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Thursday, January 11, 2024
Study reveals which Zoom background items make you look more competent
newatlas.com: Before you hop on your next Zoom call, you might want to tailor your background in a very particular way, says a new study. Doing so could make everyone else on the call perceive you as being more competent – whether or not you really are.
6 comments:
Ana Schroeder
said...
This was such a silly article to click on. I feel as though it is bizarre for someone to spend a good chunk of time on a study about Zoom appearances when the world has largely gone back to in-person life. However, I acknowledge that the world now has shifted and we do use virtual meeting spaces an exponential amount more than we used to. Maybe it's also just me being fed up with covid and Zoom and wanting to move on. However, that is not to say that this article was dumb. I actually did find it interesting that being in front of an actual room had a 50% more positive impact than being against a blank wall. I think it's something to be said that people are worried about having the wrong things in the background that they would rather have no background at all. I think I will share this article with my mother as she has a full-time remote job where she is constantly on online calls.
Honestly something about this article just kind of bothers me. Now I'm all for being professional and wanting to make a good first impression during an interview, but something about having to tailor your own space to put others first kind of bothers me. I think that there are lots of things in human Minds that we just fully don't understand yet and this is one of those intrinsic biases that just kind of gave me the ick, for lack of better words. I want to know how this research study happened, because it doesn't feel very academic, and maybe it doesn't need to. I also think the bit about smiling is both truthful and somewhat annoying. there is always that one creepy coworker who says not just smile, you look much better. or somebody who chalks your successes in life up to smiling. Now I may be kind of annoyed at this article, that is not to say I will not use these tricks in future interviews.
This article caught my attention because I never know where to zoom in from. In a business or educational setting I usually make my background as blank as possible which the article said the study reported as being less competent than a background with a bookshelf or office. I think putting your bookshelf on display could have its downfalls if the books are too personal or unprofessional to be on display. I also think rearranging your room to appeal to strangers if you’re trying to make a first impression is also a bit strange. I also liked that the study reported smiling as making you seem more competent because I think the last thing a lot of people want to do on a drab and awkward zoom call pos- pandemic is smile. At least for me anyways. I think as a scenic designer I think about what’s in our background/how we present to others during zoom more than others who don’t view every framed picture as a set.
When I read the title of this article I thought the backgrounds being referred to were the virtual backgrounds everyone used in 2020 and whether you locked more competent in space or under the sea. As someone who did ½ of high school on zoom and continues to have regular personal and professional zoom meetings, my background go to the blurred background of my made bed and bookshelf. Like most college students I live in a small space with two other humans and a cat so finding a space to zoom is tough, however, finding a good zoom spot is crucial for our industry with so many design meetings and interviews taking place online. I am curious if theater makers have different preferences when it comes to zoom backgrounds and the decision science minor in my would love to create a replica of this experiment for our field. Another curiosity I have is how non home/office backgrounds affect the impressions you leave behind. This information is definitely something I will use as I interview for the upcoming summer stock season.
I went into this article thinking I could gain some positive knowledge from this, but the entire article just seemed really dumb and just written to fulfill a number requirement. While COVID did have us move to online meetings, but I never thought that my background would make that much of a difference in other people’s impressions of me. I would assume that people would call from wherever possible in their homes that best suited them, such as somewhere with better wifi, or somewhere quiet. I’ve seem a couple friends go to their local cafe or even go outside because it was more quiet, and I didn’t really find that any different(although I was very much jealous of the ones that were able to go outside.) Smiling, on the other hand, can sometimes come across as creepy. I was on an interview once, and one of the interviews didn’t say much, but kept smiling, and that was very creepy, while the other interviewer wasn’t smiling as much, but kept nodding to show their attention, and I appreciated that much more.
I found this article to be very interesting. Personally, I have never put a whole lot of thought into any of my zoom backgrounds for school. However, I have made sure not to have a messy bed behind me, and either have a neutral one or a minimalist background. Although I remember when I did any kind of interview virtually I paid more attention to make sure I had a more professional background. I tried to make sure it was not too busy but not too boring either. The article offered some really interesting points about backgrounds. They say not to judge a book by its cover but so often it is what people do and this study is a perfect example of that. The article basically states that a background can make all the difference in what a person's first impression of someone is, which is honestly a fascinating theory.
