What makes a LinkedIn profile picture work

Most people choose their profile picture the way they choose a password: once, under pressure, and then never again until something forces it. The result is a cropped wedding photo, a holiday shot with somebody's shoulder still in frame, or a picture taken in a car park eleven years ago.

On LinkedIn it sits beside your name on every application, message and comment you ever post.

It is worth more thought than that, because it is doing a job. Somebody is deciding whether to reply to your message, take your call, or read the rest of your profile, and your face is most of what they have to go on.

Look at the camera

The single biggest difference between a photograph that reads as professional and one that does not is where the eyes are pointing. Looking slightly off camera can work — it is a real editorial style — but it is hard to pull off and it usually reads as distracted rather than thoughtful.

Sharp eyes, looking down the lens. Everything else is negotiable.

The background should say nothing

A background is not there to be interesting. It is there to not compete. A plain wall, a window with the outside blown out, an office deep enough to be soft — all of these work because none of them asks anything of the viewer.

Where a background goes wrong is when it becomes a puzzle. A bookshelf makes people read the titles. A landmark makes people wonder when you were there. A busy street puts a stranger's face over your shoulder.

Wear what you actually wear

The most common mistake in a headshot is dressing for a job you do not have. A suit on somebody who has not worn one since a funeral looks like a suit wearing a person.

The photograph should look like you on a good day at work — the shirt you would wear to meet a client, not the one you would wear to be photographed. If the picture and the person do not match when you turn up to the meeting, the picture has cost you something rather than earned it.

And it should look like you

This is the part that is easy to lose. Retouching that removes lines, softens skin and evens out everything until the face is a mask produces a picture that flatters and does not convince. Texture is what makes a photograph read as a photograph.

A profile picture that flatters you but is not recognisably you is worse than no picture at all.

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This is what we build. You upload the photos you already have and choose the kind of pictures you want: $25.00 for eight HD headshots, $35.00 for sixteen HD headshots, or $49.00 for twenty-four HD headshots. What each pack includes.