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If you are reading this, you likely have a LinkedIn page. After all, you are a digitally savvy person, as are most people these days.

However, based on my informal survey, I would say about 98% of you are not photographically savvy. Notice I did not say you were not photogenic--that is a completely separate and unrelated topic.

Based on what I have seen, we have to start with the basics. Sooner or later, your LinkedIn page will be used to make a hiring decision about you. If your photo (and your page) looks bad enough, you will never know this decision was made, for your page was used for pre-screening and you never got the call. By the way, I am working on a confidential consulting project right now that started with the firm that retained me first finding me on LinkedIn.

But let's get to those photos. First, you do not have to have a professionally taken photograph. In fact, the cameras in today's smart phones are just about as good as they get unless you want some sort of special effects, which for this photo you do not. Just make sure it is not fuzzy.

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Let's start with the background. LinkedIn is about your work, so you need a work setting as a background. Save the golf, fishing, hunting, football game attendance and so forth for your Facebook page. Just be aware a likely employer is going to check you out there, too, including all the photos of you doing...well never mind.

What will you wear for this photo? The old adage, dress for the job you want, not the one you have applies here.

As I write this, on another screen I am looking at photos of people LinkedIn thinks I want to connect with. First up is a man with a shirt and tie on, but the background is the ocean somewhere. It says he is a recruiter--I find the setting odd. Equally odd is the photo of another recruiter who has the background right--it is an office, but he has on a headset and a cap--what's with wearing a cap in an office? Two photos down is a woman who is also a recruiter, but her hair looks like she just got out of bed. A few photos away is a full length shot of a man in a nice suit, standing in front of a model of what looks like the Taj Mahal--what am I supposed to get from that? Then we have the picture of the bicyclist who looks dressed for the Tour de France.

One person who keeps popping up on these pages and whose picture I have never clicked is a man who is turned with his head over his right shoulder, wearing a cap, and looking either startled or angry. The background looks like marshlands somewhere. I don't know what he was thinking.

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Women, you have particular problems with getting these pictures right. Sorry, but that is a burden you must deal with. Please, stop taking a photo dressed as if you are going out dancing or just came in from an all night tryst. Yes, you are getting attention with these photos, but the wrong kind of attention. I have seen several shots of well-endowed women taken full length in profile. Is that the image you want to convey in the working world? It may get you a job, but the question is, as what?

New graduates, we know you are proud of your recent graduation, but the picture of you in cap and gown sends a strong message of immaturity.

Avoid family photos, too. Your LinkedIn page should be all business.

The objective is to look normal, not weird. You don't know what is going to set off someone who might otherwise hire you for a permanent or temporary assignment. Remember, they are trolling the pages looking for reasons to reject people until they come to the one that they want. Your photo is the first thing they will see and many will quickly look at it and quickly reject anything they think is not normal--by their standards.

Don't let your photo screen you out of a great opportunity.

Of course you may agree or disagree with me. Express your thoughts in our quiz this week which you may take here.

For safety this week, if I have done anything for you in this column, I have brought some of you down from those crazy high-altitude poses. That is enough.

Be safe and we will talk next week.

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