My Points on Jason's experiment with his profile pics on LinkedIn

Did you ever think a profile pic in LinkedIn would make an impression that you would make the next mistake?

Today I came across a blog post written by Jason Seiden "What profile photo works best on LinkedIn: A real life experiment " explaining how he experimented on LinkedIn to see which of his profile photo worked best.

These were the 6 pics he tried. At first glance which of these pics do you think worked best for him? Naming them 1 to 6 clock wise I would put 1, 6, 3, 4, 5 and 2 as the order. But to my astonishment he said that according to the results he saw 6 did extremely well while 2 did the worst as expected. He had key take away points on each pic performance based on three points - how many visited his profile, how many of those contacted him and how many asked him for some work. 

As said above he had really interesting key take away points on each of his pic performance. Few of them which made me surprise and felt like making a note were 

 1. Pic 3 which I rated to be third in the race was treated as 'arrogant'. I agree that it seems like we are trying

     to hide something from the frame. But does it still look arrogant?

 2. I understand that pictures speak thousand words but again does a picture showing just my face speak 

     something like 'my time is valuable'? His take away from his best performed pic number 6 is that. I rated

     as second because it is too cool, clear, sending some positive vibes and the same time it is looking formal. So,

     I am surprised to see his suggestion as, "give a impression with the picture as your time is valuable and 

     you have so many hours in a day".

 3. I always thought a simple professional looking head shot with a black back ground would always do 

     good, simple and no comments on it. But again to my surprise but acceptable points mentioned were 

     there is 'no personality' in this photo and head shot was aggressive. 

 4. Pic with fire I rated as 5th because, I felt a pic with some design/art or really something like 

     fire would never recommendable for a professional site like LinkedIn. And yes author Jason also 

     mentioned the same but what made me think again is a HR commenting that he is making an impression 

     that he was going to make the next mistake. 

5. I rated pic 4 in 4th place next to all three straight faced pics. Feeling he is looking of to the side though he 

    is giving the impression that he is a stage speaker with a blue lightening background. But he suggested to 

    go for it if we can as it conveys some passion and soft skills which are hard to write.  

 My takeaways are

   1. Never a straight head shot especially with black back ground. 

   2. A formal and professional straight picture will also definitely speak more than thousand words so be

       careful while choosing a picture.

   3. As suggested by Jason, try sharing your head shot with thousand people and ask their honest opinions. 

       I am seriously thinking what comments my head shot would get. :)

   4. There were many attributes to consider in a picture which are hard to express in writing. (noted from 5th    point in the above para).

    

 Finally, at the end of the article he confessed that he couldn't move the needle with this experiment as he expected to do and recommended to run a similar experiment for 3 to 6 months Because in the end, it’s not what you think of your photo, it’s how much your photo helps attract the right opportunities!

Guys, Let me know if any one is planning to do a similar experiment. Will be there as an active participant to express my opinion and see the reaction :)

Have a great day!
  

Book Review - Your’s sarcastically

In a long train journey I did for 28 hrs from Friday evening to Saturday night - Reading ‘Yours Sarcastically’ is one of the activity I did to keep myself occupied besides from enjoying weather, greenery and streams on hills passing by... etc

Yours Sarcastically caught my eye first when I was looking into the books on wheeler's cart at Varanasi station. I remember I read about this book somewhere sometime back and few things came to my mind was it was written by a IIM B graduate about his experience from B school to his first job and finding the girl for him, Immediately I took the book into hands, quickly flipped through pages and read the lines written on the back cover of the book.

It is quite impressive. Hmm... I actually felt very impressive with the content on back cover. As a result I immediately bought the book and started reading once I got into the train. In one hour I completed about 50 pages and already started feeling bored of it. Believe me, the most pathetic thing was trying to read a boring book to avoid looking at other person facing you who hates you to the core and pretends to love you.

Back Cover: is a 'not-so-diplomatic' take on the life of a 20-something person in contemporary India. It is his saucy journey from post graduate education to his experiences in selling mustard hair oil, his marketing stints and his rich experience during his international management consulting experience along the Indo-Nepal border. Some of his professional experiences include: interviewing 60 size zero south Bombay women, negotiating with the right hand man of an underworld don, managing drunken brand managers at corporate off-sites, the extensive preparation done by salespeople for 'surprise' visits by their bosses and the hiring of cheerleaders by a premier consulting firm to turn around their client's fortunes. In his free time, he likes to write movie scripts for C grade movies, transform behenjis to blockbuster babes, visit top brothels in Mumbai and indulge in politics and backbiting.

About the book: On an outline it gives an overview of hero’s life from B school to sustaining himself in the career and finding his girl. The way it is portrayed - I completely got bored as I felt as if I am reading his diary. Basically, book(hero's life) is divided into 3 parts. First two parts talk about his B school life with completely touching the essence on expectations of a guy entering the B school to the final days of recruiting process. The third part is on his early career and getting out of the trauma he had been facing with the rejection on his proposal and managing a horrendous first boss. Finally ends happily by finding his girl who heiress to 1400 crores :)

My opinion: Content in the book is good. Author had shared many of his best experiences which give us an insight into the life's of a B school graduate and his early career. He indeed got good opportunities in his work place, but the way it is portrayed is a bit boring. It lacked the enthusiasm. I had to forcibly complete it due to the above mentioned reason. There is lot and lot of space for improvement. If you have been a part of engineering or B school hostels,  you might easily relate to characters. The narration gets bit twardy at times which made me jump over pages.