6 comments:
This was such a silly article to click on. I feel as though it is bizarre for someone to spend a good chunk of time on a study about Zoom appearances when the world has largely gone back to in-person life. However, I acknowledge that the world now has shifted and we do use virtual meeting spaces an exponential amount more than we used to. Maybe it's also just me being fed up with covid and Zoom and wanting to move on. However, that is not to say that this article was dumb. I actually did find it interesting that being in front of an actual room had a 50% more positive impact than being against a blank wall. I think it's something to be said that people are worried about having the wrong things in the background that they would rather have no background at all. I think I will share this article with my mother as she has a full-time remote job where she is constantly on online calls.
Honestly something about this article just kind of bothers me. Now I'm all for being professional and wanting to make a good first impression during an interview, but something about having to tailor your own space to put others first kind of bothers me. I think that there are lots of things in human Minds that we just fully don't understand yet and this is one of those intrinsic biases that just kind of gave me the ick, for lack of better words. I want to know how this research study happened, because it doesn't feel very academic, and maybe it doesn't need to. I also think the bit about smiling is both truthful and somewhat annoying. there is always that one creepy coworker who says not just smile, you look much better. or somebody who chalks your successes in life up to smiling. Now I may be kind of annoyed at this article, that is not to say I will not use these tricks in future interviews.
This article caught my attention because I never know where to zoom in from. In a business or educational setting I usually make my background as blank as possible which the article said the study reported as being less competent than a background with a bookshelf or office. I think putting your bookshelf on display could have its downfalls if the books are too personal or unprofessional to be on display. I also think rearranging your room to appeal to strangers if you’re trying to make a first impression is also a bit strange. I also liked that the study reported smiling as making you seem more competent because I think the last thing a lot of people want to do on a drab and awkward zoom call pos- pandemic is smile. At least for me anyways. I think as a scenic designer I think about what’s in our background/how we present to others during zoom more than others who don’t view every framed picture as a set.
When I read the title of this article I thought the backgrounds being referred to were the virtual backgrounds everyone used in 2020 and whether you locked more competent in space or under the sea. As someone who did ½ of high school on zoom and continues to have regular personal and professional zoom meetings, my background go to the blurred background of my made bed and bookshelf. Like most college students I live in a small space with two other humans and a cat so finding a space to zoom is tough, however, finding a good zoom spot is crucial for our industry with so many design meetings and interviews taking place online. I am curious if theater makers have different preferences when it comes to zoom backgrounds and the decision science minor in my would love to create a replica of this experiment for our field. Another curiosity I have is how non home/office backgrounds affect the impressions you leave behind. This information is definitely something I will use as I interview for the upcoming summer stock season.
I went into this article thinking I could gain some positive knowledge from this, but the entire article just seemed really dumb and just written to fulfill a number requirement. While COVID did have us move to online meetings, but I never thought that my background would make that much of a difference in other people’s impressions of me. I would assume that people would call from wherever possible in their homes that best suited them, such as somewhere with better wifi, or somewhere quiet. I’ve seem a couple friends go to their local cafe or even go outside because it was more quiet, and I didn’t really find that any different(although I was very much jealous of the ones that were able to go outside.) Smiling, on the other hand, can sometimes come across as creepy. I was on an interview once, and one of the interviews didn’t say much, but kept smiling, and that was very creepy, while the other interviewer wasn’t smiling as much, but kept nodding to show their attention, and I appreciated that much more.
I found this article to be very interesting. Personally, I have never put a whole lot of thought into any of my zoom backgrounds for school. However, I have made sure not to have a messy bed behind me, and either have a neutral one or a minimalist background. Although I remember when I did any kind of interview virtually I paid more attention to make sure I had a more professional background. I tried to make sure it was not too busy but not too boring either. The article offered some really interesting points about backgrounds. They say not to judge a book by its cover but so often it is what people do and this study is a perfect example of that. The article basically states that a background can make all the difference in what a person's first impression of someone is, which is honestly a fascinating theory.
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