For most of the people your team will ever meet, the LinkedIn photo comes first. A prospect checks it before a call, a candidate looks up the hiring manager, a reporter scans the leadership page and then the profiles behind it. Long before anyone sees your website, they have seen a small circle with a face in it.
That makes LinkedIn headshots a company decision, not only a personal one. When every profile uses a different photo from a different year, the company looks less organized than it is. Here is how HR and marketing teams can make LinkedIn headshots work for the whole team.
If you are setting a look for the first time, start with How to Keep Employee Headshots Consistent as Your Team Grows. It covers the four rules (background, crop line, light direction and camera height) that make a set of portraits match. This guide picks up where that one stops: getting those portraits onto LinkedIn and keeping them there.
Short on time? Download the one-page LinkedIn Headshot Rollout guide (PDF), with crop steps HR can follow and a one-week plan.
Crop for the circle, not the square
LinkedIn takes a square photo and shows it as a circle. Anything in the corners of the square disappears, and the image is often shown at the size of a thumbnail next to a comment or a message.
A few rules keep faces readable at that size:
Center the head. Place the eyes a little above the middle of the square, with even space on both sides. A face pushed to one side gets clipped by the circle.
Crop tighter than the website. A team page can show shoulders and a jacket. On LinkedIn, the head and the top of the shoulders should fill most of the circle, so the face still reads when the photo is tiny.
Leave a margin above the head. If the crown of the head touches the top of the square, the circle cuts it off.
Export a square file. LinkedIn accepts JPG or PNG files under 8 MB, at least 400 by 400 pixels. A larger square, cropped from the full-resolution original, stays sharp on high-resolution screens.
How to make the LinkedIn crop
Have one person on your team make every LinkedIn crop, from the original files, in one sitting. Fifty people each cropping their own photo in the app is how a matching set stops matching. Any photo editor with a crop tool will do:
Start from the full-resolution original, not a copy saved from your website or an email.
Set the crop to square (1:1).
Size the head. The head and the top of the shoulders should fill most of the square, with a small margin above the hair.
Center it. Eyes a little above the middle, even space on both sides.
Check the circle. Picture a circle touching all four edges. Nothing that matters should sit in the corners.
Export a JPG about 1000 by 1000 pixels, named the same way for everyone, for example last-name_first-name_2026_linkedin.jpg.
Crop the first person, then match everyone else to them: the same head size and the same eye height. If your editor can save crop settings as a preset, use it.
One approved image, everywhere
The same portrait should appear on a person's LinkedIn profile, their bio on your website and the photo in their email signature. When those three disagree, people notice: the face on the call doesn't match the face in the signature, and the bio looks out of date.
Pick one approved image per person and use it in every place. Keep the files where people can find them: a shared folder with each person's LinkedIn square, website crop and signature thumbnail, named the same way (for example, last-name_first-name_2026). When the photo changes, it changes in all three places on the same day.
This also settles the question of who decides. The employee picks their favorite frame from the shoot. The company approves it once, and that approved image is the one in use until the next update.
Rolling it out to the team
New portraits don't help until they are on the profiles. A short rollout gets that done in a week instead of a quarter:
Send each person their files directly, with the LinkedIn square clearly labeled. Don't make people search a shared drive.
Include a two-line how-to: open your profile, select your photo, upload the new file and save. Many people have never changed theirs.
Set a date. Ask everyone to update by the end of the week, and say why: the company is presenting one consistent face to clients and candidates.
Update the email signature template at the same time, so the new image appears in every message without anyone editing their own.
Check the company page. Look at your company's people list a week later and follow up with anyone still showing an old photo or a blank circle.
Leadership should go first. When the people others report to update their profiles on the first day, the rest of the team follows quickly.
New hires on day one
The gap opens with the next hire. A new employee joins, updates LinkedIn to announce the job, and uses whatever photo they already had. Within months, the people list is mixed again.
Add the headshot to onboarding. Before or soon after the start date, book the new hire's portrait to your written standard, then send them the same files and the same how-to as everyone else. Until the portrait is ready, ask them to keep their existing photo rather than post a new casual one. That is the idea behind our Team Portrait Program: your look is documented once, and each new hire is photographed to match.
How often to update
A headshot should look like the person who walks into the meeting. A sensible rule for most organizations:
Every two to three years for the whole team, or sooner if your brand look changes.
Right away after a noticeable change: a new hairstyle, glasses or no glasses, a beard grown or shaved.
Together with leadership changes, when a new executive team announcement will send people to look at profiles.
When the team updates, update all three places together: LinkedIn, the website and email signatures.
A short checklist
Agree on one look for the team, in writing.
Have one person make a square LinkedIn crop of every portrait from the originals, centered for the circle, about 1000 by 1000 pixels.
Use one approved image per person on LinkedIn, the website and email signatures.
Send each person their files and a two-line how-to, with a deadline.
Update the signature template the same day.
Add the headshot to new-hire onboarding.
Refresh every two to three years, or sooner when someone's appearance changes.
Updating headshots for your team? We photograph teams on location across DC, Maryland and Virginia, and in our Woodbridge studio. Start a conversation and we'll help you plan it.