you?
Using a headshot on your LinkedIn profile is non-negotiable.
You could be the stronger candidate across the board and still lose a job opportunity to an Average Joe or Average Jane sporting a mediocre resume paired with a professional LinkedIn headshot.
Come on! This shouldn’t surprise anybody.
According to research done by LinkedIn themselves, having a profile picture makes your profile 14 times more likely to be viewed by others.
What LinkedIn won’t tell you, however, is how a DIY taken-at-home profile pic stacks up against a professional LinkedIn headshot.
Here’s a reminder of what recruiters see, when they’re actively deciding which person appears the most qualified for the job.
Here we have one person without a profile photo at all, one with a done-at-home selfie, and a couple handsome fellas who’ve clearly invested in a quality LinkedIn headshot.
Looking at the screenshot above, is it not immediately clear which of the potential candidates appear to be taking their career more seriously?
In reality, it’s entirely possible the person without a LinkedIn profile picture is the best candidate for the job. But his decision to not use a professional headshot makes him appear lazy, less capable, and less professional, relative to the competing candidates using headshots as their LinkedIn profile picture.
If you want to maximize the amount of job offers you receive on LinkedIn, you need to use a profile picture.
Do not use a selfie. But if you do…
Investing in a proper headshot is an easy and relatively inexpensive way to invest in your career. Especially when you consider that you can get 40 professional LinkedIn headshots for just $29.
But we get it. Spending your hard earned money on a photoshoot is a luxury that not everybody is in a position to partake in.
If purchasing professional headshots isn’t an option for you, make sure you follow these selfie best practices to ensure the photos you end up with don’t hurt your chances of landing a new job on LinkedIn.
Choose the right clothes to wear. Don’t overthink it: just wear the kind of clothes you’d wear on a typical workday.
Lighting is (almost) everything. Natural light is ideal, but you might want to avoid the ‘golden hour’ of photography, just before sunset. It’s a gorgeous time to take photos—but the result is a bit too romantic for LinkedIn, in our opinion.
Find a simple backdrop to pose in front of. Avoid dark colors. The more consistent the backdrop the better, which means a brick wall or a simple wallpaper pattern would be a better backdrop than your busy garden. No offense—it’s a beautiful garden!
Say cheese! A closed mouth smile is better than no smile, and some may find it more comfortable, but smiling with exposed teeth makes you appear more likable, more competent, and more influential.
Go from awkward to photogenic with this simple pose. “Boy do I wish I knew this little gem when I was spending a lot of my time in front of the camera”, said photographer Peter Hurley, talking about the Squinch.
Take 10 photos. Then 20 more. Then 50 more. Quantity is the name of the game when you’re conducting an amateur photoshoot. You’ll want plenty of options to choose from, and you’ll (hopefully) get more comfortable in front of the camera as you take more and more photos.
Touch up your best photo with a few subtle edits. Compensate for the areas your smartphone camera is lacking in with post-photoshoot edits. Less is more—you don’t want your headshot to look overly edited.
Follow LinkedIn’s best practices for photos. According to LinkedIn, the best size for profile photos is 400x400 pixels. High-res photos are welcome too, as long as they fall below the 8MB file size limit.
Remember, you can always update your photo later on if you don’t love the result of your personal photo shoot. Or upload your existing selfies to HeadshotPro and have 40-240 professional LinkedIn headshots ready for you to choose from, just 2 hours later.
Why recruiters don’t want you to use a selfie on LinkedIn
Using a DIY LinkedIn headshot could cost you better job opportunities. Put yourself in the shoes of a recruiter casually browsing LinkedIn.
Your average recruiter scrolling LinkedIn will encounter hundreds of headshots in just one hour. With just under one billion members on LinkedIn, they clearly don’t have time to review every relevant profile. So they skim.
But here’s the thing—if you’ve ever looked at the LinkedIn search results page before, you’d realize that there isn’t a whole lot to look at.
- Your name
- Your current job title
- Your location
- Shared connections (if you have any)
- Your LinkedIn headshot
Notice something about that list? Let’s take another look:
- Your name (TEXT)
- Your current job title (TEXT)
- Your location (TEXT)
- Shared connections (TEXT)
- Your LinkedIn headshot (PHOTO!)
Essentially, the person who gets to decide whether or not you land your next job is making their hiring decision based on a wall of short sentences and a single photo.
That single headshot photo can say a lot about you as a potential hire, whether you like it or not.
In the past, when you had to leave the house to meet up with an actual photographer, this might have cost you anywhere from $200-$1,000. Quite a hefty chunk of change for what eventually becomes a single 300x300 profile picture, no?!
(Today, you can get 240 custom LinkedIn headshots for just $49. Yay, technology!)
