What is the ideal size for a LinkedIn headshot?

LinkedIn displays photos at 200x200 pixels in feed and up to 400x400 on profiles, but upload at least 800x800 pixels for crisp display on high-DPI screens. Maximum supported size is 7680x4320 pixels. LinkedIn crops all photos to circles, so center your face and leave headroom above and below to avoid awkward cropping.

What background works best for LinkedIn headshots?

Simple, non-distracting backgrounds keep focus on you. Solid colors like studio gray or muted blue work well. Subtly blurred outdoor bokeh is good. Avoid messy offices, tourist landmarks, pure white passport-photo backgrounds, and busy restaurants. If using real photos, find clean walls or blur backgrounds naturally with wide aperture.

Should I smile or look serious in my LinkedIn headshot?

Match your industry. Corporate, finance, and law professionals use confident, composed expressions with closed-mouth smiles. Sales, real estate, and consulting benefit from warm, open full smiles. Creative and tech fields prefer authentic, relaxed expressions. Healthcare and therapy require approachable trustworthiness. Think of something genuinely engaging—forced smiles photograph differently than real ones.

How do I take a good LinkedIn headshot at home?

Face a window for soft natural light (overcast days are ideal), use a clean wall or blurred outdoor background, position phone at eye level not below, fill 60% of frame with your face, wear solid colors appropriate to your industry, and take 50-100 shots to find best expression. Alternatively, use AI headshot generators like Narkis.ai to create professional photos from casual snapshots.

LinkedIn Headshot Tips: What Actually Gets People to Click Your Profile

Your LinkedIn headshot is the first thing recruiters, clients, and connections see. Before they read your headline, before they check your experience, they look at your face and make a judgment. That judgment takes about one second.

Most LinkedIn headshots are bad. Not offensively bad, just forgettable. Cropped from a group photo at a wedding. A selfie with visible arm angle. A photo from 2019 that doesn't look like you anymore. The bar is low, which means getting it right gives you a real advantage.

Here's what works, what doesn't, and how to get a headshot that makes people click.

What size should a LinkedIn headshot be?

LinkedIn recommends a minimum of 400x400 pixels and displays your photo at 200x200 in the feed and up to 400x400 on your profile. For crisp display on high-DPI screens like modern phones and laptops, upload at least 800x800 pixels. The maximum supported size is 7680x4320 pixels.

LinkedIn crops all profile photos to a circle, so center your face and leave headroom above and below. Square or portrait orientation works best. Landscape photos waste space and force a tighter crop that can cut off your face. Any modern phone camera exceeds the minimum requirements, so technical specs are rarely the problem.

How often should you update your LinkedIn headshot?

Update your LinkedIn headshot every one to two years, or whenever your appearance changes significantly like a new hairstyle, glasses, facial hair, or noticeable weight change. An outdated photo undermines trust when people meet you in person and you don't match your profile picture.

Your headshot is a professional promise that you are who you say you are. If someone connects with you online and then meets you at a conference or interview, they should recognize you instantly. A five-year-old photo that no longer looks like you creates confusion and damages credibility before you even speak.

What LinkedIn's Algorithm Rewards

LinkedIn profiles with professional headshots get 14x more views than profiles without photos. Profiles with high-quality headshots get 36% more messages. These numbers come from LinkedIn's own data.

This isn't vanity. It's math. If you're job hunting, freelancing, or building a professional network, your headshot directly affects how many people engage with your profile.

LinkedIn's algorithm also uses your photo as a signal for profile completeness, which affects search rankings. A profile with no photo ranks lower than an identical profile with one.

The Technical Requirements

LinkedIn recommends photos between 400x400 and 7680x4320 pixels. The display is circular, which means:

Center your face. Anything near the edges gets clipped by the circle crop.
Leave headroom. Don't fill the entire frame with your face. Leave space above your head and below your shoulders.
Square or portrait orientation works best. Landscape photos waste space and force a tighter crop.

File format: JPG or PNG, under 8MB. In practice, any modern phone camera exceeds these requirements.

What Makes a Good LinkedIn Headshot

Your Face Should Be Clearly Visible

This sounds obvious. It isn't. An alarming number of LinkedIn headshots feature:

Sunglasses
Distance shots where the face is small
Heavy shadows obscuring half the face
Group crops where it's unclear which person the profile belongs to

Your face should fill roughly 60% of the frame. Both eyes visible. No obstructions.

