Is your LinkedIn selfie keeping you from getting a job?
“I don’t need a professional headshot. I can just take it on my phone.”
We hear these words all the time from clients who hire us to write their LinkedIn profiles. We get it. You can take good pictures on a phone. They have nifty advanced features, like portrait mode, that emulate the effects of professional headshots. Go outside to get better light, use a pre-defined filter to make it look even better, and no one will ever notice that you used a selfie as your headshot photo, right?
If only.
Professional headshots aren’t cheap, but those seeking work in this challenging economy need to bite the bullet and hire a pro to help you look your best in front of the camera. And frankly, even with the latest iPhone, your selfie is going to look like, well, a selfie. And a selfie can send a message to potential employers that you don’t understand the essentials of presentation or even worse, don’t want to make the effort to appear professional.
We recently had our own headshots done by headshot specialist Valentin Gienger, who explained the importance of a good headshot, the reasons selfies fall short, and how to find the best headshot photographer for you.
Why your selfie can’t match the work of a professional
“Photography is painting with light,” says Valentin. “Every single person needs to be lit differently. A good headshot photographer knows how to work their equipment to paint light around the face.”
The camera in your phone uses digital effects designed to mimic a full-frame camera with a $2,000 lens on it, but the results look unnatural and the phone’s much smaller lens can’t give you the same quality.
How selfies can wreck your job prospects
Valentin thinks selfie headshots come across as unprofessional, and we’ve discovered the same thing. We did a LinkedIn profile for a client with an impressive background bringing in million-dollar sales to prestigious Fortune 50 companies. However, when she applied for a senior-level role, the HR department at her company informed her that her LinkedIn profile “did not look like someone who’s a senior-level executive.”
She had gone with a dark, heavily cropped photo taken on an iPhone. She replaced her headshot and revised her profile, and within days better job offers started coming in.
Picking the right headshot photographer for you
There are a lot of headshot photographers out there. Here are Valentin’s tips for finding the right one for you.
Comfort level: Valentin says, “part of the photographer’s job is to engage and entertain the subject.” Professional equipment is a must, but if a photographer doesn’t put you at ease s/he’s not going to get you at your best.
Experience with many faces: If you look at the samples on a headshot photographer’s website and you don't see a variety of ages and skin tones, it might be a sign that they lack experience. You want someone who either is able to photograph a wide variety of types or someone who has a background in photographing people who look like you.
Industry experience: If you’re looking for a corporate headshot, find someone who specializes in them as opposed to someone who does rock band portraits or specializes in fashion models.
Questions to ask a photographer
Valentin encourages anyone who’s shopping around for a headshot photographer to check out their website and examples thoroughly, then start asking questions:
What’s your experience with my industry?
Do you have examples of photos of people who look like me?
What’s your lighting setup?
Do you shoot in the studio, outdoors, etc.?
What exactly do you get for your money? How many pictures? How much retouching? How long does a shoot last? How much for extra shots?
To many people that little photo on your Linked profile is an afterthought. You have to put something there, but what you choose isn’t a big deal.
However, that photo is the first thing people see, and the level of professionalism in that photo affects the perception of everything viewers learn about you from that point on. A selfie portrait is an admission that you haven’t put that much thought into your presentation.
So yes, you can use your phone to take a headshot photo for your LinkedIn profile.
Please don’t.