LOOKSMETER · GUIDE
LinkedIn headshot tips, honestly
Your profile photo is read in two seconds, before a word of your experience. Here's what a recruiter-ready headshot actually gets right - the crop, the light, the expression, the background, the attire - and how to get there with a phone and a window.
The five things a recruiter reads in two seconds
Before anyone reads a word of your profile, the photo has already answered one question: does this person look competent, present and easy to deal with? Studies of profile performance keep finding the same fundamentals behind a 'yes' - and all five are about the photo, not the face:
Framing
Head and shoulders, face filling roughly a third to a half of the frame, eyes in the upper third, camera at eye level. Full-body shots read as distant - extreme close-ups read as intense.
Light
Soft, even light from the front or 45 degrees - a big window is perfect. Harsh overhead light hollows the eyes - bathroom light and phone flash flatten everything - mixed colour casts look cheap.
Expression
Direct eye contact and a genuine smile that reaches the eyes. Relax the jaw, drop the shoulders, breathe out before the shutter. Squinting into sun, sunglasses and the passport stare all cost.
Background
Simple and separated from you: a plain wall, a soft-focus office, a neutral outdoor backdrop a few metres behind. Nothing that competes for attention and nothing that places you somewhere odd.
Attire and grooming
Neat hair, groomed facial hair if any, clothes that fit and suit your field. Coherence and care - not formality for its own sake. Iron the collar, lose the logo, check the undershirt.
The phone setup that beats most studio shots
Stand facing a large window in daylight (not direct sun), two metres back from a plain wall. Put the phone on a tripod or in a friend's hands at your eye level, 1.5-2 metres away, and use the main camera - not the selfie camera, which distorts at arm's length. Use 2x zoom if the phone has it - it flattens the face flatteringly.
Take twenty frames, not two. Talk to the person holding the phone between shots so the smile is real. Then crop to head-and-shoulders with your eyes on the upper third, and don't apply a beauty filter - smoothing reads as untrustworthy at profile size.
The mistakes that quietly cost interviews
The cropped group photo (someone's shoulder is still in frame). The car selfie. The wedding photo with the boutonniere cropped out. The ten-year-old photo that doesn't match the person who turns up to the interview. The heavy filter. Sunglasses. The photo where you're the size of a thumbnail in front of a landmark.
None of these are about how you look. All of them are solvable in an afternoon - and the quickest way to know which one you've got is to score the photo against a fixed rubric rather than asking a friend who'll be kind.
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Frequently asked
What makes a good LinkedIn profile picture?
Five things, and none of them is your face: a head-and-shoulders crop with your face filling about a third of the frame - soft, even light on your face (a large window, you facing it) - direct eye contact with a genuine smile that reaches the eyes - a simple background that separates you from it - and clothes that fit and suit your field. Shot by someone else from 1.5-2 metres, camera at eye level.
Should I smile in my LinkedIn photo?
Yes, in almost every field. A relaxed, genuine smile - teeth or no teeth - consistently reads as more competent and more likeable than a neutral face, as long as it reaches the eyes. What costs you is the forced grin and the stiff passport stare. If you're unsure which you've got, the expression marker in the Headshot Rating scores exactly this.
Do I need a professional photographer for a headshot?
No. Most of what separates a strong headshot from a weak one is light, framing, expression and background - all free. A phone on a tripod or held by a friend, you facing a window, camera at eye level, a plain wall behind you, will out-score the majority of paid studio shots taken under hard flash. Pay for a photographer when you need consistency across a team or a specific look, not to fix the basics.
What background is best for a professional headshot?
Plain and quiet: a neutral wall, a soft-focus office, or an outdoor neutral (brick, foliage, a plain street) a few metres behind you so it blurs. What hurts is anything that competes - a cluttered room, a car interior, a bed, a bathroom, another person's shoulder from the group photo you cropped. The background should say nothing, so you say everything.
What should I wear in a LinkedIn photo?
Whatever a slightly-better-dressed version of you would wear to work in your field. A well-fitted plain tee is right for a startup - a crumpled collar is wrong anywhere. Solid mid-tones photograph best - avoid big logos, fine stripes or checks (they shimmer on screen), a visible undershirt, and anything that's obviously from a wedding or a night out.
How can I tell if my current photo is good enough?
Score it. Upload it exactly as it appears on your profile to the free Headshot Rating and you get a 1-10 score across first impression, expression, photo quality, framing and attire, plus a one-line read on what the photo currently says about you. Then shoot two or three alternatives by a window and score those - use the winner.
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This page is general information about facial aesthetics terminology, not medical or cosmetic advice. Scores from our tools are AI-generated estimates for entertainment and self-reflection.