Background: Simple and Non-Distracting

A solid or subtly blurred background keeps focus on you. Studio gray, muted blue, or outdoor bokeh all work. What doesn't work:

A messy office behind you
A tourist landmark. This is LinkedIn, not Instagram.
A pure white background that looks like a passport photo
A busy restaurant or conference venue

If you're using a real photo, find a clean wall or go outside where the background blurs naturally at a wider aperture. If you're using AI-generated headshots, you can choose any background.

Lighting: Front and Soft

The single biggest factor in photo quality is lighting. Professional photographers spend years mastering it. You don't need to master it. You need to understand one principle:

Light should come from in front of you, not behind you.

Backlighting from windows or bright sky turns you into a silhouette. Front lighting illuminates your face evenly. The best free light source: a window. Face it. Overcast days are ideal because the light is soft and diffused.

Avoid direct overhead lighting. It creates harsh shadows under your eyes and nose. Fluorescent office lighting adds a greenish cast that makes everyone look tired.

Expression: Approachable but Professional

The right expression depends on your industry:

Corporate, finance, law: Confident, composed. Closed-mouth smile or subtle warmth. More on corporate headshots.
Sales, real estate, consulting: Warm, open. Full smile. You want to look like someone people enjoy working with. Real estate headshot guide.
Creative, tech, startups: Authentic, relaxed. Less formal doesn't mean less professional. Tech headshot guide.
Healthcare, therapy: Approachable, trustworthy. Patients and clients are choosing who to trust. Doctor headshot guide. Therapist headshot guide.

Universal rule: think of something that genuinely makes you happy or engaged. Forced smiles activate different muscles than real ones, and cameras catch the difference.

For detailed expression and body positioning advice, see our posing guide.

Clothing: Match Your Industry

Your headshot outfit should match the professional context you operate in. A suit is right for a banker. A clean henley is right for a startup founder. Neither is right for the other.

General rules:

Solid colors photograph better than patterns
Avoid pure white, which blows out in photos, and pure black, which loses detail
Jewel tones like navy, deep green, and burgundy flatter most skin tones
Make sure it fits well. Loose or tight clothing is visible even in headshot framing.

For a complete industry-by-industry wardrobe guide, see what to wear for a headshot.

Common LinkedIn Headshot Mistakes

Using a photo that's more than 2 years old. If you've changed your hair, gained or lost weight, started wearing glasses, or aged visibly, your photo is lying. People notice when you don't look like your headshot at the meeting.

Cropping from a group photo. The resolution is usually poor, someone else's shoulder is in frame, and the composition was never designed for a headshot.

Over-editing. Heavy filters, skin smoothing, or dramatic color grading look artificial. People want to see you, not a retouched version of you.

Using the same photo as your dating profile. Different contexts, different expectations. Your LinkedIn headshot should communicate competence, not attractiveness.

No photo at all. A blank profile photo signals either that you don't take LinkedIn seriously or that you have something to hide. Neither impression helps you.

The AI Option

If the idea of booking a photographer, choosing an outfit, and performing for a camera sounds like a lot for a LinkedIn photo, AI headshot generators offer a faster path.

Narkis.ai generates professional LinkedIn headshots from your everyday photos. Upload casual snapshots, and the AI produces studio-quality portraits with proper lighting, composition, and backgrounds. At $29 for 200 photos, you get enough variety to find the perfect LinkedIn headshot and have professional photos left over for everything else.

For a detailed comparison of AI headshot tools, see our guide to the best AI headshot apps.

The main advantage for LinkedIn specifically: you can generate multiple headshots in different styles and test which one gets more profile views. Change it quarterly. See what resonates with your audience. That kind of A/B testing isn't practical when each photo costs $200+.

Quick Checklist

Before uploading your LinkedIn headshot, confirm:

Face fills about 60% of the frame
Both eyes clearly visible
Background is simple and non-distracting
Lighting comes from the front, not behind
Expression matches your industry
Clothing is professional and fits well
Photo is recent, taken within the last 1-2 years
No heavy filters or over-editing
Image is at least 400x400 pixels
You actually look like this in person

Get that right and your LinkedIn headshot is better than 90% of what's out there. The bar really is that low.

For a broader overview of headshot standards by profession, see our complete guide to types of professional headshots.