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How can I blank out my laptop camera?

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kalos:
LoL the problem is that after many interviews, I have 0% success in video interviews and 100% success in telephone interviews, so what could I do other than fake a technical issue with the camera so that they will only judge what I say and not how I look?

PS: I am not applying for modelling jobs lol

Ath:
Then do as many women do: clean up your face and put on (some) make-up 8)

mouser:
Probably the best thing you can do is to not give up.  Keep doing the video interviews and try your best not to worry about how you look.  Even if you keep getting rejecting you will gain practice and bravery and you will eventually persevere and find one that accepts you.  It is better to face your fears than to start a new job by creating some technical excuse.

It is far more likely that they will view your failure to get your video working as much more damaging than whatever you look like.

Better to just show them who you are and show them you are confident enough to not let that stop you.

IainB:
@kalos:
...I have 0% success in video interviews and 100% success in telephone interviews, ...
-kalos (December 10, 2017, 07:21 AM)
--- End quote ---
I couldn't really understand your difficulty here, but, triggered (in a good way) by the comment:
Then do as many women do: clean up your face and put on (some) make-up 8)
-Ath (December 10, 2017, 10:11 AM)
--- End quote ---
- I mentioned this discussion thread (above) to one of my associates - an excellent management consultant who has some experience in this area - by the name of "Mellanie" (not her real name). Mellanie said she quite understood what the problem was. She explained it to me, and certainly opened my eyes. She empathised with your problems and asked me to post the following advice, hoping that it might be of help, but wishes to withhold her real name and contact details:

Dear forum member,
How interesting to read of your situation - and how like my own experiences! I understand precisely. My sympathies, but worry not. All you need is to have faith in yourself and the good intentions of your fellow man. If you follow my example you may be able to transform your life, as I have mine:

I had almost exactly the same problem, some years ago, but solved it with a bit of lateral thinking. Best decision I ever made. I invested a lot of money in myself.
I already had good educational qualifications (e.g., including a Harvard law degree and good groundwork experience as a lawyer), but was an unattractive-looking person with some genetic deformity of the head/face and upper spine, including a wonky eye, hare lip and a cleft palate and a slight humpback. These sorts of things were thought to put some clients off, so I found myself "unwanted" and was sidelined as a back-room support lawyer and researcher, with little - if any - face-to-face client interaction, and relatively low pay.

So, I had some of the best plastic surgery a body can buy - on my top half - to transform myself into an attractive 30-something blonde woman (I use a wig for the hair) and with huge breast implants. After months of difficult surgery, gone were the wonky eye, cleft palate, hare lip and any visible hump (from the front view at least). When the scars had all healed up, I changed my name from "Frank" to "Mellanie" (not my real names as I wish to remain anonymous), and held video interviews wearing a daringly low-cut (revealing) top. The bits the interviewers saw in the video included just my front - head, shoulders and mouth-wateringly deep cleavage. Even I would sometimes feel a twinge of physical self-desire when I looked at my own upper body image in the bathroom mirror. Those surgeons (one of them was a guy who called himself Doc Hollywood) had done a superb job and really had earned their money. It was a pity that, at the time, I could only afford to have the surgery performed on the upper and front parts of my body, otherwise I might have considered going "the full wax", but I wasn't made of money like these film stars or army transgenders - and anyway, I'm not a transgender. I am a gender of convenience.

During each video interview, "Mellanie" used a speech converter to transform my voice into a mellow woman's voice suiting the image the interviewers saw on-screen. If there was any distortion, or my male voice momentarily came through at the edges a bit, then I could always vaguely mention and apologise for "audio problems on the video link at my end", or something.
The first job I bagged as Mellanie was only my second interview - the company on the first interview were not a good fit. The second interview was the opening interview with a different company for the role of a management consultant in a reputable firm of mostly male consultants. The interviewers (all men) were so spellbound with my lovely visage and voluptuous femininity during that first opening video interview that they probably didn't really take much notice of anything that I said, and hired me on the spot, without even bothering to check my references, and sent me the contract pronto by fast courier for me to accept and return - which, of course, I did!    :Thmbsup:

The first they knew that I was actually a bloke with a 6 foot 4 inches physique and a baritone voice was when I turned up in person on the first day to start work and go through induction, dressed - and looking the part - as an attractive young woman with muscular, hairy legs, and declaring myself (dishonestly) to be of feminine gender and a transvestite/transgender.
Of course, they could do nothing. As a  lawyer, I knew that I was Untouchable. I had a job for life, if I wanted, as my disadvantaged minority status meant that I could not be sacked, and in any event, I knew from my research that they were already having difficulty keeping up with their minority diversity employment quotas, and I could help them fill three critical spots - feminine gender, transgender, and physically disabled/disadvantaged (the humpback). They knew that it would have been professionally suicidal and unacceptably politically incorrect to make even a mention of my transgender status or the fact that they suspected that I did not have a female pudenda, or give even a hint of an objection to me - that would have been bigoted victimisation of a transgender at least, which by then was almost a capital offence in some States.

Yup, I had them over a barrel from day one, and they knew it. If they were smart (and they were), they knew that if they gave me any strife, then - just by lifting my little finger - I could put them in a world of legal pain and punitive damages into the millions of dollars - e.g., if they even dared to mention or object that I was not a "real female" as they had thought, or tried to squeeze me out with harassment, sidelining, or low pay-rises. They had to use me in top client face-to-face interactions in order to get some payback for the high salary I commanded. It was all really developmental experience for me - which was what I had wanted. I was on the gravy train for life.

I have successfully used this strategy for going on 10 years, moving jobs easily and being promoted from strength to strength, always for a much larger salary and pension each time. The strategy has helped me secure directorships of several self-styled "diversity" companies, as well as turned me into a rather capable professional management consultant. I work hard and enjoy my work immensely.

Each employer gives me the most glowing references a body could ever wish for, because they have to and because they very badly want to. Only by ensuring that they help me to go to a satisfactory (to me) and more highly-paid job can they get rid of me and relieve themselves of the burden that I represent and of the perpetual unspoken threat of litigation for gender and disability discrimination. By doing this, they hope to make me SEP ("Somebody Else's Problem") - though, to be fair to myself, I always do a good job, performance-wise, wherever I am, so it's decidedly not as though I don't earn my keep or am incompetent or can't deliver at the level that I have been promoted to (à la the Peter principle). Of course, though, for the majority, performance reviews are a sick kind of demeaning and hypocritical corporate lottery/fraud with absolutely no basis in statistical veracity, it is automatic in my case that my performance reviews always place me in the upper decile for salary and pay rises. That salary history of constant pay-rises of course serves to reflect and is consistent and compatible with and supports the veracity of my glowing references - which are so necessary for the company to expedite my moving on to the next job. In prudently looking after their best corporate interests, the company effectively have my best interests as a vitally necessary target.

The world can be one's oyster.

--- End quote ---

Target:
yeah, those HUGE BREAST IMPLANTS are sure to do the trick...

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