Reply to What are the worst Zoom/Teams backgrounds you've seen on a work meeting or interview

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]H, OP, I've been in two of those situations and seen the third.

1. During Covid (so before blurring backgrounds was really a thing), we lived in a small townhouse and my "home office" was in my bedroom - so yes, I had meetings with my nicely made bed in the background.

2. I had to move to one of my kids' bedrooms during a job interview once because the neighborhood having yard work done and the gas leaf blowers were directly outside my bedroom window. My interviewer was very understanding (and complimented my daughter's squismallow, haha). I got the job and she's my boss now, so [b]clearly she wasn't as much of a jerk as you are.[/b]

3. One of my managers had his makeshift home office in his unfinished basement during Covid, so yes, his backdrop was like a water heater and pipes.

All of that said, why are you doing Zoom interviews? Why aren't you invited people in to interview in person?[/quote]

OP here.  I can understand your positions.

In my experience (at large law firms and now large corporation), we do Zoom interviews as a first round interview, prior to many subsequent in-person interviews for those who advance in the process.

At least where I work, my colleagues do not like seeing a bed in a Zoom background during a job interview.  For better or worse, it just is distracting, even if very neat and tidy.  So it might be helpful for job candidates to be aware of that, even if the job candidates themselves believe that it is just fine.

So if a person refuses to use one of the free and simple background options on Zoom/Teams, then they can simply turn their laptop to a blank wall (even if it means moving something out of the way prior to the interview).

I hope that the take-away is that job candidates should put some small thought into the Zoom/Teams background prior to the job interview or work meeting, to make the best possible impression (rather than thinking that you're a victim for doing some very simply task like creating a  non-distracting background).  I also would recommend trying to look your best, sitting up straight, and putting your laptop on a box with the camera angled down.  These may seem superficial, but why not try to make the best possible impression?[/quote]

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