Why You Need a Professional Headshot

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Why You Need a Professional Headshot

Many professionals wonder why you need a professional headshot. It is often assumed that a headshot is something you upload to your LinkedIn profile and then never touch again. That assumption is wrong! 

Even if you don’t think so, your headshot will come in handy throughout your career. It will grace the “About Us” page on your company’s website, be sent to new coworkers so people can easily recognize you, and be asked for by event organizers to advertise your speaking engagements.

In this case, you may be thinking: Speaking engagements? Please, I am never going to need a professional headshot in my career. 

If so, you need a reframe. Our Ignite Your Potential career coaches can point out countless blurry or inappropriate LinkedIn profile pictures (or no photo at all) that affect whether or not people reach out and collaborate. 

A headshot is useful for many professional situations by using your:

  • Email Account
  • Email Signature
  • LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram 
  • Website or Portfolio
  • Posts or Bylines
  • Company Bio

Convinced? Great, now it’s time to take one. And the good news is, it’s really easy.

Step 1:

Pick out a shirt that you feel confident in (Tip: Avoid busy patterns or anything you would not wear to Grandma’s Sunday dinner).

Step 2:

Find a plain, but ideally interesting backdrop (Tip: Avoid posing in front of windows or busy backgrounds unless you’re a lighting and photography editing pro.)

Step 3:

Specifically, if you’re a woman, you might consider makeup. Even if you don’t usually wear it. Without it, you may look a little faded out in a photo. Time to smile and take the photo.

Step 4:

Above all, save it and use it for everything.

Whether a friend takes the shot or you hire a professional photographer—it is up to you. But whatever you do, make sure you have one handy—and update it every couple of years. It can cost you very little to make and will save you from having to scrounge through old Facebook albums and crop an adult beverage out of your hand.

Check out our award-winning coaches at the Ignite Your Potential Centers who offer complimentary 25-minute phone sessions to help you better promote yourself!

We are the #1 career coaches in San Francisco and Los Angeles, let us show you how we earned that praise.

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