A recent study from theladders.com highlights the importance of having a professional and high-quality headshot for your online resumes and LinkedIn profiles. Tracking recruiters over a 10-week period with eye-tracking equipment, researchers discovered that an astonishing 19% of the time spent looking at LinkedIn profiles was devoted to examination of the profile picture.
With everything we know about physical attractiveness bias in hiring, this research underscores the fact that having a professional profile picture is REALLY important. If you have an old, blurry, or low resolution photo that currently serves as your profile photo, it's probably time to review some helpful guidelines for high-quality headshots and take something new.