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Your Professional Look

Are you smiling in your profile picture? Think about your LinkedIn page. Or your website. When we land there, do we see you with a warm, welcoming smile on your face?

Here’s the TL;DR … we probably should.

And that’s not just my opinion. There’s research behind it. Photofeeler analyzed millions of profile pictures across dating, social, and business tests.

They compared open-mouth smiles, closed-mouth smiles, and non-smiling expressions, of the sort many people adopt for a business photo.

The idea was to determine how each look affected a viewer’s impression of the person in the picture. How did that individual rate for attractiveness, trustworthiness, confidence, likability, and competence?

For dating sites, a smile seems mandatory, don’t you think? And an open-mouth smile does indeed win the day if you’re looking online for a romantic partner.

But you might expect a serious expression to be more successful on business platforms. Not so. The research turned up no advantage for those who adopted a serious expression without a smile for their business photos.

Not only did they lose out on likeability, they weren’t even perceived as more competent, which is likely what people are going for when they try to look quite serious in a picture.

For years, I never smiled in photos no matter what they were for.

And it wasn’t about trying to look more businesslike or professional.

I thought a big smile made my face look fatter. So, if a camera was pointed in my direction, I tried to widen my eyes, suck in my cheeks and elongate my face.

My college friends referred to my typical pose as my “cowface.”

I’m embarrassed to say that went on for years. I remember one photographer scolding me for looking mean as she

 tried to take a picture of John Landecker and me when I joined his morning show.

And she probably wasn’t wrong. I bet I did look mean. Or angry. Or disgruntled. None of which are qualities you’d want in the people accompanying you on your drive to work in the morning!

We wound up with a photo that passed muster, but barely. John was a natural in front of a camera, but for me? It was such a challenge looking at that lens.

I finally got over it when I decided that a smile might make my face look wider. But, importantly, it also made my face look younger. And that has become a much bigger concern.

Most of the time now, I smile for photos. A big smile, with teeth showing,

What does a smile do for you?

In the Photofeeler research, the biggest benefit of smiling showed up in likability. Open-mouth smiles scored +2.48 points higher than non-smiling business photos.

But those open-mouth smiles also scored +1.13 points higher for competence and +1.16 points higher for influence.

You know people often worry that smiling, whether in person or in a business photo, will make potential clients or customers, or employers see them as less serious or less professional.

In this data, the opposite is true! Smiling not only did not diminish professional impressions; it improved those impressions.

I put it to the test myself.

I submitted a couple of headshots for Photofeeler testing, both of them with big, open-mouth smiles.

Both of them got high scores for being competent, likeable, and influential. That felt good. There was one thing that jumped out at me though.

In one of my photos I had a slightly bigger smile, leaning into the camera a bit, with my chin resting on my hand. It scored even higher than the other one for being likeable and influential.

But that look rated significantly lower when it came to being seen as competent. I often tell my clients who are seeking a more powerful presence they’re better off to keep their hands away from their face.

Touching our face or neck doesn’t serve us well when we’re speaking, whether it’s at the front of a room, or more casually sitting at a conference table or across a desk. It can create an impression of weakness or vulnerability. Just something to keep in mind when you’re in those situations.

Go ahead and smile though.

Bottom line, you can be comfortable showing those pearly whites in your LinkedIn profile picture, or in your promotional material.

And by all means share your headshot—and your opinion—with me.