Business Headshots for Young Professionals
When I say “young professionals”, who am I talking about exactly? I’m talking about 3 places that young professionals find themselves in: these are either (1) recent college graduates, entering the job marketplace and wanting the best image to give them an edge in their first “real” job. Or they are college graduates seeking an (2) internship according to their degree — a medical internship or a legal internship. Or they are undergraduates needing an (3) professional application photo for a masters degree program, such as an MBA degree.
Why is it so smart to use a picture to get ahead? There are many reasons to invest in professional business headshots in this image-conscious world. First, LinkedIn reports that those profiles with a photo get 21 times more views than those without. Plus, while many graduates look similar ON PAPER with their degree in the job-application process, your photo becomes the vital key to being noticed. It shows you, and gives an impression. Your grooming, your professionalism, your eagerness, your vitality, and so forth.
Time after time, those with a truly professional business headshot (not a cheapo headshot, and not a cell phone photo) end up being the one HIRED, while many others with similar job qualifications on paper are passed over.
You see, a professional business headshot is speaking, but visually, not verbally. Since your headshot is already speaking something (saying something about you as a prospect or job seeker), it needs to say not just something but some very specific things. Here it is: your headshot needs to say that you are simultaneously competent, confident and welcoming.
That is it in a nutshell. So your photographer needs to be one experienced to reliably deliver a business headshot that says you are… competent, confident and welcoming. Sure, there are other adjectives that apply here as well, but those three are the decisive ones, the ones that actually make all the difference.
So, when you go shopping online for a business headshot photographer, you’re making an investment in yourself, in your own career… just like your education and degree is an investment in your future success and prosperity. Your photographer thus needs to be, not just a random photographer, or one that photographs babies and bar mitzvahs. Your photographer needs to have the eye for the right pose/lighting/expression that communicates competent, confident and welcoming. Some smiles are right for that, and other smiles, while still being smiles, are not right for that message.
About Internship Application Headshots
I need to say a word about this because it is not enough to just dress up and smile. You see, a legal internship or medical internship has massive implications for the rest of your career. Some place report 75% and others 80%, but we can all agree that getting in with a law firm or hospital, even just for your internships ends up with about 75–80% of the time, that law firm or medical practice HIRING that person, that intern, on for a real, full-time job. After all, wasn’t that the point of all that expensive education, hours or study? Yes: whether you get hired at a TOP TIER law firm or medical practice or lesser one, sets the trajectory of your entire career. Decades later, it comes down to the PHOTO that helped them be received to this or that internship. After all, these are the first people who dared to “take a chance” on working with the would-be lawyer or doctor.
So, when you see college guidance counselors for legal and medical students urging them to research and select carefully the internships they apply for, they realize there is a lot at stake. As many graduates don’t have real-world experience (pretty obvious), and apart from GPA, don’t look much different to law firms or hospitals on paper, what sets you apart is your photo. Your internship headshot is your defining opportunity to show yourself as (to repeat myself) competent, confident and welcoming. And a photographer you can trust to do that, to show you at your BEST, is worth its weight in GOLD.
In Conclusion
As a leading Dallas business headshot photographer, I photograph young professionals on a regular basis. I photograph them very intentionally and specifically to best appeal to those that are either hiring them or opening the doors to an internship or masters degree program.
I love playing this key role in their lives, as I hear too many success stories to not know how much this one photo impacts literally the rest of your lives. Short-sighted people go through all that college only to sell themselves short with a cheap headshot. The smart graduates value their business headshot being done right.
In the Dallas, TX area, my website is www.DallasBusinessHeadshots.com and the downtown studio for young professional headshots line is 877–858–0071 to book your photoshoot.
