What to have behind you on a video interview

An interviewer sees your face and whatever sits behind it for the length of the call, and the second part is the one you can change in ten minutes. This guide is about what to have behind you, and about the three honest options: a tidy real wall, a blurred room, or a replaced background. One note on scope first: getPNG works on pictures, not on live video. The blur and the replacement are done by the meeting app (Zoom, Teams, Meet), and what getPNG can do is make the image you give that app. The decision of what to show is yours, and it is mostly a decision about risk.

The three options, compared

Read the table from the top. A real wall wins on every row except the one that matters when the room is a bedsit: it only hides a mess if you remove the mess. The other two exist for the case where you cannot.

A tidy wall is the safest choice

Nothing is being computed, so nothing can go wrong. Your outline is your outline, your hair is your hair, and your hands can move as much as they like. There is also nothing for the interviewer to wonder about. It is easy to underrate how much a plain wall helps: people judge you in the first seconds, and a calm frame lets them look at you.

What makes a wall work:

• Plain, low contrast. A single mid-tone wall behind your head is easiest to look at. Busy wallpaper, a striped curtain or a gallery of frames pulls the eye away from your face.
• A little distance. Sit a step or two away from it if you can. A wall right behind your head throws a hard shadow, and moving forward from it softens the shadow and separates you from the background.
• One or two ordinary objects. A plant, a lamp, a shelf with a few books. A bare wall looks like a hospital; a crowded one looks like a hoard.
• Nothing with a name on it. Post, a screen showing another task, a calendar with other people’s plans, a whiteboard. Take it out of frame rather than trusting a blur to hide it.
• Nothing that is the first thing anybody sees. Washing, a bed, an open door to another room where someone may walk past. If a thing would draw a glance in real life, it will on camera.

A blur, when the room cannot be fixed

Blur is the sensible middle. Most meeting apps offer it as one click, and the result looks like a shallow-focus lens, which people already read as normal. It hides detail without announcing that something was hidden.

Its weakness is the edge. The app has to decide where you end and the room begins, in every frame, and it can be wrong around hair, around a hand that moves in front of your face, and around a chair back. When it is wrong, a bit of the sharp room shows through next to your head, or a bit of you goes soft. A light behind you makes it worse, and so does hair close in colour to the wall.

Two things reduce this. Put your main light in front of you, so your face is brighter than the wall behind it, and sit with some space between you and the wall. Both make the separation easier for the app, and both help a real wall too.

A replaced background: the riskiest, with a reason to use it

A replacement is a picture behind you. It is the most complete answer to a room you cannot tidy, and it is the one most likely to look wrong. The app has the same edge problem as with blur, and with a replacement the error is more obvious, because there is no soft room behind you, only a hard picture. A hand that passes through the edge is the usual giveaway. Replacement also asks the most of your computer, and a laptop that is already busy can make the picture stutter.

If you use one:

• Pick something calm. A plain colour, a softly blurred office, an out-of-focus bookshelf. Busy scenes, beaches, offices with people in them and anything animated make the edge more noticeable and the interviewer’s attention drift.
• Match the light. A bright background behind a face lit by a desk lamp looks pasted on. Roughly match the brightness of your room.
• 16:9, and big enough. The picture is fitted behind your video, and a small or differently shaped one is cropped or soft. The Zoom guide covers the file rules Zoom states, and the Teams guide covers Teams. Both settle on 1920 x 1080 for a photo.
• No logo in the middle. Your head covers it. If you use a logo at all, it belongs in an upper corner, and only when the employer asked for it.
• Test it. A replaced background that has not been tested on a call is a gamble with your hair.

If you have a real green screen, the edge problem mostly disappears, because the app is replacing one known colour. Setting up a green screen covers distance and lighting. For a one-off interview, a plain wall is simpler.

What not to put behind you

Some things are worth leaving out whichever option you choose:

• Anything personal that is not your business to share. Family photographs, religious or political items, a visible home address on a package. They are not forbidden, but they are information you did not decide to give.
• A mirror. It shows the room twice, and shows your screen.
• A window behind you. The camera exposes for the bright window and turns you into a silhouette. Face the window instead.
• Movement. A fan, a TV, a pet, a person. A virtual background cannot hide a person walking through, either.
• A very dark or very bright wall. Both make the camera’s exposure fight your face.

