The photo: professional headshot, not a crop

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The photo is processed before a single word. A recruiter scanning search results makes a call on your profile's seriousness from the thumbnail alone. That's not fair, and it's still true.

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What a professional headshot signals

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That you take the search seriously. Clear face, neutral background, work-appropriate clothing, looking at the camera. It doesn't need to be expensive — it needs to say “this person is presenting themselves”.

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What fails the six-second scan

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Selfies (arm's-length angle reads instantly). Wedding/event crops (the tuxedo and the confetti are still in frame). Group photos (which one are you?). Logos, cartoons, and the blank grey silhouette — the worst of the lot: a blank avatar cuts profile views drastically and reads as abandoned.

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No budget? Do this

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A friend with a phone, a plain wall, window light from the front, chest-up, no sunglasses, no hat, plain shirt. Ten minutes. Better than 90% of what's on the platform. If you can afford one professional investment in your search, make it the headshot before the CV design.

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The photo isn\'t a scored dimension in our audit — it\'s binary and we check it as part of the first impression. Run the free audit for everything that is scored.

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Check how your profile scores on this.

Run my free audit