Don’t get us wrong: even if you were to spend that much money today, it’d be worth it. But recent advances in technology have created a new, more affordable option for professional quality headshots. What’s the deal with AI generated headshots?
I needed professional photos for LinkedIn and other business events. I was able to use these for an event I’m attending soon. - Elizabeth
If you’re a headshot photographer, you might want to skip this section.
Just kidding—kind of. The truth is, there’s still tremendous value to be gained from direct consultation with an experienced headshot photographer. They’ve been in business for years, and they know how to conduct a proper photoshoot.
However, it’d be silly to ignore the surging popularity of virtual photo studios. It’s now possible to get 100+ LinkedIn headshots delivered to your email inbox without having to vet all your local photographers. In fact, you don’t even have to leave your house.
It doesn’t hurt that it only costs as little as $29 per person, about 10% of the cost of a professional headshot photographer that would consider themselves ‘on the cheap end’.
The best virtual photo studio for professional LinkedIn headshots
Ready to get a new headshot done, without leaving the house? Before you do—you should know that not all virtual photo studios are equally capable of producing lifelike photos.
[HeadshotPro] allowed me to save money by not having to hire a professional photographer and produced me great headshots. - Lauren
You don’t have to look very far to find articles written by journalists who’ve fallen victim to an overnight product spun up by a clever programmer hopping on the latest AI trend.
Luckily (for everyone involved), it’s still much easier to vet a virtual photo studio than it is to vet a local headshot photographer.
Here are 5 simple criteria you should follow when choosing where to get your professional headshots generated by AI.
5. Aim for lifelike photo quality, not perfect photo quality
Your AI-generated headshot should look exactly like you. That’s table stakes.
But how can you tell whether or not a virtual photo studio is capable of producing a photo that looks like you before you enter your credit card details?
Take a look at the sample photos.
- Do the people in the photos look lifelike? Or do they look too ‘perfect’ to be real humans?
- Pay special attention for the existence of shadows, wrinkles in clothing, and hair texture—tiny imperfections are a good thing.
The best virtual photo studios let subtle imperfections into their photos, leaving you with a selection of AI-generated photos indistinguishable from a photo taken by a professional photographer.
4. Avoid services trying to ‘do it all’
The same technology used to generate lifelike LinkedIn profile photos can be used for dozens of other fun things: turn yourself into a cartoon, a character from your favorite movie, or just improve your dating profile.
The best virtual photo studios for LinkedIn headshots are the ones pouring 100% of their focus into making the best possible software for generating professional, lifelike headshots.
HeadshotPro is 100% focused on being the best LinkedIn headshot generator.
It just makes sense: the companies purely focused on building the best possible headshot generator are outperforming the companies spending time and resources working on other use cases.
3. Make sure your photos won’t be sold later
Your photos are personal. And they should stay that way. Your facial data can be used against you in ways the average person wouldn’t even think about.
HeadshotPro deletes your personal data from its servers and GPU APIs within 7 days after your order is fulfilled. Or just hit the “Delete” button in your account settings to have your data erased instantly.
2. Customizable clothing options for your headshot
The more clothing options available in your AI-generated portraits, the more unique photos you’ll have available to use on LinkedIn. You could even switch things up on a monthly basis and see which headshot generates the best results!
Here are all the clothing options for your LinkedIn headshots, offered by HeadshotPro:
- black tuxedo
- grey suit
- blue suit
- dark sports coat
- black turtleneck
- formal dress
- light sports coat
- dark zip sweater
- dress
- light zip sweater
- black sweater
- black shirt
- blue shirt
- scrubs
- polo
- white shirt
- white coat
- white t-shirt
1. A wide selection of results to choose from
Just like when you take the photos yourself, not every single AI-generated photo is going to be a perfect fit for your LinkedIn profile. The more images you get back, the more options you have to choose from.
Folks just starting their career might be thrilled with a small pack of 40 headshots. An aspiring industry thought leader, on the other hand, might prefer the premium pack of 240 headshots.
LinkedIn Headshot Photo Examples (by HeadshotPro)
Each of the headshots below were generated for real HeadshotPro customers and shared with their permission.
Believe it or not, each of these LinkedIn headshots were created by HeadshotPro—not a “real” photographer.
Saved me a lot of time. I was looking for a quick and easy solution to update my LinkedIn and Email photos. - Joshua
I needed a work headshot for linkedin and this website helped me get there! - Gina
I hate going to have my picture taken! This solved the problem for me. Such a simple process! - Ashley
Helped me to get a good business photo in a manner of an hour. - Dmytry
I got a lot of images for the cost and the results look realistic. - Corey
Ready to get your own professional AI-generated LinkedIn headshots done? Click here to get started.
