Today the Wall Street Journal chatted with Nicole Williams, who is a "connection director." No, that's not what Heidi Fleiss got put in jail for. Williams works at LinkedIn, the social media equivalent of a "networking event" in a hotel conference room except without the sweaty cold cuts that bald guys are eating with their fingers.

Well, Nicole has some advice for just what your LinkedIn profile photo should look like, and I bet it's things you would never think of. Here are her points boiled down:

  • Have a picture.
  • Don't include your dog, husband, or baby, unless you are selling one of them (or all three).
  • Wear clothes.
  • Wear clothes that don't make you look like a slob.
  • Be doing something that looks like work but isn't work, like walking down the street to a meeting. Wait, really? That would look some weird stalker PI photo that got taken as you jog across the street right before you meet your lover in a hotel lobby for a noon-time tryst. OK, I guess really.
  • Sit up straight.
  • Open your eyes.
  • Smile.
  • Have your face full of glee, but not the TV show, cause you'll look creepy with singing teenagers popping out of your head.
  • Be Toni Morrison.
  • No pictures of food.
  • Or coffee.
  • Or of you when you were young.
  • Or partying.
  • Or that photo where you had been crying all night because your boyfriend just broke up with you and you had to go to that bachelorette party anyway and you looked like shit and fucking Amber still tagged you. God, untag that shit. Now!
  • Amber is such a bitch.

So, that's it. That seems like so much to remember! Well, I know one solution to the dilemma of not looking like an asshole on LinkedIn: Don't be on LinkedIn at all.

[Image via Shutterstock]