Making your own background image with getPNG

If you decide on a replaced background, the picture is where getPNG helps. The commonest case is a plain colour, sometimes with a small mark in one corner, and the other is a photo of your own tidy space.

1. Drop a photo of the thing you want to place (a logo, say, if the employer asked for it) on getPNG. The background is removed inside your browser at the full resolution of the original, and nothing is uploaded.
2. Check the edge in the compare view by dragging the divider. If a pale rim shows, use Clean edge colour, and Edge shift to pull the outline in by a pixel or two.
3. Choose a calm colour as the background, and a 16:9 canvas in Sizes, such as the 1280 x 720 one. Drag the mark into an upper corner, away from where your head will be.
4. Save a JPG, or a PNG on that solid colour, and add it in the meeting app.

For a background that is a photo of your own space, take it from where your camera will sit, at the same height, in the same light you will use on the call, and save it as a JPG. There is nothing to cut out.

When this does not work

• Your edge flickers on every option. The light is probably behind you, or your hair and the wall are close in colour. Move the lamp in front of you. A real wall avoids it altogether.
• The background option is missing or greyed out. Your computer may be too old for the feature, or your organisation may have restricted it. Ask the person arranging the call which app they use, and check its settings before the day.
• The picture is soft or cropped. It is smaller than the video, or not 16:9. Use 1920 x 1080 for a photo and keep anything important away from the edges.
• You are not sure which choice the employer would prefer. Most interviewers do not mind a calm background of any of the three kinds. A plain wall cannot be wrong.
• You need something for the first minute only. A blur is the quickest fix, and you can turn it off if it misbehaves.

Privacy: a background picture is still a picture

A background often starts from something personal or internal: a photo of your room, a logo from a draft, a company mark you were sent. Many online editors and background removers upload the file to their own servers to process it. getPNG removes the background inside your browser and the picture is never sent anywhere; after the first picture, it keeps working with the connection switched off.

The steps, in short

1. Look at the room through the camera. Open your camera preview and look only at what is behind your head. Anything that draws your eye there will draw an interviewer's.
2. Move yourself before you move the room. Sit with a plain stretch of wall behind you, a little away from it, with the light in front of you rather than behind.
3. Clear the frame. Remove washing, screens showing other things, personal papers and anything with a name on it. Leave one or two ordinary objects.
4. Choose blur or replacement only if the room cannot be fixed. In the meeting app's video settings, pick blur first. Use a replacement image only if you have a calm, 16:9 one.
5. Run a test call. Call a friend or open the app's preview, move your head and hands, and watch the edge around you. If it flickers, switch to blur or to the plain wall.

Questions

Is a virtual background acceptable for a job interview?

Usually, but it is a choice with a cost. A plain real wall carries no risk. A blur or a replaced background can make the edge of your hair and hands flicker, which interviewers notice. If you use one, test it first, and pick the calmest image you have.

Should I blur my background or replace it?

Blur when the room is untidy and you cannot fix it: it keeps a natural look and hides the detail. Replace it only with a calm, plain image, and only after a test call shows a steady edge. Neither is better than a tidy wall.

What colour should the wall behind me be?

A plain, mid-tone, low-contrast wall behind your head is easiest to look at, and it separates you from the background in the camera. Strong patterns, very bright or very dark walls, and anything that matches your clothes or hair make you harder to see or the edge harder to hold.

Should I use a company logo as my interview background?

Only if the employer asked for it. A logo on a colour is a fine background for a call you give on behalf of a company, but a candidate's background should be about you being easy to look at, not about advertising. The guides for Zoom and Teams show how to make one when it is asked for.

How do I stop my head from glowing or flickering at the edges?

That is the app separating you from the room, and it struggles with strong back light, hair close in colour to the wall and fast movement. Put the main light in front of you, sit further from the wall and keep your hands low. A real wall removes the problem entirely.

Does getPNG change my live video background?

No. getPNG works on pictures, not live video. It is useful for making the image you upload to Zoom or Teams: a calm colour, or a logo lifted off a photo. The live separation, blur and replacement are done by the meeting app.