Back in the last century when I worked in recruitment our team would take great delight in seeing a CV with a picture of the candidate embedded at the top of the first page. These candidates would do well. All the consultants would look at their CV. Sadly they’d only look at it to snort at the picture. Then it would usually go straight into the bin. Sorry if you were one of those candidates. As any recruiter will tell you, with so many CV’s to go through we had to find some way of screening people out and for my colleagues, anyone who thought that a picture would help them was way off the mark.
Elvis has left the film in
I know that in France and other parts of the continent a picture on a CV is fairly commonplace but it’s not in the UK. For one thing, it puts the reader in a very difficult position regarding potential discrimination. Furthermore, those pictures rarely flatter the owner, and if they do the chances are that a face to face meeting will be a disappointment.
However, because of social media things are changing. As Steve Hampshire, a north London based photographer with over 15 years experience working in corporate photography says:
“Things definitely are changing. More and more people who use social media are coming to me for better quality head and shoulder shots because they know their profile image is so important.”
We’re expected to include a picture on our Linkedin and Facebook profiles and since most employers look you up on these platforms during the selection process it seems to me that holding back from including it on your CV is in one sense, a bit pointless. It’s true that CV’s are still printed off and the quality of the image under such circumstances is often very poor, but still, the image is typically first viewed on the screen where it will probably look OK.
I’m not saying you now need to include a mugshot on your CV, but I suspect that as time progresses it’s going to be less peculiar to do so.
What this does mean, however, is that you need to think about that image, and what it says about you. I use Linkedin a fair amount and I’m struck by the number of poor and inappropriate pictures I see on what is supposed to be a professional profile. It’s a bit like starting your CV with a statement along the lines of:
“I like to go to the seaside and build sandcastles. I know I have a large blotchy body but don’t worry, what’s important is that you know I’m a fun family guy.”
Save those pictures for Facebook and other kiddy websites. Linkedin is for your career so use an image that shows you as you’d like your customers and employer to imagine you.
Steve Hampshire again:
“It’s my job as a photographer, to get the balance right by producing a selection of well lit, well shot images ensuring that the end result projects the sitter as professional, confident and most importantly approachable. Switched on people want their profile shots to build confidence right from first viewing.”
If the point of the picture is to help in some small way to build rapport with the reader of your Linkedin profile, then there are four important rules to follow:
- Make it a head shot
- Don’t set it against a busy background
- Wear appropriate clothing for your work
- Smile
I recently asked a group of interim managers on Linkedin about whether or not to use a professional photographer and most agreed that a professionally taken photograph sends the right message, although there were several who were happy with what they felt were well taken pictures by friends.
I’m not so sure. A professional knows how to compose and light a picture better than an amateur and, more to the point, when you pay someone to do a photo session with you they will take as many as 300 images. They’ll get you to pose, they’ll get you to change location and clothes and they’ll send you a disc with all of those images so you can choose from amongst them. The last photo session I did resulted in around 180 good images, from which I regularly use three or four depending on the requirement.
Going through your holiday snaps and cropping a headshot out of one of them is not the way to get yourself a professional looking image. Remember, first impressions are now drawn from your social media presence, not your CV or first interview. Expect to be searched on Linkedin and Facebook, and therefore think carefully about what you want people to see when they do so.
My next morning workshop, Preparing for Interviews, takes place on February 9th in London. Details here.
Totally agree that a professional mug shot on Linked In is the way to go. Speaking personally as someone who is universally hated by every camera on the planet, the investment in a well-lit, well-shot photo for use to promote my career has done wonders for my self-confidence, if nothing else.