The article analyzes the structure of the university lecturer image consisting of basic competencies, a social status and professional competencies – didactic skills, conceptual training, and professional-Self. The article considers the factors affecting the professional image of the universities’ teaching staff, nowadays, such as: the transition to a skills-oriented education, the Russian employers’ requirements for university graduates, the commercialization of higher education, and the students’ audience specifics of the represented by generation “Z”, preferring the Internet resources as the main information sources. The article highlights the professional image of the teaching staff both in the eyes of the administrative structures of universities and students. A pilot study of the teaching staff professional image perception as seen from the students’s perspective was carried out the department of industrial policy and business administration of Kazan National Research Technological University. Due to the conducted research, it became possible to establish the most important characteristics of the internal image of a university lecturer from the students’ point of view and the significance of his/her external image.